Dr. Tatiana Novikova, a Fellow of SPIE and Fellow of Optica (former OSA), leads the Division of Characterisation and Modelling at the Laboratory of Physics of Interfaces and Thin Films of CNRS, Ecole polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, France. She is also a Courtesy Professor of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA. Dr Novikova obtained her MSc degree in applied mathematics from Moscow State University (Russia), her PhD in applied mathematics and physics from the Moscow Institute of Mathematical Modelling (Russia), and Habilitation in Physics from the University Paris-Sud (France). Her research interests and areas of expertise include optical polarization, Mueller polarimetry, biomedical imaging, polarimetric instrumentation, optical metrology and computational modelling of electromagnetic wave interaction with structured and random media. Dr. Novikova is a recipient of the 2020 SPIE G. G. Stokes Award in optical polarization.