Norma González is a Professor in the Department of Language, Reading and Culture, and is affiliated faculty with the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching program. She is an anthropologist of education and her Ph.D. is in sociocultural anthropology. She is the incoming President of the Council of Anthropology and Education. Her research focuses on language processes in the U.S./Mexico borderlands, immigration and education, language ideologies, and household ethnographies.

I am a faculty member of BARA (Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology), which is responsible for many successes in research and outreach presences in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily Senegal, Mauritania, Niger and Tanzania. BARA plans to create linkages with African partners, including government agencies and universities, and to use these networks to assess the needs of local communities, to promote local priorities for endogenous development, and to engage in problem-solving research that supports development interventions in these communities. I received my B.A. (1983) in Philosophy and Sociology and M.A. (1985) in Anthropology from the University of Dakar (Senegal). I received my Ph.D. (1996) in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Arizona.

Timothy J. Finan was born in Bad Axe, Michigan, and studied literature and history at the University of Detroit and University College of Dublin. After a brief stint as a school teacher, he joined the Peace Corps and worked as a farm extension agent in Ceará, Brazil for four years. After returning to graduate school at the University of Arizona, he obtained the Ph.D. degree in Anthropology with a minor in Agricultural Economics. He joined the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology in 1980 and has remained there until the present. For 15 years, he was the Director of BARA. His research and outreach activities have been concentrated in international development, mostly on issues surrounding environment-society interactions, food security, and climate change. He has worked in 18 countries of Africa, 8 countries in Latin America, the Arabian Peninsula, Russia (Chechnya), Portugal, Albania, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.