Steven R. Schmid is a Professor at the University of Notre Dame, where he has taught manufacturing and design since 1993. Prior to teaching, Dr. Schmid was employed at Triodyne, Inc, performing machine design failure investigations. Among his awards are the ASME Foundation Swanson Fellowship in 2012, the ASME Newkirj Award, and the SME Parsons Awards, and he is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Bernard J. Hamrock joined the staff of The Ohio State University as a professor of mechanical engineering in 1985 and is now professor emeritus. Prior to that he spent 18 years as a research consultant in the Tribology Branch of the NASA Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He received his Ph.D. and Doctor of Engineering degrees from the University of Leeds, England. His awards include the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 1984, the 1998 Jacob Wallenberg Award given by The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, and the 2000 Mayo D. Hersey Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Bo O. Jacobson received his Ph.D. and D.Sc. degrees from Lund University in Sweden. From 1973 until 1987, he was professor of machine elements at Luleå t University in Sweden. In 1987 he joined SKF Engineering & Research Centre in the Netherlands, while retaining a professorship at Chalmers University from 1987 to 1991, and Lule¿echnical University from 1992 to 1997. In 1997 he was appointed professor of machine elements at Lund University. Professor Jacobson has written ten compendia used at Swedish universities, six covering different machine elements and four covering the basic course and the advanced course in tribology.