The Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, and Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, Lamont has done extensive research on racial and class boundaries in France and the United States. She has published widely in the fields of inequality, culture, race, immigration, knowledge, theory, qualitative methods, and comparative sociology.

Newman holds a joint appointment in Sociology and the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She has previously taught at Columbia, Berkeley, and Harvard, where she founded the doctoral program in sociology and social policy. Her interests lie in the qualitative study of social stratification, with a special emphasis on the cultural meaning of mobility, work, poverty, and violence.

An Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Fourcade-Gourinchas studies how national political cultures and institutions constitute people’s understandings of what they do and who they are. Other work deals with transitions to neo-liberal economic policies in Europe and Latin America (with Sarah Babb), and varying forms of civic engagement and political strategies across nations (with Evan Schofer).

Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of California, San Diego, Madsen specializes in the study of China, and has numerous books on Chinese culture, American culture, and international relations. His interests are in the sociology of ideas/culture, theory, political sociology, Chinese society, sociology of religion and "moral anthropology."

An Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Moon’s main interests lie in how people develop the ideas that mean the most to them, and the impact of those ideas on social life. Sexuality, religion and political culture have been her main areas of inquiry. She is also interested in how language and emotions contribute to people's understandings of right and wrong, and the effects of these lines of thought in everyday life and everyday politics.

A Professor at the University of California, San Diego, Skrentny studies public policy, law, and inequality with a closer focus on the worldviews and actions of policy-making elites, situating them in their historical, local, and global contexts. His current research focuses on current policy politics and dilemmas, with an interest in culture and inequality.