Professor Howard Worner had an extensive career and was a seminal individual in the field of metallurgy. He was born into a farming family in rural Victoria and he attended the Bendigo School of Mines in the early 1930s. He studied at university until 1942 when, at the age of 28, he became the youngest ever recipient of a Doctor of Science (DSc) from The University of Melbourne.

Professor Ann Woolcock was born in Reynella, South Australia in 1937. She graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide and pursued postgraduate studies in respiratory medicine at the University of Sydney. Her MD thesis, awarded in 1967, was on the mechanical behaviour of the lungs in asthma.