Hector Garcia-Molina is the Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner Professor in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Departments at Stanford University. He has published extensively in the fields of database systems, distributed systems, and digital libraries. His research interests also include distributed computing systems, database systems, and digital libraries.

Jeffrey D. Ullman is the Stanford W. Ascherman Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. He is the author or co-author of 15 books and 170 technical publications, including A First Course in Database Systems (Prentice Hall 1997) and Elements of ML Programming (Prentice Hall 1998). His research interests include database theory, database integration, data mining, and education using the information infrastructure. He has received numerous awards such as the Guggenheim Fellowship and election to the National Academy of Engineering. He also received the 1996 Sigmod Contribution Award and the 1998 Karl V. Karstrom Outstanding Educator Award.

Jennifer Widom is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Departments at Stanford University. She has served on numerous editorial boards and program committees, she has published widely in computer science conferences and journals, and is co-author of A First Course in Database Systems (Prentice Hall 1997). Her research interests include database systems for semistructured data and XML, data warehousing, and active database systems.