Professor Vidyadhar Mandrekar is an expert in stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensional spaces and filtering. In addition he has advised doctoral students in financial mathematics and water flows. He is the first recipient of the Distinguished Faculty Award in the Department of Statistics and Probability at Michigan State University. Professor Barbara Rüdiger graduated at the University Roma “Tor Vergata” in Mathematics with Mathematical Physics. She moved to Germany with an individual European Marie Curie “Training and Mobility of Researchers” fellowship in 1997, where she became an expert in stochastic differential equations in infinite dimensional spaces, also with non-Gaussian noise, which she applies in different areas. She is the Chair of the stochastic group at the University of Wuppertal.