Dietmar Gross received his Engineering Diploma in Applied Mechanics and his Doctor of Engineering degree at the University of Rostock. He was Research Associate at the University of Stuttgart and since 1976 he is Professor of Mechanics at the University of Darmstadt. His research interests are mainly focused on modern solid mechanics on the macro and micro scale, including advanced materials.  Werner Hauger studied Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at the University of Karlsruhe and received his Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Mechanics from Northwestern University in Evanston. He worked in industry for several years, was a Professor at the Helmut-Schmidt-University in Hamburg and went to the University of Darmstadt in 1978. His research interests are, among others, theory of stability, dynamic plasticity and biomechanics.  Jörg Schröder studied Civil Engineering, received his doctoral degree at the University of Hannover and habilitated at the University of Stuttgart. He was Professor of Mechanics at the University of Darmstadt and went to the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2001. His fields of research are theoretical and computer-oriented continuum mechanics, modeling of functional materials as well as the further development of the finite element method.  Wolfgang A. Wall studied Civil Engineering at Innsbruck University and received his doctoral degree from the University of Stuttgart. Since 2003 he is Professor of Mechanics at the TU München and Head of the Institute for Computational Mechanics. His research interests cover broad fields in computational mechanics, including both solid and fluid mechanics. His recent focus is on multiphysics and multiscale problems as well as computational biomechanics.  Javier Bonet studied Civil Engineering at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona and received his Doctorate from Swansea University in the UK. He was Professor of Computational Mechanics and Head of the School of Engineering at Swansea University where he has taught Strength of Materials, Structural Mechanics and Nonlinear Mechanics for over 20 years. Currently he is employed as the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research & Enterprise, at the University of Greenwich. His research interests are computational mechanics and finite element methods.