Vera Meyer studied biotechnology at the Sofia University, Bulgaria, and the Berlin University of Technology (TUB), Germany. After obtaining a PhD degree (2001) and habilitation (2008) at the TUB, she worked as Assistant Professor at Leiden University (2008-2011). She has been visiting scientist at the Imperial College London (2003) and at Leiden University (2005-2006). She became Full Professor of Applied and Molecular Microbiology at the TUB in 2011.

Vera has research interests on fungal biotechnology with an emphasis on systems biology, genetic engineering, and antifungal drug development.

Alexander Idnurm was an undergraduate and PhD student at the University of Melbourne, Australia, studying plant pathogenic fungi. After obtaining a PhD degree (2002), he worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University Medical Center, USA (2002-2007). He was an Assistant and then Associate Professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (2007-2014), before returning to the University of Melbourne as a Senior Lecturer/ARC Future Fellow in 2014.

Alex has research interests on fungal genetics with an emphasis on mechanisms of pathogenesis, environmental sensing and signal transduction, and the evolution of mating systems.