HotReference is developed mainly by Leandro Farias Estrozi who started writing the code on January 2003 during his PhD, motivated by the personal desire to learn web technologies. However, considering the outstanding features of the program, his colleagues also started using it and collaborating by making many suggestions that became what HotReference is today. Specially, Daniela Ushizima who is professor at the Universidade de Santos (Unisantos) and Ricardo Fabbri who is now a PhD student at the Brown University (USA).

Now, Leandro has a post-doctoral position at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - CNRS, France, and works on the development of methods for the 3d reconstruction of macromolecular structures from cryo-electron microscopy.