Mike Palmquist is an Associate Vice Provost for Learning and Teaching at Colorado State University and the Director of CSU’s Institute for Learning and Teaching. A professor of English and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar, he is recognized nationally for his work in computer-supported writing instruction and, in particular, in designing Web-based instructional materials to support writing. His most recent Web-based projects are Writing@CSU (http://writing.colostate.edu), an open-access, educational Web site for writers and writing instructors, and the WAC Clearinghouse (http://wac.colostate.edu), the leading site for communication across the curriculum. He is the author of numerous articles and essays on writing and teaching with technology and writing across the curriculum. In 2004, he received the Charles Moran Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field, which recognizes "exemplary scholarship and professional service to the field of computers and writing." In 2006, the CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition and Composition named him Outstanding Technology Innovator. He currently serves on the Executive Committee of the National Council of Teachers of English and as chair of the NCTE’s College Section. He is the author of Joining the Conversation: Writing in College and Beyond (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010); The Bedford Researcher, Third Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009); and Designing Writing: A Practical Guide (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005).

Fred C. Pampel (Ph.D., University of Illinois) is Professor of Sociology and Research Associate of the Institute of Behavior Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder. With John Williamson, he is the author of Age, Class, Politics, and the Welfare State and Old Age Security in Comparative Perspective. He has published numerous articles on topics relating to social policy, age structure, and pension spending, and is currently doing research on age differences in income inequality and mortality from suicide and homicide.

Gary Parks is an English professor at Shoreline Community College, in Shoreline, Washington. He has been teaching composition, literature, and creative writing for almost twenty years. His research interests include online communication and distance learning, and he helped pioneer his college's first Web-based distance learning courses. A member of NCTE and CCC, he has given presentations at various assessment and distance learning conferences as well as at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity. He is a contributing author to the Bedford/St. Martin's VirtuaLit Fiction site and has had short stories published in several literary magazines.

Dr. Venetria K. Patton is Director of African American Studies and Research Center and Associate Professor of English at Purdue University.  Dr. Patton is the author of Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women’s Fiction (2000), the coeditor of Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology (2001), and editor of Teaching American Literature: Background Readings (2006).  She is currently working on The Grasp That Reaches Beyond the Grave: The Ancestral Call in Black Women’s Texts.

Joe Perry (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) is Associate Professor of modern German and European history at Georgia State University. He has published numerous articles and is author of the recently published book Christmas in Germany: A Cultural History (2010). His current research interests include issues of consumption, gender, and television in East and West Germany after World War II.

Linda H. Peterson is the Niel Gray Jr. Professor of English and codirector of the Bass Writing Program at Yale University, where she teaches Victorian poetry and prose.  She is the coauthor of Victorian Women Artists and Authors (1994) and author of Victorian Autobiography: The Tradition of Self-Interpretation (1986) and Traditions of Women's Autobiography: The Poetics and Politics of Life Writing (1999).

