Kai Zhang is a Professor and Head of the Department for Wood Technology and Wood based Composites at Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Germany. He studied at Hefei University of Technology (B.Eng.), China, and Dresden University of Technology (M.S. and Ph.D., 2011), Germany. After completing research at Dresden University of Technology, the Pennsylvania State University, and Darmstadt University of Technology, he joined the University of Göttingen in 2015. His group's research focuses on using bio-based renewable compounds to create functional materials for sustainable development.

Philip Biehl is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department for Wood Technology and Wood-based Composites at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Germany. He studied at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (B.S.), Germany, and Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (M.S. and Ph.D., 2020), Germany. He joined the University of Göttingen in 2021. His main research area is the preparation of functional amphiphilic bio-based compounds for the sustainable development of surface coatings.