Masashi Nakano, PhD, Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo, is the recipient of the 2007 International award from the International Society of Paddy and Water Environmental Engineering and the 2009 Groundwater award from the Japan Association of Groundwater Hydrology.

He has written numerous papers in the field of soil physics. He has served with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency and its predecessors and has been involved with planning for the disposal of radioactive waste in Japan since the beginning. His current research involves clay science.

Roland Pusch (PhD Geotechnique, PhD Geology) is currently Managing Director of Geodevelopment International AB, Sweden. He is the author or co-author of several books on rock geomechanics, has been a professor of rock and soil mechanics, and has served on the editorial boards of international journals. Long involved in research on clay buffers for containment of nuclear waste, his current research is on their longevity.

Raymond N. Yong, CQ, MSc, MEng, PhD, CEng, FRS(C), is Emeritus Professor of McGill University. He has been the recipient of the Killam Prize (Canada’s highest scientific prize), the ASTM’s Charles Dudley Prize, the Canadian Geotechnical Society’s Legget Prize, and the Canadian Environmental Achievement Award (Lifetime Achievement), from Environment Canada.

A Fellow of the Royal Society Canada and a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec, he is an authority on contaminated soil and its mitigation, an international consultant on hazardous waste disposal, and the author or co-author of numerous books and papers in the field. He was involved in the early research on clay barriers for containment of radioactive waste.