Aranzazu del Campo is Minerva Fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Polymerforschung (Mainz, Germany) and heads the independent research group "Active Surfaces and Materials". She received her PhD in Chemistry from the Instituto de Ciencia y Tecnologia de Polimeros (Madrid, Spain) in 2000. She then joined the Max-Planck-Institut fur Polymerforschung as Marie Curie Fellow to work in the field of surface chemistry and nanotechnology. After a short stay at the Universita degli Studi di Urbino (Italy), she became Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Institut fur Metallforschung in 2005 (Stuttgart, Germany) and at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials (Saarbrucken, Germany) in 2008.

Eduard Arzt is Scientific Director and Chairman at INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials in Saarbrucken and holds the Chair for New Materials at Saarland University. He obtained his PhD in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Vienna, Austria, in 1980. After a postdoctoral stay at the University of Cambridge, he led a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart. From 1990 to 2007, he was a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research, Stuttgart, and Professor for Metal Physics at the University of Stuttgart. He has been Visiting Professor at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and maintains strong links to the international materials community.