François M. M. Morel is the Albert G. Blanke, Jr. Professor of Geosciences emeritus at Princeton University. He was a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1973 to 1994 and at Princeton from 1994 to 2019. He served as Director of the Parsons Laboratory at MIT (1991-1994), Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute (1998-2006 and 2014-2017), Director of the Center for Environmental BioInorganic Chemistry at Princeton (1998-2007) and on the Editorial Board of the Princeton University Press (1999 to 2004). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research in his laboratory focused on the interactions of trace metals with microorganisms in the environment, with particular emphasis on the role of metals in the global cycles of carbon and nitrogen in marine and freshwater systems. Janet G. Hering is Director Emerita of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology and Professor Emerita of Environmental Biogeochemistry at ETH Zurich and of Environmental Chemistry at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Prior to moving to Switzerland in 2007, she was a faculty member at the University of California Los Angeles from 1991 through 1995 and at the California Institute of Technology from 1996 through 2006. Prof. Em. Hering is a former Associate Editor of Environmental Science & Technology and a former member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science. She is a member of the U.

S. National Academy of Engineering and Academia Europaea. Her research focused on the biogeochemical cycling of trace elements in natural waters and treatment technologies for the removal of inorganic contaminants from drinking water. Laura Sigg is an internationally renowned expert in the aquatic geochemistry and ecotoxicology of trace metals. During her career as a researcher at EAWAG, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Environmental Systems Science of ETH Zurich, she pioneered the development of new theoretical concepts, as well as practical methods for the assessment of the speciation, fate, and effect of trace metals in the hydrosphere.