Alessandro Vespignani is currently Professor of Informatics and Cognitive Science and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Indiana University. He has obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” After holding research positions at Yale University and Leiden University, he has been a member of the condensed matter research group at the International Center for Theoretical Physics (UNESCO) in Trieste. Before joining Indiana University, Vespignani has been a faculty of the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique at the University of Paris-Sud working for the French National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) of which he is still member at large. Vespignani is also scientific supervisor of the Complex Network Lagrange Laboratory (CNLL) at the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Torino, Italy.

Recently Vespignani's research activity focuses on the interdisciplinary application of statistical and numerical simulation methods in the analysis of epidemic and spreading phenomena and the study of biological, social and technological networks. Vespignani is author, together with Pastor-Satorras, of the book Evolution and Structure of the Internet, published by Cambridge University Press. He was among the five scientists nominated for the Wired Magazine Rave Award in science for 2004.

Alain Barrat obtained his PhD in theoretical physics at the university of Paris VI (France) in 1996. He then spent two years at the Abdus Salam ICTP in Trieste, Italy, as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1998, he entered the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) of France with a permanent position as junior researcher. He spent 10 years as a CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Physique Théorique at the University of Paris-Sud. He is currently CNRS senior researcher at the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille, France. He is also research scientist at the Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory at the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Turin, Italy.

His research interests are in the field of disordered systems and out of equilibrium statistical mechanics. In the last years, his activity has focused on the study of complex networks and of the attached dynamical processes. His research has interdisciplinary applications such as the analysis of technological networks (Internet, transportation networks), the understanding of consensus formation in social networks or the study of epidemic spreading phenomena.

Vittoria Colizza completed her undergraduate studies in Physics at the University of Rome, IT, "La Sapienza" in Oct 2001 with a thesis on the thermodynamics of dense granular media. Starting in Nov of the same year, she entered the PhD program in Statistical and Biological Physics at the International School for Advanced Studies (ISAS), Trieste, IT, where she graduated in Oct 2004 with a thesis titled "Statistical mechanics approach to complex networks: from abstract to biological networks". Right after she joined the Complex Systems Group at the Indiana University School of Informatics in Bloomington, IN, where she spent two years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. In Feb 2006 she became a member of the Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory (CNLL) at the Institute for Scientific Interchange (ISI) in Turin, IT, and spent the year 2007 as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the IU School of Informatics. Colizza currently holds a position as a Research Scientist at ISI.

Her research activity ranges from the analysis of the structural properties of complex networks and their relation to the networks' functions, to the study of dynamical processes occurring on complex networks. In particular her interests focus on the characterization and modeling of the geographical spread of emerging infectious diseases.

Paolo Bajardi obtained his Physics master's degree in July 2008 at the University of Turin, Italy, with a thesis about complexity and critical behavior in vehicular traffic. He recently joined the Complex Networks and Systems Group at the ISI Foundation in Turin, Italy, to undertake his PhD studies.

His research interests focus on the analysis and understanding of transportation networks, and on the modeling and characterization of infectious disease spread.

Duygu Balcan completed her PhD studies in Physics at Istanbul Technical University (Turkey) in March 2007. Her PhD thesis, entitled "Properties of Content-Based Networks," was devoded to modelling and understanding of transcriptional genetic regulatory networks, on the basis of an information theoretical approach. After her graduation she joined the Complex Systems Group at the School of Informatics of Indiana University (USA) as a Visiting Research Associate.

Her research has focused on topological and dynamical properties of content-based networks. Recently she has started to work on the properties of disease spreading.

Ciro Cattuto is a Research Scientist at the Complex Network Lagrange Laboratory (CNLL) of the Institute for Scientific Interchange in Torino. He received his PhD in Physics from the University of Perugia (Italy). He subsequently worked at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (USA) and at the Frontier Research System of the RIKEN Institute (Japan) as a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). After that he worked at the Sapienza University of Roma with a grant from the Enrico Fermi Center (Roma). There, he contributed to the creation of the TAGora project (http://www.tagora-project.eu/). He moved to the ISI foundation at the beginning of 2008.

His current research focuses on modeling complex phenomena in online information systems, and in general on using the concepts of statistical physics to study structural aspects and activity patterns of technological and social systems.

