Dr. Grunwald studied physics at Humboldt University in Berlin. His diploma thesis on plasma spectroscopy was honored with the Heinrich Gustav Magnus prize. 1986 he prepared a PhD thesis on UV-multiphoton dissociation. From 1982 until 1991, he worked at the Academy of Sciences on discharge lasers, resonators, and LIDAR and was the leader of a junior group. As the head of Microoptics Lab at GOS and CEO of Light & Art GmbH he managed research projects in fiber optics, laser development, and materials processing in collaboration with small and medium enterprises in Germany and USA. Since 1998, Dr. Grunwald worked as a Senior Scientist and project leader at Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short-Pulse Spectroscopy (MBI) in Berlin in the fields of spatio-temporal characterization of ultrashort pulses, laser-induced periodic surface structures, nonlinear optics, adaptive optics and singular optics. He organized international workshops, was a member of program committees and advisory boards, and reviewer for funding agencies. In the frame of German-Canadian Projects and Eureka projects, he collaborated with Laval University Quebec, University Toronto and University Barcelona. Dr. Grunwald is a Member of Editorial boards (Scientific Reports, Applied Sciences, Optics Express), and referee for scientific journals. He is a Senior Member of Optica and SPIE, and SPIE Fellow. Recent highlights of his research were nondiffracting needle beams, spectral Gouy rotation, self-imaging

Mathias Jurke was born in Goerlitz, Germany, in 1978. He received a Diploma in Communications Engineering from the University of Applied Sciences of Zittau/Goerlitz, Germany, in 2003. After graduation, he was a Technical Assistant at University of Bayreuth, in the Faculty of Applied Sciences. As the Chair of Applied Mechanics and Fluid Mechanics, he studied turbulent flows with laser doppler velocimetry and particle image velocimetry. From 2008 to 2010, he was a Research Assistant with the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM), Berlin, Germany. He examined the influence of the core diameter and coating material on the nanosecond laser-induced damage threshold of optical multimode fibers. Related results were published in Applied Surface Science and the Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials. From 2011 he worked for 5 years as a Technical Assistant at the Institute of Planetary Research of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), Berlin, Germany. He supported the construction, qualification, and testing of optical components for the BepiColombo Mercury Mission and the NASA Mars Mission “InSight”. Since 2017, he has worked at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy and has been a co-author of several publications on advanced adaptive optical systems and vortex beams at the SPIE and Optica conferences and in the MDPI journal Photonics.

Max Liebmann received a B.E. in Physical Science from the College of Technology Wildau, Germany, in 2017. He received an M.E. in Photonics from the Colleges of Technology Wildau and Brandenburg, Germany, in 2020. From 2017 to 2020, he was a Research Assistant with the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, Berlin, Germany. Since 2020, he has been a Development Engineer with HOLOEYE Photonics AG, Berlin, Germany. His research interests include generation methods of pulsed optical vortices by means of custom spiral grating designs and detection utilizing advanced spectral analysis, as well as applications for liquid crystal in silicon-based display technologies. He is a co-author of publications in Optics Express, IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, and Photonics, together with colleagues from MBI. He has presented results at several international conferences.

Alexander Treffer received a Master of Engineering in Photonics from the University of Applied Science Wildau in 2015, Germany. Afterwards, he became a Research Fellow at the Max Born Institute, Berlin, Germany. His research topics include adaptive disturbance-resistant pulse duration measurements of ultrashort laser pulses via single-shot autocorrelation and spatial–temporal shaping of femtosecond lasers. Alexander Treffer is a co-author of several publications and conference contributions in this field. He currently works as an Application Engineer at SENTECH Instruments GmbH in Berlin.

Dr. Martin Bock received a Diploma in Engineering in Physical Technology from the University of Applied Science Wildau, Germany, in 2005 and received a Master of Engineering in Photonics from the University of Applied Science Wildau, Germany, in 2008. Afterwards, he became a PhD student at the Max Born Institute, Berlin, in close connection with the Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. In 2013, he successfully defended his dissertation and received his PhD in Experimental Physics. His research topics include programmable highly localized wave packets in the near-infrared spectral range, statistical methods in spectroscopy, and nonlinear optics. As an expert in advanced types of power amplifiers and high-energy few-cycle mid-wave and long-wave infrared pulse generation by optical parametric chirped pulse amplification, he currently works as a Physicist at the Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy in Berlin.