Professor Herschbach received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Physics from Harvard University in 1958.  He was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows from 1957 to 1959 and was a member of the chemistry faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1959 to 1963.  In 1963 he joined the Harvard faculty as Professor of Chemistry and since 1976 he has been the Baird Professor of Science at Harvard.  In 2005 he assumed a half-time appointment as Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M. In 2011 he was awarded the title of Distinguished Professor. Dr. Herschbach is an international leader in theoretical chemical physics.  His research is on structure and reactions of molecules and is at the interface between physics and chemistry.  He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Chemical Society of Great Britain. His awards include the Pure Chemistry Prize of the American Chemical Society (1965), the Linus Pauling Medal (1978), the Michael Polanyi Medal (1981), the Irving Langmuir Prize of the American Physical Society (1983), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1986), jointly with Yuan T. Lee and John C. Polanyi, the National Medal of Science (1991), the Jaroslav Heyrovsky Medal (1992), the Sierra Nevada Distinguished Chemist Award (1993), the Kosolapoff Award of the American Chemical Society (1994), the William Walker Prize (1994), and the Council of Scientific Society President's Award for Support of Science (1999).  In 1998, he was named by Chemical & Engineering News among 75 leading contributors to the chemical enterprise in the past 75 years.

Dr. David M. Lee is a Professor in the Physics and Astronomy department at Texas A&M University. He received his A.B. in Physics at Harvard University in 1952, an M.S. in Physics at the University of Connecticut in 1955, and his Ph.D. in Physics in 1959. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 (together with Robert C. Richardson and Doug Osheroff) for discovery of the transition of Helium-3 to a superfluid phase. Dr. Lee is a member of National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his research has been recognized by the Sir Francis Simon Memorial Prize of the British Institute of Physics (1976) and the 1981 Oliver Buckley Prize of the American Physical Society (1981).

Dr. Bruce A. McCarl is an agricultural economist at Texas A&M University. He began his professional career in 1973 and has more than 30 years of experience providing a broad range of support to the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, United States Department of Agriculture, Agency for International Development, United Nations Development Program, Food and Agricultural Organization, and state governments among others. Dr. McCarl specializes in agricultural and resource economics, with an emphasis on applying microeconomic principles and quantitative analysis to the appraisal of public policy decisions regarding technology and resource management. His project work focuses on agricultural and forestry policies regarding climate change, climate change mitigation, forest management, water resource management, agricultural risk management, agricultural practices usage and technological development. He works on market solutions to environmental issues. He has been working on risk analysis since the early 1970’s, global climate change issues since the mid 1980’s and climate change mitigation since the late 1980’s.