Florimond De Smedt received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering (Hydrology) from Vrije Universiteit, Brussels (VUB) in 1979, M.Sc.degree in Agronomy (Soil Physics) from New Mexico State University in 1979, and M.Sc. in Civil Engineering from VUB in 1973. He is Professor Emeritus and former Head of the Department of Hydrology and Hydraulic Engineering, VUB, and presently part time professor at the same institute. He has been teaching for more than 30 years on Hydrogeology, Groundwater Modeling, Hydraulics and Soil Mechanics. His main fields of research are groundwater modeling, water resources engineering and physical land resources engineering. He has been supervisor of 29 Ph.D. theses and about 100 M.Sc. theses, and is author or co-author of about 120 journal papers with impact factor, 10 books or chapters in books, and about 200 other scientific contributions. Wouter Zijl received his Ph.D. in 1978 from Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in Technical Physics, with emphasis on free surface flow applied to two-phase flow. In 1973 he received his M.Sc. degree in Technical Physics, also from TU/e, on ionization phenomena in shock waves. In 1966 he received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Higher Institute of Technology Amsterdam (HTS-A). He has been working as head of the Thermal Hydraulics department at Neratoom B.V. in The Hague, and as senior Geophysicist, Petroleum Reservoir Engineer and Hydrogeologist at the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. Presently he is visiting professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). His expertise includes fluid dynamics in clear and porous media, geophysical modeling (imaging, calibration, data assimilation, scale analysis), geomechanics and applied mathematical physics in general. He is a member of the International Association of Hydrologists (IAH) and of the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE).
