Audrius Dubietis graduated from Vilnius University in 1989, and was awarded a PhD in 1996. He has been professor in the Department of Quantum Electronics, Laser Research Center, Vilnius University, since 2006. His areas of research areas include nonlinear optics, laser physics, atmospheric phenomena, physics, optics, and astronomy. In 1992, together with G. Jonusauskas and A. Piskarskas, he proposed a method of parametric amplification of phase-modulated light pulses, which is implemented by the most important ultra-powerful laser centers worldwide. He has published more than 90 scientific articles in the peer-reviewed literature.
Arnaud Couairon is a research director at the CNRS. He studied at Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris and did his Ph.D. at Ecole Polytechnique (1997) on the dynamics of open shear flows. Since 1997, he has been working on ultrashort laser pulse filamentation and associated phenomena. He developed a virtual numerical laboratory for simulating the nonlinear propagation of ultrashort laser pulses in gases, liquids, or solids. His research interests include laser-matter interaction, ultrafast and nonlinear optics, and plasma physics.