Adam Enders is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Louisville, and instructor in the ICPSR program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research and the Global School for Empirical Research Methods. His research is focused on deciphering how people think about politics, including the nature of conspiratorial thought, racial prejudice in political behavior and political polarization.

Chris Bail is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Public Policy at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. He studies political tribalism, extremism, and social psychology using data from social media and tools from the emerging field of computational social science.

David Broockman is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He studies public opinion and political representation in the United States. His over thirty peer-reviewed articles and essays focus on political persuasion, political polarization, campaigns and elections, political ideology, and the representation of racial and ethnic minorities in government. He is the recipient of several scholarly awards, including the Emerging Scholar Award, which is awarded to the top scholar in his subfield within a decade of their PhD.

Kurt Gray is Full Professor in Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he directs the Deepest Beliefs Lab and the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding. He uses interdisciplinary methods to study our deepest held beliefs and how to bridge moral divides.

Lisa Schirch is a Political Scientist and Senior Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies at The University of Notre Dame. Her research focuses on the positive roles of technology in “peacetech” and “digital peacebuilding.” She is a senior research fellow with the Toda Peace Institute, where she coordinates with civil society and technology companies to experiment and innovate new technologies that can scale social cohesion.

Mark Brandt is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University and Principal Investigator of The Belief Systems Lab. The overarching goal of his research program is to understand how ideological and moral beliefs – such as political ideology, religious fundamentalism, and moral conviction – structure attitudes and behaviors and provide people with meaning.

Robb Willer is a Professor in the Departments of Sociology, Psychology (by courtesy), and the Graduate School of Business (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is the Director of the Polarization and Social Change Lab and the Co-Director of the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. His research focus is on social forces that bring people together (e.g., morality, altruism), forces that divide them (e.g., fear, prejudice), and domains of social life that feature the complex interplay of the two (e.g., hierarchies, politics).

Samara Klar is an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy, co-Coordinator of the Arizona Policy Lab and cofounder of WomenAlsoKnowStuff.com. She studies how individuals’ personal identities and social surroundings influence their political attitudes and behavior.

Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud is a Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the School of Journalism and Media, as well as the founding and current Director of the Center for Media Engagement in the Moody College of Communication at The University of Texas at Austin. The Center for Media Engagement examines commercially viable and democratically beneficial ways of improving media.

Timothy Ryan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at UNC, Chapel Hill. He has a number of research interests related to political communication, political behavior, media effects, and political psychology, and is the proud father of a beagle named Juniper!. (The exclamation point is part of her name.)

Katherine Cramer is a Professor of Political Science and Natalie C. Holton Chair of Letters & Science at UW Madison. During the 2018-2019 academic year she is a Visiting Professor with the Laboratory for Social Machines at the MIT Media Lab. She is known for her innovative approach to the study of public opinion, in which she uses methods like inviting herself into the conversations of groups of people to listen to the way they understand public affairs. Her award-winning book, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker, brought to light rural resentment toward cities and its implications for contemporary politics. She is also the author (as Katherine Cramer Walsh) of Talking about Race: Community Dialogues and the Politics of Difference and Talking about Politics: Informal Groups and Social Identity in American Life.

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University’s Stern School of Business, and author. His main areas of study are the psychology of morality and the moral emotions. Haidt is the author of The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, which examines how morality is shaped by emotion and intuition more than by reasoning, and why differing political groups have different notions of right and wrong. He also co-authored The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, which explores the rising political polarization and changing culture on college campuses, and its effects on mental health.

Shanto Iyengar is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution. Iyengar’s teaching and research addresses the role of the news media and mass communication in contemporary politics. He is the author of several books including Media Politics: A Citizen’s Guide, Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate, Explorations in Political Psychology, and News That Matters: Television and American Opinion.

Laura Maristany is the Director of External Affairs at Bitwise Industries, an organization which leverages private/public partnerships to develop a skilled and representative workforce through tech apprenticeships. Laura has extensive Capitol Hill and policy making experience having served as chief federal advocate and Director of the Washington, D.C. office for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) and as Executive Director of Legislative Affairs for the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU). In addition, Laura previously served as the Associate Director for Constructive Politics at Democracy Fund, an independent foundation working to ensure that the U.S. political system is able to withstand new challenges and deliver on its promise to the American people.

Parisa Parsa serves as CEO of Cortico.ai, which builds systems that bring underheard community voices and perspectives back to the center of a healthier public dialogue, in partnership with the Laboratory for Social Machines at the MIT Media Lab. Parisa previously served in religious and secular nonprofit leadership roles, most recently as Executive Director of Essential Partners, devoted to creating constructive dialogue across deep divides. She holds an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School.

Duf Sundheim has played a key role in historic bipartisan reforms, served as advisor to governors and other senior officials, chairman of the California Republican Party from 2003-2007, and has received national and state awards for his efforts.  Duf currently serves as a member of the Federal Court’s Advanced Mediation Practice Group, a member of the Leadership Council of California Forward, a non-partisan non-profit that works for shared prosperity, and Director of Strategic Planning and Legal Counsel for Technifex.