Douglas J. Emlen is a professor at the University of Montana. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, multiple research awards from the National Science Foundation including their five-year CAREER award, and the E. O. Wilson Naturalist Award from the American Society of Naturalists.

Carl Zimmer is one of the country's leading science writers. A columnist for the New York Times, he is the author of 13 books, including She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potentials of Heredity, which The Guardian named the best science book of 2018. Zimmer is professor adjunct at Yale University, where he teaches science writing. Among his many honors, Zimmer has won the Stephen Jay Gould Prize, awarded by the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the National Association of Biology Teachers Distinguished Service Award.