Zoltán Dörnyei was a Hungarian-born British applied linguist. He was Professor of Psycholinguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK. He was one of the most prolific and influential researchers in second language acquisition and the psychology of foreign language learning. His work on motivation remains central in the field. He was awarded the Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize in 1989.

Jean-Marc Dewaele is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London, UK. He has published widely on individual differences. He is former President of the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA) and is General Editor of the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He won the Robert Gardner Award for Excellence in Second Language and Bilingualism Research in 2016 and the EUROSLA Distinguished Scholarship Award in 2022.