Ekkard Brinksmeier is Speaker of the DFG Research Unit FOR 1845. From 1992 until his retirement in 2019, he was Professor for manufacturing technology at the University of Bremen, Head of the Laboratory for Precision Machining LFM, and Director of the Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering. Prior to that, he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Hannover, where he obtained his diploma, doctorate, and post-doctoral lecturer qualification. Ekkard Brinksmeier is Honorary Fellow and Past President of the International Academy for Production Engineering CIRP, Fellow and Past President of the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology euspen, and Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers SME. Ekkard Brinksmeier is a world-renowned expert in the field of ultra-precision machining technology and received numerous awards for his work including the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize from the DFG (1999), the Frederick W. Taylor ResearchMedal from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (2011), and the euspen (2015) as well as the ASPE (2017) lifetime achievement awards. In 2012, he received an honorary doctorate from the RWTH Aachen and in 2017 an honorary professorship from the University Tianjin. Lars Schönemann is Coordinator of the DFG Research Unit FOR 1845 and Junior Research Group Leader on “Economic Ultra-Precision Machining – speedUP” at the Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering in Bremen, Germany. He graduated from the University of Bremen with a Bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering in 2006 and a Master’s degree in the same field in 2008. Since 2007, he is working as Research Engineer at the Laboratory for Precision Machining LFM, a department of the Leibniz IWT. He obtained his doctorate (Dr.-Ing.) in 2014 for his work on Diamond Micro Chiseling of prismatic optical microstructures. His research focuses on ultra-precision machining processes, especially for generating functional surfaces, as well as mechatronic system development and digitalization. He has experience in managing large-scale national and international projects, such as the German research unit FOR 1845 “Ultra-precision high performance cutting” (2014-2020) and the European H2020-project “ProSurf – High Precision Process Chains for the Mass Production of Functional Structured Surfaces.” He published more than 50 papers and presented his work at several euspen conferences, topical meetings, CIRP conferences, and ASPE annual meetings.