Benjamin Ragnar Sveinbjoernsson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Iceland. He obtained his B.Sc. in chemistry from the Unviersity of Iceland (2009) and Ph.D. in Chemistry from California Institute of Technology in 2014. After his studies at Caltech he joined Pomona College as the Robbins Postdoctoral fellow before joining the Faculty of Physical Sciences within the School of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the University of Iceland. He has served in the safety group for the Institute of Physical Sciences and Faculty of Physical Sciences since 2018 and has been involved in teaching a safety course at the university. He is also currently the chairman of the Icelandic Chemical Society. Sveinbjorn Gizurarson, PhD, is Professor in Toxicology and Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics at the University of Iceland. He obtained his MS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in completed his Ph.D. from the same university. After being PostDoc at National Institute of Health of Japan (Tokyo, Japan), he moved to Reykjavik and started working at the University of Iceland. He has an Honorary Research Professor position at the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, in Blantyre, Malawi and has a guest position at the Palm Beach Atlantic University in Florida, USA. He has developed a formulation, that resulted in a rescue drug to treat cluster seizures, called Nayzilam (R). Dr. Gizurarson has been involved in laboratory safety since 1987 and was instrumental in starting the University of Iceland's safety committee and has served as the chair of the committee since its start.