Anthony R. Petrosky, the Associate Dean of the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh, holds a joint appointment as a Professor in the School of Education and the English Department.  Along with Stephanie McConachie, he codirects the English Language Arts Disciplinary Literacy Project in the Institute for Learning (IFL) at the Learning Research and Development Center.  As a part of this Institute project, he has worked with professional learning and curriculum development in English for school and district leaders in the public schools of Austin, Dallas, Denver, New York City, Fort Worth, Prince George’s County, and Pittsburgh.  McConachie and Petrosky are the coeditors of Content Matters:  A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Improving Student Learning, a 2010 collection of reports on the IFL Disciplinary Literacy Project, as well as coauthors of chapters in the book.  Petrosky served on the Reading and English Common Core Standards Project for the Chief States School Officers to develop common core reading and English standards for the US.  In conjunction with this project, he also is a member of the Gates Foundation funded Aspects of Text Complexity Project to develop procedures for assessing text complexity for the common core reading and English standards.  He was the Principal Investigator and Co-Director of the Early Adolescence English Language Arts Assessment Development Lab for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, which developed the first national board certification for English teachers.  He has also served as Co-Director of the Western Pennsylvania Writing Project.  He was a researcher for the MacArthur Foundation funded Higher Literacies Studies, where he was responsible for conducting and writing case studies on literacy efforts in the Denver, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and the Ruleville and Mound Bayou school districts in the Mississippi Delta.  He is past Chair of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Committee on Research and a past elected member of the NCTE Research Foundation.  His first collection of poetry, Jurgis Petraskas, published by Louisiana State University Press (LSU), received the Walt Whitman Award from Philip Levine for the Academy of American Poets and a Notable Book Award from the American Library Association.  Petrosky’s second collection of poetry, Red and Yellow Boat, was published by LSU in 1994, and Crazy Love, his third collection, was published by LSU in the fall of 2003. Along with David Bartholomae, Petrosky is the coauthor and coeditor of four books: Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts: Theory and Method for a Reading and Writing Course; The Teaching of Writing; Ways of Reading:  An Anthology for Writers; and History and Ethnography:  Reading and Writing About Others.

James Phelan is a professor of English and chair of the English department at the Ohio State University.  He is editor of the award-winning journal Narrative,  and has written and edited several books on literary theory, including Worlds from Words (1981), Reading People, Reading Plots (1989), and Narrative as Rhetoric (1996), and has published a memoir of teaching literature in the academy, Beyond the Tenure Track (1991).  With Gerald Graff, he is coeditor of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Case Study in Critical Controversy (1995).

Jay Phelan teaches biology at UCLA, where he has taught introductory biology in large lectures for majors and non-majors for twelve years. He received his Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Harvard in 1995, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Yale and UCLA. His primary area of research is evolutionary genetics, and his original research has been published in Evolution, Experimental Gerontology, and the Journal of Integrative and Comparative Biology, among others. His research has been featured on Nightline, CNN, the BBC, and National Public Radio; in Science Times and Elle; and in more than a hundred newspapers. He is the recipient of more than a dozen teaching awards.  With Terry Burnham, Jay is the co-author of the international best-seller Mean Genes: From Sex to Money to Food—Taming Our Primal Instincts. Written for the general reader, Mean Genes explains in simple terms how knowledge of the genetic basis of human nature can empower individuals to lead more satisfying lives. Writing for a non-scientific audience has honed Jay’s writing style to one that is casual and inviting to students, but also scientifically precise.

Christopher Phelps is associate professor of American Studies at the University of Nottingham in England. A specialist in twentieth-century American intellectual and political history, he is author of Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist (1997) and edited and introduced Max Shachtman's Race and Revolution for Verso (2003). He has twice received the Fulbright Award: in 2000 to teach American philosophy and intellectual history in Hungary, and in 2004-2005 to serve as Distinguished Chair in American Studies for Poland. He has written articles and reviews for many periodicals, including Times Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, New Politics, and The Nation.

William H. Phillips received his BA from Purdue University, his MA from Rutgers University, and his PhD in dramatic literature and film studies from Indiana University. He has taught introductory film courses at the University of Illinois, Urbana; Indiana University, South Bend; California State University, Stanislaus; and the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire. His publications include the books Analyzing Films (1985), Writing Short Scripts (Second Edition, 1999), and Writing Short Stories: The Most Practical Guide (2002).

James L. Pinson has taught journalism for about twenty-five years at the Missouri School of Journalism and at Eastern Michigan University,and has addressed various press groups on the subjects of grammar and other editing skills. He has also worked for newspapers in Colorado, Missouri, and Michigan, and has a doctorate in journalism and a master's in creative writing.

Dr. Bernard Pipkin, Ph.D. is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Southern California. He has authored three books and many professional papers in environmental geology, received the AA award for teaching excellence and hosted the Emmy-winning series, Oceanus.