Peter Barham
 Peter Barham is a professor of physics at the University of Bristol and a visiting professor of molecular gastronomy in the life sciences faculty of the University of Copenhagen.
In Bristol, he teaches and carries out research in fundamental polymer physics and in the conservation of penguins. In Copenhagen, he is helping to create research and teaching activities in the new and emerging area of molecular gastronomy (the application of physical, biological and medical sciences to understanding our appreciation of food).
Peter has developed a series of lecture demonstrations (or 'performance science'), designed to raise awareness of the relevance of science to everyday life, with a particular focus on cookery. He was awarded the 2003 Kelvin medal by the Institute of Physics for his contributions to the promotion of public awareness of science.
Peter has appeared in numerous radio and television programmes and is a regular contributor to the Guardian, in both the food and science sections. He has written a book on the science of cooking, which was published in 2001.
In the last few years Peter has been collaborating with a number of chefs (notably Heston Blumenthal) with the idea of bringing science and cooking more closely together, both at home and in the restaurant.
Tony Blake
 Tony Blake was born in Wales and has degrees in chemistry and biochemistry from the University of Oxford. He is a world authority on flavour and taste. His career has spanned four decades, during which he has worked in research, development and marketing for major food companies, as well as lecturing widely on the physiology of taste and related subjects. He is specifically concerned with studying the interactions between flavour molecules and food matrices and how these relate to flavour encapsulation and release.
In recent years his attention has also focused on the psychology of flavour perception and the learning of flavour and food preferences. In 2001 he was appointed a special professor at the University of Nottingham in its School of Biosciences.
Prof Blake is a fellow of the British Society of Flavourists and in 2003 was presented with the Bill Littlejohn medal for his contribution to the flavour industry. He is an enthusiastic and self-taught cook, as is his colleague Heston Blumenthal, whom he first met at a conference on molecular and physical gastronomy in Erice, Sicily. Prof Blake and Heston have been working together on strange and wonderful food projects since 2001.
Dishes such as green tea and lime mousse (which is frozen in liquid nitrogen) and foie gras with a jasmine-flavoured sauce are the result of their collaboration.
Jon Prinz
 Jon Prinz was a practising NHS dentist for many years, but in 1992 he took what was intended to be a three-month holiday in Hong Kong, which turned into a five-year stay and a Ph.D. in oral anatomy from the University of Hong Kong. For the last decade, he has worked on the mechanics of chewing and swallowing and on the role of oral processes in the sensory perception of food. He is currently a senior scientist at the Wageningen Centre for Food Science in The Netherlands.
Most recently, Jon has studied the interaction of various food properties in generating our sensory perceptions of food - essentially the psycho-physics of food. He is working with an artificial gastrointestinal tract which is used to study how, when and where foods and drugs are absorbed in the gut.
In his younger days, Jon worked as a short-order chef. Jon met Heston Blumenthal at a 2001 conference on molecular gastronomy in Erice, Sicily, where they were both speakers. They have been collaborating and sharing ideas ever since.
Charles Spence
 Professor Charles Spence is the head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory based at the Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University. He is interested in how people perceive the world around them, in particular, how our brains manage to process the information from each of our different senses (such as smell, taste, sight, hearing, and touch) to form the rich multisensory experiences that fill our daily lives.
Charles is currently a consultant for a number of multinational companies advising on various aspects of multisensory design, packaging, and branding. He has also conducted research on human-computer interaction issues on the crew work station on the European Space Shuttle, and currently works on problems associated with the design of foods that maximally stimulate the senses, and with the effect of the indoor environment on mood, well-being, and performance.
Charles has published more than 250 articles in top-flight scientific journals over the last decade. Charles has been awarded the 10th Experimental Psychology Society Prize, the British Psychological Society Cognitive Section Award, the Paul Bertelson Award, recognisng him as the young European Cognitive Psychologist of the Year, and, most recently, the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany.
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