Lalita Agashe, Ph.D. (Education) has been involved in teaching for the last fifteen years. As a teacher she has enjoyed classes with preschoolers, high schoolers as well as would-be teachers. Presently she teaches educational psychology and research methods to the masters students at the Department of Education, University of Pune, India. She has also been involved in writing textbooks with the State Department. Though her Ph.D. topic was related to individualized learning, she is now focusing increasingly on cooperative learning and is interested in links between cooperative learning and Women Empowerment.

Lynda Baloche, Ed.D., is Professor of Education at West Chester University, Pennsylvania, USA where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses in social learning/group processes in the classroom, cooperative learning, creativity, and arts integration. The author of numerous articles in scholarly journals and the text, The Cooperative Classroom: Empowering Learning (1998, Prentice Hall), she enjoys working with faculty, teachers and administrators who are committed to developing collaborative classroom communities.

Maureen Breeze, MEd, has followed a less conventional route to co-operative learning. She spent many years working for the UK Co-operative Movement, developing the co-operative skills of young people and adults in both formal and informal settings and promoting co-operative alternatives to the creation and maintenance of sustainable organisations and communities. She believes that co-operative learning is a means of developing individuals’ co-operative values - values which are essential to empower effective co-operation within all levels of society. Her current role is developing aspects of the Every Child Matters agenda for a County Council in England and in her spare time she chairs a local community co-operative.

Celeste Brody, Ph.D., has spent her career as a university teacher and college administrator educating teachers at all levels for cooperative classrooms and organizations.  She is a recent Fulbright Scholar to Thailand where she worked on faculty development for student-centered learning in higher education.  Her published works include the award winning, Teaching Cooperative Learning with Elizabeth Cohen and Mara Sapon-Shevin ( 2004, SUNY Press) and Professional Development for Cooperative Learning with Neil Davidson (1998, SUNY).

Richard M. Cangro, Ph. D., is a new faculty member at Western Illinois University as an Assistant Professor of Music Education. He was formally a band and orchestra director for the West Hartford (CT) Public Schools and at the Hartt School Community Division, University of Hartford. With his dissertation focusing on applying cooperative learning strategies to instrumental music learning, Dr. Cangro continues to investigate the nature and effects of student cooperation at all levels of music learning and as well as present sessions on the topic.

Robyn Gillies, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. She has worked extensively in elementary, middle, and high schools to help teachers embed cooperative learning into their classroom curricula and, more recently, she has researched teacher and student discourses in the cooperative classroom. She is the author of Cooperative Learning: Integrating Theory and Practice  (2007, Sage).

George Jacobs, Ph.D., is an education consultant in Singapore where he works with schools and universities. Some of his publications are available on the Cooperative Learning page of his website: http://www.georgejacobs.net/.

Books he has co-authored/edited include Teachers’ Sourcebook for Cooperative Learning (2002, Corwin Press), Cooperative Learning and Second Language Teaching (2006, Cambridge University Press), and Cooperative Learning in the Language Classroom (2007, SEAMEO RELC).

Christine Kim-Eng Lee, Ed.D. is Head of Curriculum and Teaching at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Christine initiated and taught cooperative learning in pre-service, in-service and graduate programs at N.I.E. and continues to develop research and development programs for Singapore schools, e.g., "Communities of Practice in Cooperative Learning (CoPCL)" with elements of Lesson Study, a Japanese form of teacher professional development.

Rachel A. Lotan, Ph.D., is Director of the Stanford Teacher Education Program and professor (teaching) at Stanford University School of Education, USA. Her teaching and research focus on teaching and learning in academically and linguistically diverse classrooms, teacher education, sociology of the classroom, and the social organization of schools. In her previous position as co-director of the Program for Complex Instruction at Stanford University, she worked on the development, research and world-wide dissemination of Complex Instruction, a pedagogical approach to creating equitable classrooms.

Kathryn F. Markovchick, Ph.D., is the founder and director of the Maine Support Network in Maine, USA.  This organization leads global initiatives, which include professional development for educators, supporting schools in the creation of college going cultures and facilitating initiatives promoting active engagement in learning and cooperative learning.  She has a passion to develop communities of learners using Celebratory Learning.

Pasi Sahlberg, Ph.D. is a Senior Education Expert at the European Training Foundation, Torino, Italy. He received his doctorate from the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He has been teacher, policymaker and Director of the Centre for School Development at the University of Helsinki before moving to work with World Bank.  Pasi has co-produced with Shlomo Sharan The Handbook of Cooperative Learning (in Finnish, 2002). Pasi has broad experience in education reforms, cooperative learning, coaching schools and advising education policy-makers.  A full list of publications are at  www.pasisahlberg.com.

Yael Sharan, MA, has over twenty five years of experience developing and writing about cooperative learning in general and Group Investigation in particular. She has authored and co-authored chapters and books on cooperative learning, among them, Expanding Cooperative Learning through Group Investigation (1992, Teachers College Press). She conducts workshops for educators in many countries and is expert at adapting cooperative learning for teachers, administrators, and teacher educators of different cultures.

Kazuhiko Sekita  Ph.D., is Professor of Education at Soka University, Japan where he teaches instructional design and methods, human relations and social skills training, and cooperative learning. He is the co-founder and vice president of Japan Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education. In the organization he is in charge of developing programs for teachers and interdisciplinary networks among researchers.

Laurie Stevahn, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Education at Seattle University where she teaches graduate courses in curriculum and instruction, social justice in professional practice, and educational research methods. She specializes in cooperative learning and conflict resolution, educational leadership and organization development, interactive models of teaching and assessment for student learning. She also provides on-site support for innovation and change in elementary, secondary, and higher education. Laurie is the co-author of several resource books for educators including Cooperative Learning: Where Heart Meets Mind and The Portfolio Organizer: Succeeding with Portfolios in Your Classroom. Her research on the effectiveness of integrating conflict resolution training into academic curricula appears in a variety of journals.