Eli Ruckenstein is a State University of New York (SUNY) Distinguished Professor at the SUNY at Buffalo. He has published more than 1000 papers in numerous areas of engineering science and has received a large number of awards from the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Dr. Ruckenstein has also received the Founders Gold Medal Award from the National Academy of Engineering and the National Medal of Science from President Clinton. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Art and Sciences. Gersh Berim earned his PhD in Theoretical and Mathematical Physics from Kazan State University in Russia in 1978. He has authored or coauthored 70+ papers. His research interests include statics, kinetics, and dynamics of low-dimensional spin systems, kinetic theory of nucleation, and wetting at the nanoscale.

Since 2001, he has been working in the group of Dr. Ruckenstein at SUNY at Buffalo. Previously, he was a visiting research scholar at the Institute of Physics "Gleb Wataghin" of the University of Campinas, Brazil (1995-1996), and at the Institute of Theoretical Physics I of the University of Erlangen, Germany (1998-2000).