The writer of this month’s cover story, “Changing the Face of Engineering,” is Margaret Loftus, a freelance writer based in Charleston, S.C. A former U.S. News & World Report staffer, she writes regularly on travel as a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler. She last wrote on teaching nanotechnology in K-12 for Prism (April 2006).

A Tokyo-based freelance journalist, Lucy Craft , who wrote “Japan’s Slow-Moving Tide,” has been trying to figure out Japan and Asia for over 20 years. Her work has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, PBS’s The Nightly Business Report, NPR, the Washington Post and Asian Wall St. Journal. Most recently, she has shot and produced a short film on the performance artist Ushio Shinohara.

James Steinberg, who illustrated the story “Please Don’t Go,” graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1980 and has been illustrating ever since. He has done work for book covers, CD covers, magazines, annual reports, Web sites and software programs, as well as creating the first postage stamp for diabetes awareness. James plays saxophone with the Half-Tones, an all-illustrator jazz/blues band. He lives with his family in Amherst, Mass.

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