Anthony Giddens, the former director of the London School of Economics and a current member of the House of Lords, is a world-renowned social theorist who has written over forty books. He has written on just about every major topic in sociology and is known for his work on modernization theory and globalization.

Mitchell Duneier, an award-winning urban ethnographer at Princeton University and the City University of New York Graduate Center, is most famous for his book Sidewalk, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Duneier's research focuses on the urban poor and other groups in the margins of society.

Richard P. Appelbaum, the MacArthur chair of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has won several awards for his teaching and works mainly on globalization and labor issues. Appelbaum is the coauthor of Behind the Label.

Deborah Carr is a demographer and a social psychologist at Rutgers University. Her work focuses on aging, gender, health, and the family. Carr's latest book, Making Up with Mom, examines how the differences between generations' work and family experiences affect women's psychological well-being.