James Slusser studied physics at Western Michigan University and received his bachelor’s degree in 1977 and his master’s degree in 1980. The next nine years were spent in Chicago where he was the undergraduate physics laboratory director at Loyola University and later worked as a design engineer for Atlas Electric Devices, serving as a project manager for an ultraviolet outdoor radiometer and temperature probe for weathering chambers. In 1989 he returned to school to study atmospheric science and radiative transfer at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. His dissertation involved measuring stratospheric nitrogen dioxide and exploring its relationship to ozone abundances. After earning his PhD in 1994 he spent three months at Lauder, New Zealand doing trace gases analysis using the zenith sky spectroscopy. He then took up a position as a research associate at the Center for Atmospheric Science at Cambridge University in England where he investigated the effects of volcanic aerosols on nitrogen dioxide and ozone abundances in Antarctica. In 1996 he became a research scientist at the USDA UV-B Monitoring and Research Program at Colorado State University. In 1999 he became the director of the program. His current research interests include improving the calibration accuracy and precision of UV measurements and retrievals of ozone column and aerosol properties. He is a member of the AGU, AMS, and SPIE and serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research.

Wei Gao received a BS in applied meteorology from Nanjing Institute of Meteorology, China, and a MS in agro-micrometeorology from Mississippi State University. He received his PhD in applied meteorology from Purdue University. He developed a geometric ultraviolet (UV) radiation transfer model and estimated the UV-B radiation loading on potentially UVB sensitive surface in vegetation canopies. He did his postdoctoral training at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, Colorado, where he conducted research on climate change scenario formation, climate change impacts on the biosphere, and analysis of climate variability and extreme climate events. He is currently a research scientist at the USDA UVB Monitoring and Research Program at Colorado State University. His research interests include atmospheric/vegetation canopy radiation transfer modeling, UV radiation, UV radiation and other climate stress factors influences on plants, total ozone interactions with other atmospheric parameters, impact of climate change, and ecosystem modeling.

Richard McKenzie received a BSc Hons in physics from the University of Canterbury, NZ and a MSc in physics from the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. He earned a DPhil, in atmospheric physics from the University of Oxford, UK. He is New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmosphere (NIWA) Principal Scientist (Radiation), and has led NIWA’s UV Radiation program since its inception. He is also involved in trace gas studies, as well as studies of the effects on radiation of aerosols and clouds. He has published widely in the above areas of research and communicated results to the public through the media, the internet, and through numerous public lectures. He has been actively involved in the WMO Scientific Assessments of Ozone Depletion (1991, 1994, 1998) as lead author of the UV Chapter (and co-author of the 2002 assessment in preparation). Since 1994 he has been a member of the UNEP Effects Panel that reports on the environmental effects of ozone depletion (the sole representative from the Southern Hemisphere).