Stephen Kowel, Ph.D., earned his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He has held faculty positions at Syracuse University, the University of California, Davis, the University of Alabama in Huntsville, and the University of Cincinnati, where he also served as dean of the College of Engineering. He has been elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and of the Optical Society of America (OPTICA).

Art Kress earned his MS Degree from California State University. He was the theater manager at Philadelphia's Playhouse in the Park and producer/director of multiple productions in Los Angeles. He organized a national playwriting competition with Ed Asner, Gene Nelson, and Norman Panama as judges. Acted in a pre-Broadway production of Mr. Gilbert, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Green (about the lives of G&S). He taught a class on Gilbert & Sullivan at UCLA.

A long-term devotee of Jewish humor, Al Kustanowitz, MBA, has been collecting and sharing it even before there was an internet. In 2009, after a 36-year career at IBM managing new technology projects, Kustanowitz founded Jewish Humor Central (jewishhumorcentral.com), an internet blog. Through the blog he brings a daily dose of fun and positive energy to readers who would otherwise start the day reading news that is often drab, dreary, and depressing (subscribing is free). He has published 11 books on Jewish humor based on his more than 3,800 blog postings, each of which includes a video clip and his commentary. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the City University of New York and taught computer science courses at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.