Dr. Stefania Casagrande is a Principal Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence. She obtained her PhD from the University of Parma and conducted her postdoctoral research through two Marie Curie Fellowships at the University of Groningen and the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on avian eco-physiology, with particular emphasis on stress physiology, reproductive behavior, development, avian visual and acoustic communication, and the physiological mechanisms through which birds, including songbirds, respond to environmental challenges. She has served as a board member of the Flanders Research Foundation Research Funding Panel and is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Avian Biology. Professor Katherine L. Buchanan is an avian behavioural ecologist. Originally from the UK, she obtained her BSc in Zoology from the University of Glasgow and her PhD from the Royal Holloway University of London, before moving to Deakin University's School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Australia.

Her research focuses on the evolution of complex avian vocalisations and the information conveyed, in a number of different songbird species. In particular, she is interested in the physiological constraints and developmental processes which give rise to such complex behaviours. She has served as Editor-in-Chief for the journal Emu Austral Ornithology for 14 years. Stephen Pruett-Jones is an emeritus Associate Professor in Ecology & Evolution at the University of Chicago. His research focused on the ecology and behavior of birds, and he worked in Australia and New Guinea for more than 45 years on birds of paradise, bowerbirds, and fairywrens. He has also worked on introduced and naturalized parrots, culminating in the publication of the book Naturalized Parrots of the World: Distribution, Ecology, and Impacts of the World's Most Colorful Colonizers (Princeton University Press). He was the recipient of the Norman Maclean Faculty Alumni Award from the University of Chicago in 2025.