Vanessa R. Simmering is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research program focuses on understanding cognition and development from a dynamic systems perspective by considering how multiple factors influence behavior across timescales and contexts.

Nelson Cowan is Curators' Professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He has conducted NICHD-funded research on working memory, attention, and their childhood development since 1984. His work is shaped by a philosophical interest in human consciousness combined with the hope that the findings can be useful to educators and neuropsychologists.