Joseph Alper has been a science and health care writer for 21 years. During that time, he has served as a contributing correspondent for Science, and as a contributing editor of Nature Biotechnology and Self magazines. He has also written for a variety of publications, including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Health Magazine, and has written numerous policy documents for the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Sciences. Alper has won several national writing awards, including the American Chemical Society's Grady/Stack Award for career achievements in science writing and two national writing awards from the American Psychological Association. Alper has also taught journalism and writing at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Minnesota, and Colorado State University. He graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana, and received Master's of Science degrees in both Biochemistry and Agricultural Journalism from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

A. E. (Ted) Benjamin , Ph.D., is professor and chair in the Department of Social Welfare, School of Public Policy and Social Research at the University of California, Los Angeles. His interests include long-term services for people with chronic conditions, particularly comparative access and quality issues. He has done research on various populations with chronic health conditions in order to better understand commonalities and differences and their impact on public policy. This research has involved the elderly, younger adults with chronic condition, people with HIV disease, and children with special health needs. His most recent research has addressed consumer direction in home care with support from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has written numerous papers on home and community-based services and is co-editor (with Bob Newcomer) of Indicators of Chronic Health Conditions, published in 1997 by Johns Hopkins University Press. He received a doctorate in political science and social work from the University of Michigan in 1977.

Paul Brodeur was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly forty years. During that time, he alerted the nation to the public health hazard posed by asbestos, to the depletion of the ozone layer by chlorofluorocarbons, and to the harmful effects of microwave radiation and power-frequency electromagnetic fields. His work has been acknowledged with a National Magazine Award and the Journalism Award of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The United Nations Environment Program has named him to its Global 500 Roll of Honour for outstanding environmental achievements.

Ethan Bronner was named education editor at The New York Times in 1999. He came to The New York Times in September 1997 as a national correspondent and reported on trends in higher education and grades K through 12. From 1985 until 1997, Mr. Bronner was with The Boston Globe, where he served as Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem, and a Supreme Court and legal affairs correspondent in Washington, D.C. He began his journalistic career at Reuters in 1980 and reported from London, Madrid, Brussels, and Jerusalem. Mr. Bronner is the author of Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the 25 best books of 1989. Mr. Bronner received a B.A. in Letters from Wesleyan University and an M.S. from Columbia University's School of Journalism.

Susan Dentzer is the on-air health correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, where she leads a unit devoted to coverage of a wide range of health and medical topics. The unit is a partnership between The NewsHour and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Many of Dentzer's pieces focus on policy issues, such as Social Security and Medicare reform, the uninsured and growing needs for long-term care. In 2000, Dentzer was awarded the Robinson Electronic Media Award by the American Psychiatric Association for her report on schizophrenia. Both a print and a television journalist, Dentzer was formerly chief economics correspondent and economics columnist for U.S. News & World Report and a senior writer at Newsweek. A graduate of Dartmouth College and a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Dentzer is currently chair of the Dartmouth Board of Trustees. Pamela S. Dickson is a senior program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Her program activities at the Foundation focus on increasing access to care for all Americans, with a particular emphasis on reducing racial and ethnic disparities in access to care; as well as contributions to the Foundation's New Jersey funding portfolio. Before joining the Foundation, Ms. Dickson held several senior positions at the New Jersey Department of Health, including assistant commissioner from 1988 through 1994 and a subsequent term as director of health care reform initiatives. Ms. Dickson has held positions as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Health Data Organizations and of the Access for the Uninsured Steering Committee of the National Academy for State Health Policy. She holds an M.B.A. in Health Care Administration from the Wharton School of Business.

Digby Diehl is a writer, a literary collaborator, and a television, print, and internet journalist. Recently honored with the Jack Smith Award from the Friends of the Pasadena Public Library, his book credits include Angel on My Shoulder, the autobiography of singer Natalie Cole; The Million Dollar Mermaid, the autobiography of MGM star Esther Williams; Tales from the Crypt, the history of the popular comic book, movie, and television series; and A Spy for All Seasons, the autobiography of former CIA officer Duane Clarridge. For eleven years, Diehl was the literary correspondent for ABC-TV's Good Morning America, and was recently the book editor for the Home Page show on MSNBC. He continues to appear regularly on the Morning News on KTLA. Previously the entertainment editor for KCBS television in Los Angeles, he was a writer for the Emmys and for the soap opera Santa Barbara, book editor of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, editor-in-chief of art book publishers Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and the founding book editor of The Los Angeles Times Book Review. Diehl holds an M.A. in Theatre from UCLA and a B.A. in American Studies from Rutgers University, where he was a Henry Rutgers Scholar.

Richard S. Frank is a freelance writer and editor and is currently an adjunct professor at Boston University's Washington Journalism Center. From 1976 to 1997, he was the editor of National Journal, the Washington-based weekly on national politics and federal policy. During his tenure, the magazine won two National Magazine Awards and its reporters won numerous national awards for public affairs reporting. His earlier journalistic experience included stints as a local government reporter for the Bergen Record in New Jersey, as a statehouse and City Hall reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun, as state legislative correspondent and public transportation reporter and Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin, and as international economics and trade reporter, associate editor, and managing editor at National Journal. He interrupted his journalistic career for almost two years to serve as chief administrative assistant to the Mayor of Baltimore. He has a bachelor's degree from Syracuse University in international relations and journalism and a master's from the University of Chicago in political science, and he was an Advanced International Reporting Fellow at Columbia University.

Peter Goodwin is vice president and treasurer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Before he joined the Foundation, in 1984, he was administrator at the Beth Israel Medical Center, New York. In 1991, he was promoted to vice president for financial monitoring and in 1995 promoted to treasurer. He oversees the areas of treasury, accounting, information technology, financial monitoring, and administration. He is chairman of the Board of Directors at the Sikora Center in Camden, New Jersey, a member of the Board of Directors of the Haddonfield Little League, and was a 1995 Fellow in Leadership New Jersey. He received his bachelor's degree from Boston College and his MBA in Health Care Administration and Finance from Baruch College, City University of New York.

Marco Navarro is a program officer at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a member of the Community Health and Health and Behavior program management teams. Navarro became a program officer after five years as a financial officer for the Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he worked for ten years managing community development programs, including the production of affordable housing projects and the growth of a community-owned credit union in the City of Newark, New Jersey. Mr. Navarro earned a master's degree in city and regional planning from Rutgers University, and has served as a public commissioner of the New Jersey Urban Enterprise Zone Authority since 1989.

Carolyn Newbergh is a Northern California writer who has covered health care trends and policy issues for more than 20 years. Her freelance work has appeared in numerous print and online publications. As a reporter for the Oakland Tribune, Ms. Newbergh wrote articles on health care delivery for the poor as well as emergency room violence, AIDS, and the impact of crack cocaine on the children of addicts. Ms. Newbergh was also an investigative reporter for the Tribune, winning prestigious honors for a series on how consultants intentionally cover up earthquake hazards in California.

Richard C. Reynolds, M.D., is a courtesy professor of medicine at the University of Florida College of Medicine. In his previous role as executive vice president at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, he participated in the development and oversight of several programs in medical education. He is a former dean of The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. Previously, while a faculty member at the University of Florida, he helped initiate a program in general internal medicine and became the founding chairman of the Department of Community Health and Family Medicine. He has co-edited two books, Health of a Rural County and On Doctoring. Trained as an internist, he first practiced in a small city in western Maryland.

Steven A. Schroeder, M.D., is president and chief executive officer of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Schroeder trained in internal medicine at the Harvard Medical Service of the Boston City Hospital, in epidemiology as a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Communicable Diseases Center, and in public health at the Harvard Center for Community Health and Medical Care. He served as an instructor in medicine at Harvard, assistant and associate professor of medicine and health care sciences at George Washington University, and associate professor and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At both George Washington University and UCSF he was founding medical director of a university-sponsored health maintenance organization, and at UCSF he founded its Division of General Internal Medicine. Dr. Schroeder continues to practice general internal medicine on a part-time basis at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has more than 225 publications to his credit. Dr. Schroeder has served on a number of editorial boards, including-at present-the New England Journal of Medicine, and is a member of the boards of the International Academic Review Committee for the Goldman School of Medicine, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, the American Legacy Foundation, and the Harvard University Board of Overseers. He has received honorary doctorates from Rush University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, and Georgetown University.

Rani E. Snyder, M.P.A., is a research associate at the School of Public Policy and Social Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a doctoral student at the UCLA School of Public Health. Her work has focused mainly on issues affecting elderly people and the Medicare program and includes publications in Health Affairs, Medical Care Research and Review, and Health Services Research. Prior to moving to Los Angeles, she worked at two foundations that fund work in health care: the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund. She has a master's degree in public administration from New York University.

John Stone, M.D., is professor of medicine (cardiology) and associate dean at Emory University School of Medicine. A clinician and teacher, he is also a writer and poet whose work has appeared widely, from The New York Times Magazine to Poetry (Chicago). He has written four books of poetry, all from Louisiana State University Press; the most recent is Where Water Begins (1998). In the Country of Hearts is a collection of his writings about his career in cardiology. He has spoken and read from his work in 38 states and at more than 100 institutions from Yale to Stanford to Oxford University, England.