J. Michael Herrmann received a Diploma in Mathematics in 1988 and a PhD (Dr. rer. nat.) in Computer Science in 1993, both from Leipzig University, Germany. He has been predoctoral guest researcher at JNRI Dubna, Russia, and High Energy Physics Department of Tel Aviv University, and postdoctoral researcher at Leipzig University, at NORDITA, Copenhagen, and at the Laboratory for Information Representation at RIKEN,  Japan. From 1996-2001, he was with the Max-Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics at Göttingen, Germany. Presently he is assistant professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the Institute for Nonlinear Dynamics, Göttingen University.