Alessandro Croce is a Full Professor of Flight Mechanics at the Department of Aerospace Science and Technology at Politecnico di Milano. In the field of airborne wind energy, he specializes on flight mechanics, control, and design. Alessandro represents Politecnico di Milano within the European Academy of Wind Energy (EAWE), serves as Associate Editor of Wind Energy Science, is a Board Member of Airborne Wind Europe, and coordinates the POLI-Wind Laboratory, the wind energy research laboratory within the Aerospace Department in Milano. In 2018, Prof. Croce had the honor of serving as Chairman of the International Conference The Science of Making Torque from Wind (TORQUE2018). In the past four years, within the AWE sector, Alessandro has co-organized AWEC2021 in Milan, supervised about 15 Ph.D. and Master’s students, and co-authored around 12 publications. He is involved in the EU projects Meridional and AWETRAIN, and serves as the Italian member of the IEC-CT88 group, which supports the development of the upcoming IEC-61400-12-80 certification for AWE systems.

Moritz Diehl received the dual Diploma degree in physics and mathematics from Heidelberg University and Cambridge University in 1999 and the Ph.D. degree from Heidelberg University in 2001. From 2006 to 2013, he was a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium. Since 2013, he has been a Full Professor at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he heads the Systems Control and Optimization Laboratory, Department of Microsystems Engineering, and is also with the Department of Mathematics. His research interests span optimization and control, ranging from numerical method development to applications in various branches of engineering, with a focus on embedded real-time implementations and renewable energy systems. Since 2004, Moritz has investigated the use of kites for airborne wind energy and supervised several PhD theses on the subject, including the development of the AWEbox software for optimal control of AWE systems. He organized the AWEC 2011 in Leuven and the AWEC 2017 in Freiburg.

Nicolás González Casares is a Member of the European Parliament since 2019. He is a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) –where he is the spokesperson for the Spanish Socialist Delegation for Energy -, the Committee on Public Health (SANT) and the Committee on Fisheries (PECH). He is also a Substitute Member of the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety (ENVI). Mr. González Casares served as the European Parliament’s rapporteur on the reform of the electricity market design. He was the ITRE Committee’s Socialist rapporteur for the European Climate Law and the Renewable Energy Directive, including the REPowerEU permitting proposal, and acted as ENVI Committee rapporteur for the ReFuelEU Aviation regulation.

Gerdien de Vries earned her PhD in Behavioural Sciences from Leiden University in 2014, with a dissertation focused on communication about renewable technologies. Since 2015, she has been affiliated with the Delft University of Technology, where she currently serves as Associate Professor of Climate Psychology at the Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management, and also as Director of the Energy Transition Lab. Her research explores the behavioral dimensions of energy transitions and the adoption of sustainable technologies, with particular attention to psychological barriers such as the hassle factor. She investigates influence techniques, like framing and nudging in complex, multi-actor environments. Gerdien has also contributed to research on public perceptions of airborne wind energy as part of the NEON project. Since 2021, she has served as an advisor to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Energy Sector Behavioural Insights Platform. Gerdien has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and actively shares her insights with both academic and public audiences.

Simon Watson has been working in the field of wind energy since 1990. He began his career at the Energy Research Unit of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. He then moved to what later became Good Energy, a supplier of green electricity to domestic and small commercial customers. In 2001, he was appointed as a senior lecturer at the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology at Loughborough University, and in 2010, he was made Professor of Wind Energy. In 2017, he moved to TU Delft to take up the position of Professor of Wind Energy Systems and Director of DUWIND. His areas of research interest include wind resource assessment, wind turbine wakes, wind energy systems, and wind turbine condition monitoring by analysis of low-frequency (e.g., SCADA) and high-frequency (e.g., electrical and vibration) data. Currently, he is also leading the EU Horizon project MERIDIONAL, which aims to develop a knowledge and data hub and a toolchain accessible to a range of users, from industrial to academic sectors, to enhance wind farm design, performance assessment, and loading.