David J. Sellmyer was educated at the University of Illinois and Michigan State University, where he received B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics. He was Assistant and Associate Professor of Materials Science at MIT, before moving to the University of Nebraska in 1972. He served two terms as Chairman of Physics, and is now George Holmes Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Materials Research and Analysis and an NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. He has published more than 370 articles and reviews in the areas of electronic structure and magnetism in metallic compounds and alloys, random magnetism and phase transitions in magnetic glasses, magnetic properties of rare earth-iron permanent-magnet materials, and magnetism and magneto-optics of cluster-assembled and self-assembled nanostructures.
Ralph Skomski was educated at the Technische Hochschule Merseburg and Technische Universität Dresden, where he received Dipl.-phys. and Ph.D. degrees. In 1991, he became a postdoc at Trinity College Dublin, and 1995 to 1997 he was a postdoctoral researcher at Max-Planck-Institut für Mikrostrukturphysik in Halle. He then moved to Lincoln and is now a Research Associate Professor at the University of Nebraska. His research interests include model calculations in the areas of permanent magnets and magnetic nanostructures and are characterized by a close collaboration with experimentalist, engineers, and theorists focusing on numerical methods. He has published more than 100 contributed and invited papers and reviews, mostly on various topics in magnetism, and one book, "Permanent Magnetism" by R. Skomski and J. M. D. Coey.
