John Faben studied Mathematics at the University of Birmingham. He then spent a year in Edinburgh doing a Masters in Operational Research before going on to do a Ph.D. with Mark Jerrum at Queen Mary in London. The focus of his research there was the complexity of modular counting, particularly in Constraint Satisfaction Problems, but he also enjoyed the existence of the Combinatorics Study Group. He doesn't do research level mathematics any more, but has moved back to Scotland and works for Barclays Bank in Glasgow. He plays both bridge and water polo, and has yet to meet anyone else who can say the same.

Mark Jerrum graduated from Edinburgh University in 1981, where his advisor was Leslie Valiant. He remained at Edinburgh until 2007, when he moved to Queen Mary, University of London. He has a long-term interest in the computational complexity of counting problems, and in randomised algorithms, particularly those based on Markov chain Monte Carlo.