Takamichi Iida is the professor Emeritus of Materials Science and Processing at Osaka University. He obtained a Doctorate in Materials Science, studying the physical properties of metallic liquids. On the basis of the metrology of liquids, he also co-developed a viscometer for characterizing slag viscosities in continuous casting machines for the Japanese steel industry. He is the author, or co-author, of more than 200 research papers. He was awarded the Meritorious Honor Prize (in 1982), and the Okada Science and Technology Prize (in 2002).
Roderick I.L.Guthrie is the Macdonald Professor of Metallurgy at McGill University, and is the Director and co-founder of the McGill Metals Processing Centre, established in 1990. He is the author, or co-author, of more than 450 publications, twenty four receiving best paper awards, and has about 240 patents from 12 inventions attributed to him. He is an Honorary Member of the AIME and of the Iron and Steel Institute of Japan, a Distinguished Member of the AIST, is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, of the Canadian Academy of Engineers, and of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. He remains a very active member of the research community in North America, specialising in Fluid Dynamics and associated Heat and Mass Transfer in Liquid Metal Processing Operations.