Jeffrey Smith is the Paul T. Heyne Professor of Economics and Richard Meese Professor of Applied Econometrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was previously Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Michigan. From 1994 to 2001 he was on the faculty at the University of Western Ontario and from 2001 to 2005 he was on the faculty at the University of Maryland. His research centers on experimental and non-experimental methods for the evaluation of interventions, with particular application to social and educational programs.

Fuhua Zhai is an Associate Professor at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service and a Research Associate at Columbia University Population Research Center. His research interests include early childhood education, early interventions, child maltreatment and child welfare, cultural values and child rearing practices, and cross-national child and family policies and programs. He has been using experimental designs and rigorous statistical methods to estimate impacts of programs and policies, especially those targeting children from low-income families.

Rebecca Myerson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, in the Department of Population Health Sciences. Prior to that, she was Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California School of Pharmacy, in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Health Economics. Before receiving her Ph.D. in Chicago, she spent four years conducting global health research, including one year at Peking University as a Fulbright scholar and three years at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, Washington.

Betina Jean-Louis, Ph.D., is the Director of Evaluation for the Harlem Children's Zone. Dr. Jean Louis has spearheaded HCZ's evaluation efforts since March 2002. In this capacity, she assesses the impact of a variety of programs that are key to the short- and long-term success of poor children and families living in the zone. Dr.

Dr. Innocenti is Director of the Research and Evaluation Division at the Center for Persons with Disabilities, a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. He holds an appointment as an Associate Professor in Psychology at Utah State University. Dr. Innocenti has over 30 years of experience working with infants and young children at-risk and with disabilities and their families through multiple research and model demonstration projects.

Heather D. Hill is an Associate Professor in the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington. Hill's research examines the effects of social policy on family economic circumstances and on child health and development. She was involved in the Next Generation Project, which examined how experimental welfare programs implemented in the 1990s affected the wellbeing of children. In other work, she uses experimental and quasi-experimental designs to estimate the effects of maternal employment and job loss on children's health and behavior.

James J. Heckman has devoted his professional life to understanding the origins of major social and economic problems related to inequality, social mobility, discrimination, skill formation and regulation, and to devising and evaluating alternative strategies for addressing those problems. His research recognizes the diversity among people in skills, family origins, peers, and preferences as well as the diversity of institutions and regulations and the consequences of this diversity for analyzing and addressing social and economic problems.

Robert H. Dugger, Ph.D., is a venture capital investor, managing partner at Hanover Provident Capital and retired partner in the hedge fund Tudor Investment Corporation.