Bethany Halford, who wrote the profile of ASEE president Sherra Kerns, "The Making of a President," covers chemistry, nanotechnology, and materials science for Chemical & Engineering News. She earned a Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Johns Hopkins University. Halford has written for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Baltimore Sun. Some of these stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald. Halford lives in Baltimore.

In this issue, Margaret Loftus writes about the rising popularity of bioengineering in "Bio-boom." Loftus is a freelance writer based in Wilmington, N.C. A former U.S. News & World Report staffer, she reports on higher education for the USN&WR's best college and graduate school guides and is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler. She last profiled educator Yvonne Freeman for Prism.

Pierre Home-Douglas writes about Virginia Tech engineering professor Marc Edwards, who discovered high levels of lead in Washington, D.C.'s drinking water, in "The Water Guy." Home-Douglas, a regular contributor to Prism, worked for 13 years as a book editor at St. Remy Press in Montreal. He has edited more than 50 books, including four books for a family science series published by Discovery Channel and two books for Time-Life's How Things Work series.

Matthew Girard, who shot the photographs of Virginia Tech engineering professor Marc Edwards, studied at the Corcoran School of Art and worked as a stone carver at the Washington National Cathedral. He was the documentary photographer for the new carving at St. John's Cathedral in New York City. He also taught photography at the Smithsonian Institution. His passion for people and unique events has led him to projects such as the Mermaid Parade and the Circus Side Show of Coney Island, New York, where he has been recognized for his distinctive portraits.

The illustration in "Above the Fray," was done by Edel Rodriguez, who studied illustration, painting, and graphic design at Pratt Institute, where he graduated in 1994 with a degree in painting. He is currently art director of Time's Canadian and Latin American editions. As a freelance illustrator, Rodriguez has worked for WBMG, the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Progressive, New York magazine, the Nation, the Village Voice, and Time.