Marian Smoluchowski was born May 28^th, 1872 in Vorderbrüchl near Vienna. His father was a high official in the chancellery of emperor Franz Joseph I. Smoluchowski studied at Vienna University, where he received his Ph.D. - sub auspiciis imperatoris - in 1894. After that, he spent two years at universities in Paris, Glasgow and Berlin. In 1898 he returned to Vienna, where obtained veniam legendi. In 1900, at the age of 28, Marian Smoluchowski got the chair of the- theoretical physics at the Lvov University, becoming the youngest university professor (from 1903 - full professor) in the whole Habsburg Empire. In 1913 he took the chair of experimental physics at the Jagellonian University. Just before his premature death he was elected for the Rector of Jagellonian University. Smoluchowski died September 5^th, 1917 in Kraków.

Apart from the scientific activity, Marian Smoluchowski had three lifelong passions; one of them was mountain climbing, and the other was music. He climbed in Alps, East Carpathians, Scotland and Tatra Mounts. Together with his brother Tadeusz, they belong to the pioneers of modern alpinism. Smoluchowski loved also music and played the piano with special affection for the works by Wagner, Brahms, Brückner, Franck and Karłowicz. Among his family and friends he played also accompaniment for the songs by Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn. He also was watercolor painter.

Einstein, A. (1905), Über die von der molekularkinetischen Theorie der Wärme geforderte Bewegung von in ruhenden Flüssigkeiten suspendierten Teilchen. Ann. Phys., 322: 549-560. https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.19053220806

von Smoluchowski, M. (1906), Zur kinetischen Theorie der Brownschen Molekularbewegung und der Suspensionen. Ann. Phys., 326: 756-780. https://doi.org/10.1002/andp.19063261405

Corneliu Balan graduated mechanical engineering from NUST Politehnica Bucharest in 1981. He obtained a PhD in continuum mechanics at TU Darmstadt (DAAD fellowship 1990 – 1991), a COST post-doc fellowship at University of Wales at Aberystwyth (1993) and a Fulbright Senior Researcher fellowship at University of Minnesota (1994-1995). Corneliu Balan occupied the position of professor in fluid mechanics at Politehnica Bucharest (1996 – 2021), invited professor at TU Darmstadt (1999 – 2014) and visiting scientist at Claude Bernard University Lyon (2004 – 2005). 

Corneliu Balan founded in 2000 the REOROM group at Politehnica Bucharest, an unit focused on developing research in non-Newtonian fluid mechanics and rheology. He is co-founder and vice-president of the Romanian Society of Rheology (since 2009), an active member of the European Society of Rheology and International Committee of Rheology. He organized numerous summer schools with the aim to promote rheology in Romania and to establish scientific connections between Romanian institutions and research groups from EU and USA. 

Scientific activity of Corneliu Balan was mainly focused on four directions: a) rheometry and modelling of yield stress fluids, b) rheology of polymers derived ceramics, c) flow visualizations of complex fluids in confined domains, d) microfluidics and interfacial phenomena.

He also has a constant interest in philosophy and history of science, especially in investigation the influences of the Austrian universities to the evolution of physics, in particular continuum/fluid mechanics, in the first part of the XXth century. 

Zaremba, S. Remarques sur les travaux de M. Natanson relatifs à la théorie de la viscosité. Bull. Int. Acad. Sci. Crac. 85–93 (1903). https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/13137488

Jaumann, G.  Geschlossenes System physicalischer und chemischer Differentialgesetze. Sitxber. Akad. Wiss. Wein (Ila) 120, 385–530 (1911). https://dnnt.mzk.cz/view/uuid:cc45a870-3931-11eb-a9f6-005056827e51?page=uuid:fee18641-7073-44af-8120-7fd15e5f02b5

Pierre Saramito is a senior researcher at the CNRS, Laboratoire J. Kuntzmann (Grenoble, France), a public research laboratory in applied mathematics and computer science.
After beginning his career studying the mathematical and numerical aspects of viscoelastic fluid flows, he developed research on viscoplasticity and Bingham fluids, with applications in geophysics: mudslides and volcanic lava flows. The goal is to assess environmental risks. He then worked on large-scale modeling of sea ice for climate applications, and proposed a new viscoelastic model with continuous damage.

In 2007, he proposed a new elastoviscoplastic flow model, combining viscoelastic models, such as Oldroyd-B, and viscoplastic models, such as Bingham.
For applications to liquid foams and suspensions, he collaborated with physicists.
This showed that this model provides quantitatively correct predictions for this type of fluid.
More recently, he has turned his attention to biophysical applications, starting with the modeling of biomembranes, then moving on to active matter and biological tissues at the macroscopic scale. In this field, he has proposed a polarity vector constitutive equation.

He is the author of an academic book entitled Complex Fluids (Springer, 2016) and a monograph entitled Continuum Modeling from Thermodynamics (Springer, 2024).
His research focuses on both theoretical modeling of continuous media and numerical methods for complex fluids, at the interface between solid mechanics and fluid mechanics.

Zdzisław Kembłowski was born on 10^th January 1932 in Wieluń. In 1954, he obtained a degree in engineering from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Łódź University of Technology. Between 1954 and 1957, he worked at the “Prosynchem” Chemical Synthesis Industry Design Office in Gliwice. At the same time, he studied at the Faculty of Chemistry at the Silesian University of Technology, where he obtained a master's degree in engineering in 1956. He began working at the Łódź University of Technology in 1957 in what was then the Department of Chemical Engineering and Equipment. In 1963, he obtained his doctoral degree, in 1969 his habilitation degree, the title of associate professor in 1975, and full professor in 1986. His scientific specialization was process engineering and technical rheology of fluids. He was the author of 83 scientific articles, five monographs, and co-author of an academic textbook. He supervised 13 doctoral students. In 1970–1978, he was the director of the Institute of Chemical Engineering and served as the vice dean for student affairs. From 1978 to 1984, he was vice-rector of the Lodz University of Technology for university development, and from 1987 to 1993, he was head of the Institute and then dean of the Faculty of Faculty of Process and Environmental Engineering, established in 1992. From 1992, he was head of the Department of Chemical Engineering. In the academic year 1964/65, he worked at the University of Wales in Swansea, and in the academic year 1984/85 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, where he was a visiting professor from 1986 to 1991. He was a member of the Chemical Engineering Committee of the Polish Academy of Sciences and chairman of the Technical Rheology Section of that Committee. He was a co-organizer and long-time chairman of the Polish-Scottish Society and an honorary member of the British Society of Rheology. He was the initiator of the establishment of the Polish Society of Technical Rheology and its long-time president. 

Zdzisław Kembłowski w died 13^th February 2003.

Kembłowski, Z., Petera, J. A generalized rheological model of thixotropic materials. Rheol Acta 19, 529–538 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01517508

Kembłowski, Z., Petera, J. Rheological characterization of thixotropic fluids. Rheol Acta 18, 702–710 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01533344