James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. He is also professor of Human Development and Social Policy, professor of Learning Sciences, professor (by courtesy) of Management and Organizations, and faculty associate at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research. Spillane has published extensively on issues of education policy, policy implementation, school reform, and school leadership. His work explores the policy implementation process at the state, district, school, and classroom levels, focusing on intergovernmental and policy–practice relations. He also studies organizational leadership and change, conceptualizing organizational leadership as a distributed practice.

Rebecca Lowenhaupt is an associate professor of educational leadership and higher education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. She studies the role that school principals—and other school and district leaders—play in supporting culturally diverse students. Drawing on multiple methods of empirical research, including survey methods, social network analysis, and qualitative analysis, her work investigates educational leadership and policy in the context of immigration, with a focus on new immigrant destinations. At Boston College, she teaches aspiring school and district leaders about teacher supervision, organizational theory, and research methods. She is a co-author of The Instructional Leader’s Guide to Implementing the K–8 Science Practices (ASCD, 2021).