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.

Irving Labovitz, J.D., is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts and holds a Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law. He is a member of the Massachusetts and Washington, DC Bars and also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as multiple federal appellate and trial courts. He has authored many scholarly law review articles and has been a lecturer for the American Bar Association and Commercial Law League of America. He has been a military prosecutor, a member of the legal staff at the Federal Trade Commission, and engaged by the FDIC as contract counsel to provide legal assistance in liquidating failed banks. He has previously taught as an adjunct professor at Western New England College of Law, acted as co-chair of an urban law firm, and as general counsel for a large corporation. Since 2003, he remains an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University.

Andrew Lawler is author of three books, Under Jerusalem: The Buried History of the World’s Most Contested City, The Secret Token: Myth, Obsession, and the Search for the Lost Colony of Roanoke, a national bestseller, and Why Did the Chicken Cross the World?: The Epic Saga of the Bird that Powers Civilization. As a journalist, he has written more than a thousand newspaper and magazine articles from more than two dozen countries. His byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and many others. He is contributing writer for Science and contributing editor for Archaeology. Andrew’s work has appeared several times in The Best of Science and Nature Writing.

Terryl Lawrence, Ed.D. earned her doctorate in the Arts from Columbia University. She has had numerous exhibitions of her paintings and photographs in New York and Florida and is the recipient of many awards, including a national grant in the Humanities. She currently teaches Art History at Palm Beach State College and is a published writer.