Eric J. Williams, Ph.D. is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Radford University. He teaches courses about constitutional law, the Supreme Court and punishment and corrections. He received his B.A. in Government and American Studies from Lehigh University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University. His writings on prisons and rural communities have appeared in academic journals and newspapers nation-wide, including the L.A. Times and his book The Big House in a Small Town was published in 2011. He is currently working on his next book on Critical Thinking and Ethical Decision-Making for Criminal Justice Professionals that will be published by the University of California Press. Dr. Williams has given guest lectures on various topics relating to prisons and prison management across the country for groups such as the American Corrections Association (ACA) and the North American Association of Wardens and Superintendents (NAAWS), the Association for Women Executives in Corrections (AWEC) and facilitates a training program he developed for the Correctional Management Institute of Texas (CMIT), the National Institute of Corrections (NIC), the Virginia and Maine Department of Corrections, the LA County Sherriff’s Department as well as several county probation departments that teaches critical thinking to senior level criminal justice leaders.

Andrew R. Wilson, Ph.D. is Professor of Strategy and Policy at the United States Naval War College in Newport, RI, the world’s oldest and most prestigious center for senior military education. An old “China Hand,” Andrew received his Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and earned a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University with a specialization in the history of Pre-Modern and Modern China. His dissertation dealt with the Chinese merchant community in the Colonial Philippines. Professor Wilson has published numerous articles and books on Chinese maritime history, the Chinese diaspora, Chinese military history and the history of maritime Asia. Professor Wilson’s research interests are not limited to history. He has also written on Chinese strategic culture, contemporary Asian security, Chinese politics and Chinese military modernization. In addition, he is an expert on strategic thought and formerly served as the Naval War College’s Philip A. Crowl Professor of Comparative Strategy. Before joining the Naval War College faculty in 1998, Professor Wilson taught introductory and advanced courses in Chinese history and the history of the Chinese diaspora at Harvard and at Wellesley College. He has also taught at Salve Regina University and at the University of Rhode Island’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). His courses at OLLI include Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan, The Treasure Fleets of the Great Ming and A History of Modern China. An award-winning educator and dynamic lecturer, Professor Wilson has spoken at numerous military colleges and civilian universities across the United States and around the world, has been featured on the History Channel and National Public Radio, and has been a guest lecturer for One Day University, Scientific American, The New York Times Journeys and National Geographic. Professor Wilson is also an inveterate traveler and fanatical foodie. He has lived in China, Taiwan and the Philippines and makes annual trips to Asia, frequently accompanied by students and faculty from the Naval War College. Professor Wilson’s books include Ambition and Identity: Chinese Merchant-Elites in Colonial Manila, 1885-1916; The Chinese in the Caribbean; China's Future Nuclear Submarine Force; and the forthcoming The Acme of Skill: Strategic Theory from Antiquity to the Information Age. He has also taught for the Great Courses: with lecture series on The Art of War; Masters of War: History’s Greatest Strategic Thinkers; and Understanding Imperial China: Dynasties, Lives and Cultures.

Howard R. Wolf is Emeritus Professor and Senior Fellow in the Department of English at SUNY-Buffalo. A graduate of Horace Mann School, Amherst College (BA), Columbia University (MA), and The University of Michigan (Ph.D.) where he wrote a doctoral dissertation on the theme of “abandonment” in Henry James and was a Hopwood winner for fiction. He has been a Fulbright scholar in Turkey, 1983-84, and South Africa, 1998. He is a Life Member of Wolfson College, Cambridge University and PEN America. His academic fields are American Literature, Autobiography, Short Fiction, Literary Journalism, and the Essay. His published creative work has been in the areas of memoir and the personal essay, short fiction, novel, literary and social criticism, letters, humor, travel, education, and drama. His major book publications are: Forgive the Father: A Memoir of Changing Generations (1978); The Education of a Teacher (1987); Broadway Serenade (novel, 1996); The Education of Ludwig Fried (Jewish American stories, 2006), Far-Away Places: Lessons in Exile (travel, 2007); Second Time Around and other stories (2019); Of Two Lives on The Lower Golan (2020); and now Distant Love (2022). His essays have appeared in: Midstream, The Nation; Christian Science Monitor, The New Republic; The American Scholar; The Virginia Quarterly, The Sewanee Review, and Cithara: Essays in The Judeo-Christian Tradition. His short stories have appeared in Commonwealth Review, Evening Street Review, Nimrod, Mediterranean Review, Cimmaron Review, Trajectory, and Pleiades.

Carl Bernstein is a Pulitzer Prize winning author, writing about national and international affairs for half a century in books, reporting and commentary that has revealed the hidden workings of government and politics around the world. His magazine articles have appeared in Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone and The New Republic. His most recent book “Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom,” is a New York Times Bestseller. From 1999-2001, Bernstein served as editor and executive vice president of Voter.com, a pioneering website that Forbes named the best political site on the internet. He has worked as Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News; and, while at the Washington Post, was also a part-time rock critic. Bob Woodward is an associate editor of The Washington Post, where he has worked for 50 years. He has shared in two Pulitzer Prizes — first in 1973 for the coverage of the Watergate scandal with Carl Bernstein and second in 2002 as the lead reporter for the Post’s coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has authored or co-authored 22 national bestsellers – 16 went to #1 – including three #1 New York Times bestsellers on the Trump presidency: Fear (2018), Rage (2020) and Peril (2021). "

Butterfly World is the result of one man’s hobby gone wild. Born of Dutch immigrants, Ronald Boender grew up in Illinois and was always fascinated with butterflies. He moved to Florida in 1968, and after retiring, he decided to pursue his interest in butterflies. When he learned there was a market for “farmed” butterflies for sale to Universities and Zoos, Boender established MetaScience Co., a commercial butterfly farm, in 1984. Butterfly World opened in 1988, encompassing 3 acres of butterfly aviaries, botanical gardens, and the working butterfly farm and research center. Since then, the park has expanded to include two additional aviaries for tropical birds, an interactive lorikeet encounter, and a skilled aviculture care and research staff to support these endeavors. Boender and Butterfly World also established the North American “Bring Back the Butterflies” Campaign in 1988. It has become a phenomenon, resulting in thousands of new butterfly habitats. Working with scientists at the University of Florida, Butterfly World has been instrumental in saving the endangered Schaus Swallowtail, a species of butterfly that is reestablished in South Florida and may, one day soon, be taken off of the endangered species list.

Steinway artist, Robert Wyatt has performed throughout the United States and internationally. Featured on NPR and PBS broadcasts, Wyatt has also performed at the Kennedy Center, The Phillips Collection, the Library of Congress, Steinway Hall and the 92nd Street Y in New York, and Boston’s Jordan Hall and the Museum of Fine Arts. He has been a lecture/recitalist for the Smithsonian Institution for thirty years and as a Smithsonian Scholar, Wyatt has presented musical programs under the sponsorship of the Ford Foundation. His book, "The George Gershwin Reader," was published by Oxford University Press in 2004.