Douglas J. Besharov is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and a professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs.  He was the first director of the U.S. National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect.  He is the author or editor of several books, including Recognizing Child Abuse: A Guide for the Concerned (1990), When Drug Addicts Have Children: Reorienting Child Welfare's Response (1994), and Enhancing Early Childhood Programs: Burdens and Opportunities (1996).

Robert Boruch is University Trustee Chair Professor of Education and Statistics at the University of Pennsylvania. A fellow of the American Statistical Association, he has received awards for his work on research methods and policy from the American Educational Research Association, the American Evaluation Association, and the Policy Studies Association. He is the author of nearly 150 scholarly papers and author or editor of a dozen books, including Randomized Experiments for Planning and Evaluation: A Practical Guide (1997) and Evaluation of AIDS Prevention Programs (1991).

James J. Heckman is Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and director of the Center for Social Program Evaluation at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago. He is co-editor of Longitudinal Analysis of Labor Market Data (1985) and numerous scholarly articles on evaluation topics.

Robinson Hollister is a professor of economics at Swarthmore College. He has organized and led reviews of the effectiveness of employment and training programs, including The Minority Female Single Parent Demonstration: New Evidence About Effective Training Strategies (1990), and was co-editor of The National Supported Work Demonstration (1984).

Christopher Jencks is a professor of public policy at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, Harvard University. His research areas of interest include social mobility and inequality. He has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Social Insurance. His publications include The Homeless (1994), Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty, and the Underclass (1992), and Inequality (1974).

Glenn C. Loury is a professor of economics and director of the Institute on Race and Social Division at Boston University. He has served on several advisory commissions of the National Academy of Sciences and is currently vice president of the American Economics Association. He is author of One by One, From the Inside Out: Essays and Reviews on Race and Responsibility in America (1995).

Peter H. Rossi is S.A. Rice Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). He is a past president of the American Sociological Association and has received awards for work in evaluation from the American Evaluation Association, the American Sociological Association, and the Policy Studies Organization. He has authored or co-authored numerous publications, including Just Punishments: Federal Guidelines and Public Views Compared (1997), Feeding the Poor: An Analysis of Five Federal Nutrition Programs (1997), Evaluation: A Systematic Approach (1993), and Down and Out in America: The Origins of Homelessness (1989).

Isabel Sawhill is a senior fellow and holds the Adeline M. and Alfred I. Johnson Chair in Urban and Metropolitan Policy at the Brookings Institution. Prior to this, she was a senior fellow and the Arjay Miller Chair in Public Policy at the Urban Institute.  Before joining the Urban Institute in February 1995, she served two years as associate director of human resources at the Office of Management and Budget. She is the author or editor of numerous books and articles, including Welfare Reform: An Analysis of the Issues (1995) and Challenge to Leadership: Economic and Social Issues for the Next Decade (1988).

Thomas Schelling is Distinguished Professor at the School of Public Affairs and Department of Economics of the University of Maryland. He is a past president of the American Economic Association. He serves on or chairs committees of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the Social Sciences Research Council. He is the author of eight books and over 120 articles, including Choice and Consequence (1984) and Strategy of Conflict (1980).

James Q. Wilson is James Collins Professor of Management at the University of California at Los Angeles and a past president of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of numerous books, including Crime and Human Nature (1996), The Moral Sense (1993), and Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (1991).