Burkhard Duenweg has a background in theoretical physics, in particular computational statistical mechanics. He obtained his diploma in 1987, his PhD in 1991, and his "Habilitation" in 2000 (all University of Mainz, Germany, where he was appointed Adjunct Professor in 2008). Since 1996 he works as a Senior Staff Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz. External stays include his postdoc time 1991-1993, Center for Simulational Physics, Athens, Georgia, USA (funded by the Humboldt Foundation), interim professorships in Saarbruecken (2005) and Darmstadt (2014/15), and (currently) a part-time professorship at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. From 2004-2013 he worked as an Associate Editor for Physical Review E (polymer physics, computational physics). In 2010 he was appointed director of the SMSM CECAM node. His research interests focus mainly on polymer dynamics, colloid dynamics, and electrokinetics, with emphasis on hydrodynamic interactions and simulation method development (Lattice Boltzmann, Molecular Dynamics, Monte Carlo).

Ravi Prakash Jagadeeshan has a background in chemical engineering and rheology. He obtained his BTech (1981) at IIT Madras, his MS (1984) at the University of Akron, Ohio, and his PhD (1989) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He worked as postdoc or staff scientist at National Chemical Laboratory, Pune, India (1990-1991), at University of Cambridge (1991-1993), and ETH Zurich (1993-1994), after which he became Associate Professor at IIT Madras (1994-2001) and Monash University, Melbourne (2001-2012, when he was promoted to Full Professor). In 1999-2000 he stayed in Kaiserslautern, Germany, as a Humboldt Fellow, and currently holds a visiting professorship in the Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, UK. From 2006-2008, he was President of the Australian Society of Rheology. Since 2008, he works as an Editor for the Korea-Australia Rheology Journal. His research focuses on molecular aspects of polymer rheology, with emphasis on Brownian Dynamics simulations.

Friederike Schmid studied physics in Heidelberg and Munich (LMU). After obtaining her diploma in 1989 in Munich, she moved to the University of Mainz, where she obtained a PhD in 1991, and a "Habilitation" in theoretical physics in 1997. In 2000, she was appointed professor at the university of Bielefeld, and in 2009, she obtained a professorship at the university of Mainz. External stays include a postdoc time 1992-1994 at the University of Washington and sabbaticals at UCSB Santa Barbara (MRL) and at the University of Cambridge. She obtained the "Gerhard Hess award" of the German Science foundation in 1998 and the "Karl-Peter Grotemeyer award" for excellent teaching in 2003. She is currently a member of the selection committee for the Stern Gerlach medal (German Physical Society, since 2007) and a member of the board of reviewers "statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, soft matter, and biological physics" (Fachkollegium) of the German Science Foundation (since 2008). Since 2014, she is chairperson of the newly established Collaborative Research Center Transregio 146 ("Multiscale Modeling in Soft Matter"), funded by the German Science Foundation. Her research focuses on (i) amphiphilic systems and membranes, (ii) field-based simulation methods and self-consistent field theory for polymers, and (iii) microfluidic and electrokinetic problems.