Lucija Brezočnik received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the University of Maribor, Slovenia. She is a teaching assistant and Ph.D. candidate. She works on several projects in the industry and is the author of a few journal papers, more than 30 conference papers, and one book chapter, as well as being a reviewer for more than 50 recognized peer-review journals. Her research interests include machine learning, computational intelligence, data science, swarm intelligence, bioinformatics, software engineering, and agile software development. For her work, she has received several international and local awards alongside grants for her research activities. She is also the current IEEE Slovenia Vice-Chair and IEEE Region 8 HTAC and EPICS member.

Tanja Žlender received her B.Sc. from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Maribor, Slovenia, followed by an M.Sc. from the Biotechnical Faculty in Ljubljana, Slovenia. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D., specializing in next-generation sequencing, polymerase chain reaction, and bioinformatics. Tanja leverages her expertise in these areas to develop innovative methods for tracking sources of fecal pollution.

Maja Rupnik is head of the Department for Microbiological Research at the National Laboratory for Health, Environment and Food (NLZOH) in Maribor, Slovenia. Also, since 2005, she has been a Professor of Microbiology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Maribor. She is a worldwide recognized expert on Clostridium difficile and one of the main organizers of the 'International Clostridium difficile Symposium'. Her research interests focus on the molecular biology and epidemiology of Clostridium difficile, molecular typing techniques and gut microbiota. The main interests of her group are the variant C. difficile strains. The honors and awards she has obtained for her work include the Alexander von Huboldt grant, the ESCMID/bioMerieux Award for Advances in Clinical Microbiology and the national award Zois Certificate of Recognition for exceptional scientific achievements in microbiology.

Vili Podgorelec is a professor of computer science at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. His main research interests include machine learning, data science, intelligent systems, computational intelligence, medical informatics, and software engineering. He has participated in and led many national and international research projects, both scientific (including EU Horizon, FP, Tempus, and Erasmus projects) and industrial R&D projects. He is the author of more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific journal papers, three books, and several book chapters on data science, computational intelligence, software engineering and medical informatics. He has also given 15 invited talks at major international conferences worldwide. He has worked as a visiting professor and/or researcher at several universities around the world, including the University of Osaka, Japan; the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil; the University of Nantes, France; the University of La Laguna, Spain; the University of Madeira, Portugal; the University of Applied Sciences Seinäjoko, Finland; and the University of Applied Sciences Valencia, Spain. He has also received several international awards and grants for his research activities.