Dr. James H. Thorp is a professor and senior scientist at the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KS, United States). Prior to 2001, he was a distinguished professor and dean at Clarkson University, department chair and professor at the University of Louisville, associate professor and director of the Calder Ecology Center at Fordham University, and research ecologist at Georgia's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. He received his Baccalaureate from the University of Kansas and Masters and PhD degrees from North Carolina State. Prof. Thorp has been on the editorial board of three freshwater journals and is a former president of the International Society for River Science. His research interests run the gamut from organismal biology to community, ecosystem, and macrosystem ecology. While his research emphasizes aquatic invertebrates, he also studies fish ecology, especially food webs related. He has published more than 150 research articles and 10 books, including five volumes so far in the fourth edition of Thorp and Covich's Freshwater Invertebrates.

Michael Delong is a Professor of Biology and Director of the Large River Studies Center at Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota USA. Delong has studied rivers for over 30 years, with a focus on community and ecosystem ecology and has engaged in research in a number of rivers in the U.S. as well as rivers in Australia. A primary focus of his research has been on food web ecology, with both applied and basic implications. As director of the LRSC, Delong engaged over 160 undergraduate students in research of aquatic systems. Delong has published 30 peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed to three books on river science.