Frank Kirschbaum is a retired Professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He obtained his PhD from the University of Cologne in 1972. As postdoc he worked in Gif sur Yvette (France) performing studies on the reproduction and ontogeny of weakly electric fishes. Back in Cologne he did his Habilitation in 1984. The next steps were the Free University and then the Humboldt University in Berlin where he became Head of the Department of Biology and Ecology of Fishes and at the same time he led the Department Biology and Ecology of Fishes at the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries. Teaching activities comprised fish biology, tropical fish communities, fish systematics, and histology.
Krzysztof Formicki received his MSc (1981) and PhD (1984) at the University of Agriculture, Szczecin, Poland. Subsequently he has been engaged as a lecturer and researcher. He received his Habilitation in 1991. He has been a Professor since 1993 and Head of the Department at West Pomeranian University of Technology, Szczecin, Poland since 2000. He was also a Dean and Vice-Rector of the University. He has had research stays in USA (University of California) and Japan.