Saeid Golkar is an Iranian political scientist who finished his Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science at Tehran University in June 2008, with a dissertation entitled "Power and Resistance, State and University in Post Revolutionary Iran". He is currently in residence at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. From 2004 to 2009, he was a lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Azad University, in Iran, where he taught undergraduate courses on the political sociology of Iran and sociology of war and military forces. His research interests encompass politics of authoritarian regime, political sociology of Iran, political violence and democracy promotion in the Middle East. Recent publications include articles in the Journal of Middle East quarterly, Middle East brief.

Yuhwan Koh is a professor of North Korean Studies and director of the Institute of North Korea, Dongguk University, Seoul, Korea. He is also a policy advisor for the Ministry of Unification,  and an active member of the Presidential Committee on Social Cohesion, Korea. His research interest is in North Korean issues, particularly in the institutionalization of the Military-First system, political changes and succession.  He received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Dongguk University.

Sangho Moon is professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Department of Public Administration, Sungkyunkwan University. His research interest focuses on evaluating social policy in the context of East Asian Welfare States. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and taught at the Tennessee State University. His recent papers appeared in the International Journal of Public Administration, Review of Public Policy, Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, Economic Inquiry, Economics of Education Review, Health Policy, BMC Public Health, Women's Health Issues, and Clinical Research and Regulatory Affairs. http://web.skku.edu/~smoon/

A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Mr. Choe, has written extensively on United States-Korea relations for the international news media, including the Associated Press and The International Herald Tribune, the international version of The New York Times, where he currently serves as a correspondent. While at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Mr. Choe will analyze the perspective of U.S. experts focusing on issues concerning South Korea's government, media, and society.