John Hawking is an Honorary Research Fellow at La Trobe University and former invertebrate ecologist at the Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre, Wodonga.

He studied the ecology of dragonfly larvae for his Master's degree and has since published greatly on their ecology, taxonomy and conservation.

Gunther Theischinger has had a lifelong interest in aquatic insects. He has published more than 300 scientific papers, and over the years has described more than 60 new species and several new genera of Australian dragonflies.

He has been a visiting scientist at the Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra, and is a Research Associate of the Australian Museum and a Visiting Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution, USA.