Steven L. Stephenson recently retired from the University of Arkansas, where he was a Research Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and taught at Fairmont State University for 27 years before moving to the University of Arkansas. During his academic career, he has been a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Himachal University in India, a Visiting Scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division, and the William Evans Visiting Fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand. He also has received Fulbright Specialist awards to India and Vietnam. In addition to his studies in the Southern Appalachians and Ozarks, Stephenson has carried out research in the forests of India, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Puerto Rico, and Costa Rica. He is the author or coauthor of twenty books on eumycetozoans, fungi, and various aspects of ecology.

Rose-Marie Muzika received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Forestry with an emphasis in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. For 20 years Muzika was a Professor of Forest Ecology and Forest Health at the University of Missouri, where she also served as Department Head of Forestry and Associate Director of the School of Natural Resources. Before joining the faculty of the University of Missouri, she held positions as a research ecologist and research entomologist with the USDA Forest Service Research in Oregon and West Virginia. Since her retirement, Muzika served as director of science at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and a senior scientist at the Powdermill Nature Reserve Field Station near Rector, Pennsylvania. During her career she received a Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Iceland and a Bullard Fellowship in Forest Research at the Harvard Forest.