Richard Madsen received his MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University. He was co-director of a Ford Foundation project to advance the cause of academic sociology in China and has written twelve books on Chinese and American culture and relations. He is a distinguished professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

Steven M. Tipton received his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from Harvard. He is a senior fellow at Emory University's Center for the Study of Law and Religion and was the director of Emory's Graduate Division of Religion from 1998 to 2003.

William Sullivan holds a BA from Harvard College and a doctorate from the Centre of Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He lives in Massachusetts.

Ann Swidler received her BA from Harvard in 1966 and her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975. She was a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1982 and in 2013 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is most famous for her work in cultural sociology and for her much-cited article "Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies."