Jeffrey P. Beedy, Ph.D. has a long history of accomplishments in the fields of education, character development and sports. Dr. Beedy founded Sports P.L.U.S. - Positive Learning Using Sports - a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of sports as a positive educational medium. Centered out of the New Hampton School, where Dr. Beedy is Headmaster and a coach, his organization runs summer camps and after school programs; conducts workshops for coaches, athletic directors and administrators; produces publications; and participates in sports research. He is author of Sports PLUS as well as numerous articles on human development.

Robb Moss is an independent non-fiction filmmaker whose films have shown at the Telluride Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Cinema du Reel in Paris. He has twice won American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Regional Fellowships and traveled to West Africa under a National Endowment for the Humanities grant with the deYoung Museum in San Francisco. He has shot films in Ethiopia, Liberia, Greece, Mexico, Hungary, Japan, Turkey, Nicaragua, and the Gambia. Many of these films, on such subjects as famine, genocide, and the large-scale structure of the universe, have been broadcast nationally. In 1999 he won a MassMedia Fellowship for his current project, "The Greener Grass." Moss teaches filmmaking in the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University and is the President of the Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF), publisher of The Independent magazine.

Thomas H. O'Connor, Ph.D., a Professor of History, Emeritus, at Boston College, has been teaching since 1950. He has written many books about Boston politics and history, including several books about the Boston Irish American community: South Boston; My Home Town, The Boston Irish; A Political History and Boston Catholics; A History of the Church and Its People. He most recently published Boston A to Z. Dr. O'Connor is a member of the Massachusetts Archives Commission; a member of the board of trustees of the Bostonian Society; and a resident fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan named him as a member of the Commission of the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, and he served in that capacity until 1991.

William S. Pollack, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, is author of The New York Times best-seller Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood, Real Boys' Voices and Real Boys Workbook. He has also authored In a Time of Fallen Heroes: The Recreation of Masculinity. He is director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and founding member and fellow of the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. Pollack, a leading authority on boys' and men's emotional development, lectures around the country, and his television appearances include programs such as OPRAH, DATELINE, LARRY KING LIVE, and CBS THIS MORNING.

Phyllis R. Silverman, Ph.D. is a researcher, teacher and author whose primary interest is bereavement and how death is dealt with in our society. Her most recent work focusing on children and adolescents is the basis of her latest book, Never Too Young to Know: Death in Children’s Lives. She is Professor Emerita at the Institute of Health Professions at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Director of the MGH/Harvard Child Bereavement Study. She recently co-edited Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Her early books focusing on widowhood include Widow-to-Widow and Helping Women Cope with Grief. She lectures around the world and has appeared on the TODAY SHOW, 60 MINUTES and on the DEATH IN AMERICA SERIES on National Public Radio.