Alan Blatecky is deputy director of the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). RENCI is a collaborative venture of Duke University, NC State University, UNC Chapel Hill, and the state of North Carolina that combines the universities strengths with the social, business and research opportunities of the Research Triangle and the state of North Carolina. RENCI aims to bolster the economic vitality of North Carolina and to empower the business and research sectors to solve society’s most challenging problems. Blatecky was also a member of the advisory committees of the Biomedical Informatics Research Network and the National Earthquake Engineering Simulation Grid. In North Carolina, Blatecky was executive director of the North Carolina Networking Initiative and a vice president at the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina (MCNC).

Bruce Jentleson is a Professor of Public Policy Studies and Political Science and Duke University and served as the Director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy from 2000-2005. Jentleson is an expert on U.S. foreign policy with an emphasis on Middle East peace and security. His present research focuses on striking a balance between preventive diplomacy and military intervention.

Bruce Kuniholm is the Director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and is a Professor of Public Policy Studies and History at Duke University. His research and interests include diplomatic history, national security, U.S. policy in the Near East, uses of history in public policy, and Turkey.

Bruce Lawrence is the Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Humanities Professor of Religion at Duke University. He is an expert on Islam and non-Muslim religious traditions of Asia, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. Lawrence is the author of numerous books, including "Messages to the World," an edited volume of Osama Bin Laden's statements. His other books explore the intellectual and social history of Asian Muslims and the interplay between religion and ideology.

Carl Ernst is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies and the Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. Ernst is a specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia. His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of Islam and Sufism.

Cass Miller is a Professor of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include multiphase porous medium systems, groundwater, environmental modeling, and computational science.

Charles Kurzman is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UNC Chapel Hill and the Associate Director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. His interests include Islam, Iran, and the Middle East. Kurzman has also written on liberal Islam, the Iranian Revolution, and US-Iranian relations.

Christopher Schroeder is the Charles S. Murphy Professor of Law and Professor of Public Policy Studies and the Director of the Program in Public Law at Duke University. His areas of research and scholarship include environmental and administrative law, democratic theory, legislative institutions and separation of powers. Schroeder has served as Acting Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice, where he was responsible for legal advice on a broad range of issues, including separation of powers and administrative law. He has also served as Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cori Dauber is an Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, UNC Chapel Hill. Her areas of expertise include the Cold War, US military intervention in Somalia, Nuclear Strategic doctrine, US military policy, deterrence, and the Gulf War.

Daniel A. Reed serves as Vice Chancellor for Information Technology, Chief Information Officer for UNC-CH, and director of Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI). Reed serves as an NIH panel expert on biomedical informatics, and he chairs the policy board for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, the Department of Energy's high performance computing center for scientific research. He was principal investigator and chief architect for the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid project on computing infrastructure.