Ying Yirong is professor of finance and is associate chair of the Department of Finance, College of Economics, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. He earned his BSc in mathematics in 1982 from the Mathematics Department of Northwest University (China) and his PhD in mathematics in 2000 from the Mathematics Department of Xidian University. In 2002, Dr. Yirong did one year of postdoctoral study at the Institute of Contemporary Finance, Shanghai Jiao-Tong University.

Professor Yirong has taught many different courses in the areas of economics and finance, such as econometrics, financial economics, financial physics, applied statistics, financial engineering, economic cybernetics, and low carbon economy. His research interests include financial engineering, financial mathematics, securities pricing, and risk management.

Jeffrey Yi-Lin Forrest holds all his educational degrees (BSc, MS, and PhD) in pure mathematics, respectively, from Northwest University (China), Auburn University (United States), and Carnegie Mellon University (United States), where he has one-year postdoctoral experience in statistics. Currently, he is a guest or specially appointed professor in economics, finance, systems science, and mathematics at several major universities in China, including Huazhong University of Science and Technology, the National University of Defense Technology, and Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a tenured professor of mathematics at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (Slippery Rock campus). Since 1993, Dr. Forrest has been serving as the president of the International Institute for General Systems Studies, Inc. Along with various professional endeavors he has organized, Dr. Forrest has had the honor to mobilize scholars from more than 80 countries representing more than 50 different scientific disciplines.