Chris Goodmacher graduated from Dartmouth College, where he tutored undergraduates at the writing center and graduated summa cum laude (with highest honors), Phi Beta Kappa. He received a Master’s in Philosophy, Policy, and Social Value from the London School of Economics on a Reynolds Fellowship and a Master’s in Financial Economics from Oxford University, which he attended on a scholarship from The Economist. He has guest lectured at Columbia University’s school of education and Oxford. He has published on philosophy (morality and world poverty), is a peer reviewer for the Financial Analysts Journal, and is quoted several times in Cal Newport’s book, How to Become a Straight-A Student. He was previously an investment analyst for a multi-billion dollar hedge fund in New York.

Lan Ngo is a PhD student and research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She graduated from Stanford University, where she majored in economics and won the U.S. Department of State Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship for study abroad. She then received a Master’s from Columbia University, where she specialized in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) and received several scholarships. She has given a number of presentations on TESOL and has authored several academic articles. She previously taught English to international students at an East Coast boarding school, worked in Columbia University’s school of education office of admissions, taught an advanced writing course at UPenn, and won the U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study Chinese in Beijing.