Loretta A. Serna, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Educational Specialties/College of Education at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests and publications are in the area of emotional-behavioral disorders, social behavior and skills, and the prevention of social-emotional problems in young children. She has developed other instructional materials in the area of social skills and self-determination skills for adolescents.

M. Elizabeth Nielsen, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Specialties/College of Education at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests and publications are in the area of gifted education and teaching students who are both gifted and have learning or behavioral problems. Currently, she is researching the area of moral courage among children and adolescents who are gifted.

Steve Forness, EdD is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He initially attended the U.S. Naval Academy, receiving his BA in 1963 and MA in 1964 from the University of Northern Colorado and his EdD in 1968 from UCLA. From 1968 to 2003, he was on the faculty of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, where he was also principal of its hospital school and chief of educational psychology services. Dr. Forness has coauthored or coedited 10 books on children with learning or behavioral disorders and published more than 200 journal articles on special education and early detection of children with psychiatric disorders. He was a Fullbright Scholar in Portugal in 1976 and has received the Wallin Award from the Council for Exceptional Children and the Berman Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.