Martin Rees is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge and holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal. After studying at Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before becoming a professor at Sussex University. During 1973-91, he was Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge and served for ten years as director of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor. In 2004 he became Master of Trinity College. His main research interests are: high energy astrophysics; cosmic structure formation (especially the earliest stages at high redshift); and general cosmological issues.

James Geach is a post-doctoral research associate working in the Extragalactic Astronomy Group at Durham University, U.K. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Imperial College London in 2003, and completed a Ph.D. in Astronomy at Durham University in 2007 where he continues to work. Geach's research is mainly observational, focusing on the nature of obscured star formation, active galactic nuclei and the study of environmental influences on galaxy formation and evolution. Geach is funded by the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council.

Bret Lehmer is an astrophysicist at Durham University in Durham, England, where he has been working for the United Kingdom's Science and Technology Facilities Council since 2007. He received undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Iowa and completed his PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Penn State University in 2007. His main research utilizes deep X-ray observations with the Chandra Observatory to study populations of distant galaxies and supermassive black holes. This fall, he will be returning to the United States and will be conducting his research at Johns Hopkins University as an Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow.