Rebecca Gajda is an Assistant Professor in the Secondary Education and Educational Leadership Programs in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. She has a master's degree in special education and spent many years developing and teaching in programs for children at risk. She was the Education Codirector at Youth S.A.F.E., a shelter for homeless and abused children and adolescents, and the dropout prevention coordinator for a large, demographically diverse school district in Colorado for several years.

Richard Tulikangas is the current and founding Executive Director of Linking Learning to Life, Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve the educational and employment outcomes for K–12 students in the Lake Champlain region of Vermont. The organization develops, coordinates, and manages a wide range of applied learning, career development, and community-based learning programs and services for youth. Some of these are specifically designed for young people who face various challenges and barriers to educational and employment success. In addition to the other responsibilities of running a nonprofit, Rich is constantly identifying, pursuing, and securing resources needed to sustain the organization. In this role he has secured funding from more than 25 different sources, public and private, corporate and governmental. Successful grant writing has secured the vast majority of funding for Linking Learning to Life. Rich earned an M.Ed. in organizational and human resources development from the University of Vermont and a B.S. in natural resources from the University of Michigan.