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Calvin Johnson was falsely convicted of rape and received a life sentence. He served 16 years before becoming the first man in Georgia to be freed by DNA evidence in 1999.

She was Director of the University of Chicago's David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art from 1994-2004 and before that held curatorial positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. She is an expert on European art of the 18th century and has published many articles and exhibition catalogues. Her interests include 17th and 18th century art, particularly in England; museum history and theory; patronage and collecting; the art market; art law; and legal, economic, and political issues in museums and the history of art. She has organized 15 exhibitions ranging from 18th-century European art to international contemporary art. She is a member and former trustee of the Association of Art Museum Directors, which represents 200 art museums in the U. S., Canada, and Mexico, and she is a member and former chair of the Association's Government Affairs Committee.

After decades of collecting objects representative of British, North American, German, Italian and Dutch design, Mitchell Wolfson Jr. founded the museum bearing his name. The interior furnishings, paintings and sculpture, books, prints and posters, Wolfson felt, told the intriguing story of the enormous social, political and technological changes sweeping the world during the period of 1885 to 1945. Born in Miami in 1939, Wolfson is president of The Wolfson Initiative, Washington Storage Company Inc., and the international investment firm Novecento Corp. He is chairman of The Wolfsonian-FIU Advisory Board, and is a member of the Florida International University Board of Directors. He also sits on the boards of several civic and philanthropic organizations in South Florida and around the world, with an emphasis on education. Wolfson is a member of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Serves on the Chairman's Circle of the American Friends of the Louvre, New York. He is also a member of the International Council of Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris, France. He graduated from Princeton University in 1963 with a degree in comparative literature and remains involved on the advisory council of Princeton's Comparative Literature department.He also received a master's degree in international relations from Paul N. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center.

Stephen J. Whitfield holds the Max Richter Chair in American Civilization. He holds a bachelor's degree from Tulane University, a master's from Yale University and a doctorate in the history of American civilization from Brandeis. Trained as an historian, he first encountered the field of American studies when he had to teach it, beginning in the fall of 1972 at Brandeis. His curricular and research interests are primarily in the intersection of politics and ideas in the 20th century. Whitfield has twice been awarded Fulbright visiting professorships: first at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1983-84) and then at the Catholic University of Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve in Belgium (fall semester 1993). He has also taught American studies twice at the Sorbonne (University of Paris IV), in the fall of 1994 and in the fall of 1998.