Seth Stein is Professor of Geological Sciences at Northwestern University. He has received the James B Macelwane Medal of the American Geophysical Union, been elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and Geological Society of America, and named to the Institute for Scientific Information Highly Cited Researchers list. He served as Scientific Director of the University Navstar Consortium and on the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology's Executive Committee, and started Northwestern's Environmental Science program.

Michael Wysession is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University. He is the recipient of the Packard Foundation and NSF Presidential Faculty Fellowships for his research into the structure of the Earth's deep interior.