Jeremy D. Semrau, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, has appointments in Civil and Environmental Engineering (College of Engineering) and the Program in the Environment (College of Literature, Science and Arts). He received his BS from the University of Texas, his MS and PhD from the California Institute of Technology, and pursued post-doctoral training at the University of Warwick. Semrau has been on the faculty at the University of Michigan since 1995, pursuing research in the general area of environmental microbiology, with a particular focus on methanotrophy.

Whendee Silver is Professor of Ecosystem Ecology and Biogeochemistry in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at U.C. Berkeley. She received her PhD in Ecosystem Ecology from Yale University. Her work seeks to determine the biogeochemical effects of climate change and human impacts on the environment, and the potential for mitigating these effects. The Silver Lab is currently working on drought and hurricane impacts on tropical forests, climate change mitigation potential of grasslands, and greenhouse gas dynamics of peatlands and wetlands. Silver is the lead scientist of the Marin Carbon Project, which is determining the potential for land-based climate change mitigation, particularly by composting high-emission organic waste for soil amendments to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide.