Denis Evans was born in Sydney Australia in 1951. He obtained first class honours in astrophysics at Sydney University in 1972 and gained his Ph.D. in statistical mechanics from the Australian National University (ANU) in 1975. After postdoctoral appointments at Oxford, Cornell and ANU and a Fulbright Fellowship to the National Bureau of Standards he became a Fellow in the Research School of Chemistry at ANU in 1982. He has won a number of awards including the Rennie Medal for Chemistry (1983), the Young Distinguished Chemist Award of the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (1989) and the Frederick White Prize of the Australian Academy of Science (1990). In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science. In 2000 he was awarded the Boys-Rahman Lectureship of the London Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2003 he was awarded the Centenary Medal by the Australian Government and in 2004 the Moyal Medal for distinguished contributions to mathematical sciences by Macquarie Univeristy. In 1989 he was appointed as Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at ANU and currently serves as Dean of the Research School of Chemistry and Convenor of the ANU College of Science.

Gary Morriss was born in Singleton, Australia in 1951. He obtained first class honours in mathematics/physics at Newcastle University in 1976 and gained his Ph.D. in statistical mechanics from Melbourne University in 1980. After postdoctoral appointments at Cornell and ANU, he became a Research Fellow and later Senior Research Fellow at ANU. In 1989 he was appointed as Lecturer in the School of Physics at the University of New South Wales. He is now an Associate Professor and serves as Undergraduate Director in the School of Physics.