Alfred Hagemeyer received his diploma degrees in chemistry, 1985, and physics, 1987, from the university of Dortmund, Germany, did his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck-Institute fuer Polymerforschung in Mainz, Germany, 1987-1989, was postdoc at the university of Bologna, Italy, 1990, was employed at BASF, corporate research, ammonia laboratory, Ludwigshafen, Germany, 1991-1996, and at Hoechst/Aventis, corporate research, department of heterogeneous catalysis, Frankfurt, Germany, 1996-1998, and joined Symyx Technologies, heterogeneous catalysis group, Santa Clara, CA, in 1998 where he is a Distinguished Scientist. His research interests are in the area of gas and liquid-phase heterogeneous catalysis. He has about 30 publications and about 80 patents/patent applications.

Anthony Volpe joined Symyx Technologies in 1999 and is currently the Director of the Heterogeneous Catalysis Group. Prior to joining Symyx, he was employed at Rohm and Haas in Spring House, PA for eight years in the Heterogeneous Catalysis group and in the Exploratory Polymers group. Dr. Volpe received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1991 from the University of N orth Carolina at Chapel Hill under the direction of Professor Maurice Brookhart and his BA in chemistry in 1986 form Occidental College in Los Angeles. His research areas have included gas and liquid phase heterogeneous catalysis and homogeneous catalysis. He has approximately 30 publications and patents/patent applications.

Peter Strasser studied chemistry at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, Stanford University, and University of Pisa, Italy. He received his diploma degree in 1995. He did his doctoral research work at the 'Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft' under the direction of Professor Gerhard Ertl, and received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1999. He was visiting scientists with Sony Central Research in 1996. Dr. Strasser joined Symyx Technologies in 2000 and is currently Senior Staff Scientist in the Electronic Materials Group. His research interests are in the area of fuel cells, electrocatalysis and heterogeneous catalysis. He has about 25 publications and about 10 patents/patent applications.