Gi-Wook Shin is the director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center; the Tong Yang, Korea Foundation, and Korea Stanford Alumni Chair of Korean Studies; the founding director of the Korean Studies Program; a senior fellow of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies; and a professor of sociology, all at Stanford University. As a historical-comparative and political sociologist, his research has concentrated on areas of social movements, nationalism, development, and international relations.

Shin is the author/editor of numerous books and articles. His books include Beyond North Korea: Future Challenges to South Korea's Security (2011); U.S.-DPRK Educational Exchanges: Assessment and Future Strategy (2011); History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories (2011); South Korean Social Movements: From Democracy to Civil Society (2011); One Alliance, Two Lenses: U.S.-Korea Relations in a New Era (2010); First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier (2009); Cross Currents: Regionalism and Nationalism in Northeast Asia (2007); Rethinking Historical Injustice and Reconciliation in Northeast Asia (2006); Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (2006); North Korea: 2005 and Beyond (2006); Contentious Kwangju (2004); Colonial Modernity in Korea (1999); and Peasant Protest and Social Change in Colonial Korea (1996).

Charles K. Armstrong (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is The Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies in the Social Sciences in the Department of History and the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University . A specialist in the modern history of Korea and East Asia, Professor Armstrong has published several books on contemporary Korea, including The Koreas (Routledge, 2007), The North Korean Revolution, 1945-1950(Cornell, 2003), Korea at the Center: Dynamics of Regionalism in Northeast Asia (M.E. Sharpe, 2006), and Korean Society: Civil Society, Democracy, and the State (Routledge, second edition 2006), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. His next book is Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950–1990 (Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2013. He is also writing the Modern East Asia volume for the Wiley-Blackwell series Concise History of the Modern World, to be published in 2013 as well.