Michael Richard Beschloss (born November 30, 1955) is an American historian specializing in the United States presidency.

He is the author of nine books on the presidency. He also has contributed columns on history under the title HistorySource to The New York Times.

John Hopkins University President Ron Daniels has made understanding and improving democracy one of his primary areas of expertise and communication.

Author of the internationally recognized book What Universities Owe Democracy, Daniels is a leading voice in arguing for the indispensable role that universities play in sustaining democratic societies at a critical moment in history when democracies around the globe are under threat. Throughout his presidency, Johns Hopkins has made significant efforts to promote democratic values and civic education on campus. This includes the introduction of Democracy Day into first-year orientation; the launch of a university Debate Initiative to model reasoned debate on campus; and deepened support for the voter outreach initiative Hopkins Votes.

Daniels has led the creation of ambitious, multidisciplinary initiatives such as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Agora Institute, which aims to strengthen civic engagement and encourage robust dialogue among all citizens.

Lester Lawrence Lessig III (born June 3, 1961) is an American academic, attorney, and political activist. He is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and the former director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Lessig was a candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for president of the United States in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but withdrew before the primaries.

Lessig is a proponent of reduced legal restrictions on copyright, trademark, and radio frequency spectrum, particularly in technology applications. In 2001, he founded Creative Commons, a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon and to share legally.

Jon Ellis Meacham (born May 20, 1969) is an American writer, reviewer, historian and presidential biographer who is serving as the current Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral. A former executive editor and executive vice president at Random House, he is a contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, a contributing editor to Time magazine, and a former editor-in-chief of Newsweek.

He is the author of several books. He won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. He holds the Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Endowed Chair in American Presidency at Vanderbilt University.

He is co-Chair of Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy.

Professor Neblo’s research focuses on deliberative democracy and political psychology. His most recent book, Politics with the People: Building a Directly Representative Democracy (with Kevin Esterling and David Lazer; Cambridge University Press, 2018), develops and tests a new model of politics connecting citizens and elected officials to improve representative government.

His first book, Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2015), cuts across the deadlock between supporters of deliberative theory and their empirical critics by focusing on the core goals of the larger deliberative political system.

Professor Neblo is the Director of the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability and teaches in the Political Science Department at Ohio State.

Larry Joseph Sabato (born August 7, 1952) is an American political scientist and political analyst. He is the Robert Kent Gooch Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where he is also the founder and director of the Center for Politics, which works to promote civic engagement and participation.

The Center for Politics is also responsible for the publication of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, an online newsletter and website that provides free political analysis and electoral projections.

Frank Sesno is an American journalist, former CNN correspondent, anchor and Washington bureau chief, author, and former director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University. Sesno is also the creator and host of Planet Forward, a web-to-television show on PBS.

Sesno is a Professor of Media and Public Affairs at the George Washington University. Sesno assumed the Director’s role at the School of Media and Public Affairs in September 2009 and stepped down from the role in June 2020. In 2020, Sesno announced he would serve as the school’s director of strategic initiatives.

Laurence Henry Tribe (born October 10, 1941) is an American legal scholar who is a University Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. He previously served as the Carl M. Loeb University Professor at Harvard Law School.

Tribe is a constitutional law scholar and co-founder of the American Constitution Society. He is the author of American Constitutional Law (1978), a major treatise in that field, and has argued before the United States Supreme Court 36 times. Tribe was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2010.