Dr.-Ing. Christopher Leyens (1967) earned his Ph.D. from the RWTH Aachen, Germany. Having 1.5 years of research experience in the USA he is currently group leader light-metal composites at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), His current research interest is focused on the development of titanium matrix composites an on coatings for titanium- and nickel-base materials.

Dr.-Ing Manfred Peters (1950) graduated from Ruhr-University of Bochum with a Ph.D. on structure and properties of titanium alloys. After 2 years at Carnegie-Mellon University, USA, he joined DLR in 1982 where he presently is Deputy Director of the Institute of Materials Research. He has more than 30 years of research experience on light-metals and high temperature coatings.