Alessandro Flammini is currently Assistant Professor of Informatics, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Physics and Affiliated Researcher of the Biocomplexity Institute at Indiana University, Bloomington. He graduated at the University of Rome, IT, “La Sapienza,” in May 1993 with a thesis titled “Functional Order Parameters for Infinite Range Spin Glass Models.” Flammini shifted his focus during his doctoral research to the fractal structure of river basins at the International School for Advanced Studies (ISAS) in Trieste, IT, completing his degree in 1996. He continued to work on different aspects of fractal structures in 1997, doing postdoctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and then, from 1998 to 1999 at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Since the end of 1999 he has held a senior research position at ISAS, where his interests moved towards applications of statistical mechanics to biological problems, especially general aspects of protein folding and the study of protein networks. Since January 2003, he has held a joint appointment at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, where he participates in a project aimed at the study of the emergence of knots in DNA.

Santo Fortunato completed his undergraduate studies at the Physics Department of the University of Catania (Italy), in July 1995. He then became fellow of the Swedish Institute at the Royal Polytechnical School in Stockholm, where he stayed until the summer of 1997. Between 1998 and 2000 he carried on his graduate studies, at the Physics Department of the University of Bielefeld (Germany); in November 2000 he earned his PhD degree, with a thesis entitled "Percolation and Deconfinement in SU(2) Gauge Theory". He remained in Bielefeld as a postdoctoral research associate till January 2005, when he joined the Complex Systems Group of the Indiana University School of Informatics. Between March and August 2006 he also joined the Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory (CNLL) at the Insititute for Scientific Interchange (ISI) in Turin, IT, as a Junior Research Scientist. He now holds a position as Research Scientist at ISI.

His interests span from the theory and modeling of networks to social dynamics, with a focus on opinion formation and language evolution.

Andrea Lancichinetti is a Phd student at the ISI foundation in Turin, Italy. He got his Physics master degree in December 2007 at the University of Pavia, with a thesis about community structure in complex networks.
His main interests are in community detection algorithms, modeling and understanding of clustering in complex networks.

Filippo Menczer is currently Associate Professor of Informatics and Computer Science, Adjunct Associate Professor of Physics, and a member of the Cognitive Science program at Indiana University, Bloomington. He holds a Laurea in Physics from the University of Rome and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Menczer has been the recipient of Fulbright, Rotary Foundation, and NATO fellowships, and is a fellow-at-large of the Santa Fe Institute.

His research on Web, text, and data mining, adaptive intelligent agents, complex systems and networks, and artificial life is supported by a Career Award from the National Science Foundation.

Daniela Paolotti completed her undergraduate studies at the Department of Physics of the University of Perugia (Italy) in February 2001, with a thesis on "Transport phenomena in granular media". After that she received a scholarship at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (USA). In 2005 she received her PhD in Physics from the University of Camerino (Italy) with a thesis on "Driven Granular Media: a Numerical Approach". Right after she was hired in the Computational and Modeling Unit at the Casaccia Research Center of ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and the Environment). At the same time she began working on the ENEA Grid Project at the ENEA Frascati Research Center. In 2006 she joined the Bioinformatics unit of the Novartis V&D Research Center in Siena (Italy), as a biostatistician in the MenB project. Since November 2007 she has been working as a Research Scientist at the Complex Networks Lagrange Laboratory (CNLL) of the ISI Foundation (Torino, Italy). Her research focuses on the simulation and modeling of the spreading of infectious diseases, and on the developement of Internet-based monitoring systems.

Chiara Poletto completed her undergraduate studies in Physics at the University of Padova, IT, in March 2005 with a thesis on a statistical mechanics model of biopolymers, and she continued working on this project with a grant from the University until the end of the year. In January 2006 she started her PhD studies at the University of Padova, that she concluded in December 2008 with a thesis titled "Solvent induced interactions in biopolymers: origin of secondary motifs", focusing on the theoretical study of solvent-protein interactions within a coarse grained description of biopolymers. She recently joined the Complex Networks and Systems Group at the ISI Foundation in Turin, Italy.
Her research interests focus on the characterization and modeling of epidemic spreading processes.

Juliette Stehlé completed a master's in complex system modelling in Lyon in 2009 and is currently a PhD student at the University of Marseille (France), in the Centre de Physique Théorique in Marseille. Under the supervision of Alain Barrat, she is working on the analysis and modelling of the dynamics of contact networks.