Anna Igual Munoz is Professor at the Technical University of Valencia (UPV, Spain) in the Chemical and Nuclear engineering department and at present in a sabbatical period at EPFL. She has a master degree in Industrial engineering (specialised in chemical engineering) and a PhD in Electrochemical corrosion (2001) from UPV. She did a Postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia (USA) in 2002 in the field of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and local electrochemical techniques. She created and leads the Tribocorrosion research Group at UPV. Her scientific interests are mainly focused in the understanding the interactions (chemical, mechanical and biological) between materials and surfaces (mainly metals and oxides) with the environment. Mainly in the fields of corrosion, tribology and new functional coatings.Nuria Espallargas is a Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU,Norway). She has a MSc in Chemistry from University of Barcelona (Spain) and a PhD in surface engineering and tribology from the same university. She did a Postdoctoral stay at the Department of Engineering Design and Materials (NTNU, Norway) in the period 2007-2009 where she was actively involved in building up the current tribology activities in Norway. In 2008, the Gemini Centre “Tribology” was established in a formal collaboration between NTNU and SINTEF (independent research center in Norway), and since 2011 she is the NTNU leader of the Centre. In the period 2008-2011 she performed several research stays at EPFL with Dr. Mischler working on tribocorrosion of passive metals and nitrided passive metals. In the period 2015-2016 she performed one year sabbatical stay at ETH Zurich at the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology with Prof. Nicholas Spencer working on nano-tribology. Her scientific and research interests are within surface chemistry and engineering, lubricants, tribology, tribocorrosion and nano-tribology.Stefano Mischler obtained the diploma in materials science in 1983 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETHZ in Zurich. He accomplished his PhD thesis in the field of surface analysis and corrosion at the Materials department of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL in Lausanne in 1988. In the years 1989-1990 he held a postdoctoral position at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Establishment in Harwell (Oxfordshire) where he developed novel quantification procedures for Auger Electron Spectroscopy and high lateral resolution surface analytical methods for fiber reinforced ceramics. In 1991 he joined the newly created Tribology group at the Laboratory for Metallurgical Chemistry of the EPFL where he developed research activities in the field of wear-corrosion interactions (tribocorrosion) and of tribological coatings. He is currently head of the tribology group and is developing a reserach and training activity devoted to modern aspects of tribology and surface science and technology, including surface chemical effects in tribology, biotribology and biocorrosion, tribology in microfabrication processes and wear protection methods. In 2006 he spent a sabbatical leave of 3 months at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Institute of Biomaterials.
