Menno Schilthuizen

is a senior researcher at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, and professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University, the Netherlands. For seven years, he lived and worked in Malaysian Borneo, where he helped set up the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation. He published more than 100 papers in scientific journals including Nature and Science. His work focuses on evolution and biodiversity, mostly in insects and snails and mostly in Borneo, the Mediterranean, and the Netherlands. The coming year he will focus on the South of Suriname. Schilthuizen is also active in science popularization. He has published four books for the general public, most recently: Nature’s Nether Regions (Penguin, 2014) and Darwin Comes to Town (Quercus Books, 2018). He is also a regular contributor to magazines such as Time, New Scientist, the Huffington Post, and the New York Times. He is the co-founder of Taxon Expeditions.

Iva Njunjić

is a biospeleologist (or: cave-biologist) working on evolution of cave beetles. She obtained her PhD from the Paris-Sorbonne University and has worked at the Institute for Nature Conservation of Serbia, the University of Novi Sad, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. She is a National Geographic Explorer and TEDx speaker. Iva explored more than 300 caves, and has published scientific papers on the bizarre spider-like cave beetles of southern Europe. Her work has been featured in international media like the Guardian and Live Science. Some of her cave explorations were captured in videos that can be viewed here and here and new species that she described were listed among Top ten species described in 2016. She is also the co-founder of Taxon Expeditions.