Prof. Tan Puay Yok is the Director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens (https://www.nparks.gov.sg/sbg). The Singapore Botanic Gardens is a leading institute in tropical botany and horticulture and, over its 164-year history, has played a key role in the social, economic, and environmental history of Singapore and the region. It is one of only three botanic gardens in the world that is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. He also serves as the Chief Science and Technology Officer for the National Parks Board (https://www.nparks.gov.sg/), the national agency responsible for greenery, ecology, and conservation matters in Singapore.

He is concurrently the Dean’s Chair Professor and cluster leader of the Landscape Studies group at the Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore. His academic training was in horticulture science and plant physiology, and his research, teaching, and professional activities now focus on the science, policies, and practices of urban greening and the ecology of the built environment. He combines his background in the sciences, experience in urban governance from the public sector, and interactions with practitioners to apply knowledge for urban greening to improve environmental quality and societal well-being. He leads the Urban Ecology Lab at the Department of Architecture. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief for Landscape and Urban Planning (Elsevier), Associate Editor for the Journal of Urban Ecology (Oxford University Press), and Editorial Board Member of npj Urban Sustainability (Nature Partner Journals).

Stephen Blackmore has been fascinated by plants since an early age and had his first experiences of subtropical flora as a schoolboy in Hong Kong in the 1960s. He studied botany at the University of Reading, specialising in palynology and systematics, before working at the Aldabra Research Station in the Seychelles and at the University of Malawi. He joined the Botany Department of the Natural History Museum, London, in 1980 becoming Keeper of Botany in 1990. While at the Museum he visited Honduras, collecting herbarium specimens, and subsequently helped establish the Las Cuevas Research Station in Belize. In 1999 he moved to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) as Regius Keeper. While working at RBGE he made numerous visits to China, working closely with botanic gardens there and, with colleagues from the CAS Kunming Institute of Botany, helped to develop the Jade Dragon Field Station and Lijiang Alpine Botanic Garden. For six years after leaving RBGE in 2013 he chaired the UK Government’s Darwin Initiative, supporting biodiversity projects around the world. Since 2013 he has Chaired the Board of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). Steve is deeply committed to plant conservation and believes passionately in the power of botanic gardens to shape a better future for all life on Earth.

Prof. Hai Ren is primarily engaged in the research of vegetation restoration and conservation of rare and endangered plants. He has discovered the mechanism of recruitment limitation of native tree species under typical plantations in the lower subtropics, as well as the countermeasures for the use of nursing plants. By integrating biotechnology and ecological restoration techniques, he has successfully reintroduced 36 rare and endangered plants. He has authored three monographs, including "Introduction to Restoration Ecology" (Science Press, 2001, 2008, 2019, Chinese version), "Conservation and Reintroduction of Rare and Endangered Plants in China" (Springer, 2020), and "Plantations: Biodiversity, Carbon Sequestration, and Restoration" (Nova Science Publisher Inc., 2013), and has published more than 300 papers (including over 160 SCI papers). He serves on the editorial boards of 8 journals, including the Journal of Biodiversity and Endangered Species, Chinese Journal of Plant Ecology, and Acta Ecologica Sinica. He also serves as the vice president of the Ecological Society of China and is a member of the Board of Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

Sandy Knapp is botanist who is a specialist on the taxonomy and evolution of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, and she has spent much time in the field collecting plants, mostly in South America. Her work in Solanaceae spans various aspects of biodiversity, ranging from taxonomy to phylogenetics and evolution, with a focus on the wild relatives of important crops like tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants. Her current work includes a worldwide monograph of the genus Solanum, and the species of Lycianthes from New Guinea. She is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers and several popular books on the history of science and botanical exploration, including the award-winning Potted Histories (2004), and more recently Extraordinary Orchids (2021). She is actively involved in promoting the role of taxonomy and the importance of science for conservation and sustainable development worldwide. Sandy served as the President of the Linnean Society of London from 2018 to 2022. She has received numerous awards for her work in outreach (Peter Raven Outreach Award by the American Society of Plant Taxonomists), biodiversity conservation (UK National Biodiversity Network’s John Burnett Medal), and botanical science (Rolf Dahlgren Prize, David Fairchild Medal); she holds honorary professorships at University College London and Stockholm University. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Nacional de Ciencias of Argentina, Academia Europeana, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Rohan Pethiyagoda is a Sri Lankan scientist engaged in biodiversity exploration (especially amphibians and freshwater fishes) and environmental advocacy. The tropical montane rainforest restoration project he established at Agrapatana in the Sri Lankan highlands led to him winning a Rolex Award for Enterprise. The Wildlife Heritage Trust, which he endowed in 1990, was responsible for the discovery of hundreds of new species of animals in Sri Lanka as well as the publication of a journal and several dozen books. Educated at King’s College, London, and the University of Sussex, he abandoned his career as a biomedical engineer to take up vertebrate taxonomy as an autodidact. His research output includes more than 60 papers and six books on fishes, amphibians, primates, biogeography, and the history of natural history. He has served in senior roles as a public servant in Sri Lanka, including as Environment Adviser to the government. He is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences of Sri Lanka and has served as deputy chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission and as a trustee of the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature. He is an editor of Zootaxa and divides his time between Sri Lanka and Australia, where he is a research associate at the Australian Museum. Eponymous taxa referencing him include the fish genus Rohanella, the frog genus Rohanixalus, the jumping spider Onomastus pethiyagodai, the dragonfly Macromidia donaldi pethiyagodai, the fish Dawkinsia rohani and the frog Uperodon rohani. He was awarded the Linnean Medal for Zoology in 2022.

Leonard joined Henning Larsen (formerly Atelier Dreiseitl) in 2008, where he co-spearheaded the establishment of the Singapore office and was subsequently appointed Partner in 2016. In 2023, he was conferred the President’s Design Award for Designer of the Year, the highest honour across all design disciplines in Singapore.

Leonard’s academic background and design interests lie at the juncture between man and his environment with the aim of finding a long-term sustainable balance between them. His approach involves extensive collaboration with diverse professions to foment holistic landscape-based solutions that engage and educate users while respecting the environment. His recent works feature designs that integrate the water found on-site with the surrounding urban development in a sensitive manner and have won awards at eminent international events such as the World Architecture Festival and President’s Design Award.

Amy Padolf is the Director of Education at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami, Florida. During her 15-year tenure, she has played a pivotal role in spearheading, coordinating, and securing funding for innovative plant science education initiatives on a national and international scale. Over nearly three decades, Ms Padolf has been a driving force behind the creation of pioneering science education programmes that seamlessly connect the realms of research and education within both formal and informal educational contexts. She holds a BS in Rhetoric and an MS in Science Education and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Education Research. Her most recent accomplishments include establishing the nation’s first botany magnet elementary and high schools; partnering with NASA to create Growing Beyond Earth®, an international citizen science project to support indoor agriculture in space and on Earth; and creating the first makerspace in a botanic garden to address the technology of food production.

Ms Hwang is CEO of the National Parks Board. She has over 20 years of experience in public service including with the Urban Redevelopment Authority as Singapore's Chief Planner and stints in the Strategy Group of the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of National Development. She is a board member of the Land Transport Authority, the Science Centre Board, Gardens by the Bay and IJ Board of Management. She currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Singapore-ETH Centre's Future Cities Lab Global Research Programme and the Asia-Pacific Executive Committee of the Urban Land Institute.