Mikhail G. Brik received his PhD from Kuban State University (Krasnodar, Russia) in 1995 and his DSc (habilitation) from the Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw, Poland) in 2012. Since 2007 he is a professor at the Institute of Physics, University of Tartu, Estonia. Before that, he worked at Kyoto University (Kyoto, Japan) from 2003 to 2007, Weizmann Institute of Science (Rehovot, Israel) in 2002, Asmara University (Asmara, Eritrea) from 2000 to 2001, Kuban State University (Krasnodar, Russia) from 1995 to 2000. He is also a distinguished visiting professor at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications (China) and Professor at Jan Długosz University (Poland). Since 2015 he serves as one of the editors of Optical Materials (Elsevier). His scientific interests cover theoretical spectroscopy of transition metal and rare earth ions in optical materials, crystal field theory, ab initio calculations of physical properties of pure and doped functional compounds. He is a coeditor of two books and author of 11 book chapters and about 380 papers in international journals. According to Google Scholar, he has more than 6100 citations with h index 39. In 2013 he received the State Prize of the Republic of Estonia in the field of exact sciences. In 2018 he received the state professor title from the President of Poland.
Chong-Geng Ma received his PhD from the University of Science and Technology, China. He has spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher in Tartu (under the supervision of Prof. Brik). A specialist in crystal field theory and ab initio calculations, he has published one chapter in a book and more than 70 papers in international journals, which attracted more than 1000 citations. His h index is 19. Currently he is a professor at Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
