Annette Gordon-Reed, J.D., is a professor of law at New York Law School and a Board of Governors professor of history at Rutgers University. She has been a visiting professor at both Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where she earned her J.D. and was a member of the Law Review. Professor Gordon-Reed won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history for her book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, as well as the 2008 National Book Award for Nonfiction. She received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009 for Monticello Legacies in the New Age. Professor Gordon-Reed began her career as an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, and as Counsel to the New York City Board of Corrections. She speaks frequently at conferences across the U.S. on history and law-related topics. She lives with her family in New York City.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Ph.D. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute of African and African American Research at Harvard University. In 2006, he wrote and produced the PBS documentary series “African American Lives,” and in 2009, his book In Search of Our Roots  expanded on interviews he conducted for the popular PBS series. His book Finding Oprah’s Roots, Finding Your Own, was a best-selling meditation on genetics, genealogy, and race. His honors include a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant;” Time magazine’s “25 Most Influential Americans;” and a National Humanities Medal. Professor Gates is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and serves on the Boards of the New York Public Library and the Brookings Institution. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge and holds honorary degrees from 49 institutions.