Richard C. Alkire is Professor Emeritus of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering Charles and Dorothy Prizer Chair at the University of Illinois, Urbana, USA. He obtained his degrees at Lafayette College and University of California at Berkeley. He has received numerous prizes, including Vittorio de Nora Award and Lifetime National Associate award from National Academy.

Dieter M. Kolb is Professor of Electrochemistry at the University of Ulm, Germany. He received his undergraduate and PhD degrees at the Technical University of Munich. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, USA. He worked as a Senior Scientist at the Fritz-Haber-Institute of the Max-Planck-Society, Berlin and completed his habilitation at the Free University of Berlin, where he also was Professor. Prof. Kolb has received many prizes and is a member of several societies.