Marisa Saunders is a principal associate for research and policy at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (ASIR) at Brown University. Before joining AISR, Marisa was a senior research associate at UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA). She is co-editor (with Jeannie Oakes) of Beyond Tracking: Multiple Pathways to College, Career, and Civic Participation, published by Harvard Education Press. Marisa is a graduate of the University of California, San Diego, and holds an MA in Latin American studies from Stanford University, and an EdD from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Jorge Ruiz de Velasco is associate director for policy and community partnerships at the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford University. Before his Stanford appointment, he served terms as a program officer for educational opportunity and scholarship at the Ford Foundation and as a senior program officer at both the James Irvine Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Jorge also served as a senior research associate at The Urban Institute and as a lawyer for the US Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. Subsequently, he earned an MA in education administration and policy analysis and a PhD in political science, both from Stanford University.

Jeannie Oakes is a senior fellow at the Learning Policy Institute, a member of the National Academy of Education, past president of the American Educational Research Association, and former director of educational opportunity and scholarship at the Ford Foundation. Jeannie is also Presidential Professor Emeritus in Educational Equity at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); and founder of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (IDEA), and Center X; as well as former director of the University of California's All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity (ACCORD).