Contributors
Scale AI Chair in Data Science for Retail and academic director of the Bensadoun School of Retail Management at McGill University. He also advises corporations and startups on topics related to pricing, retail, AI, and data science. The opinions presented in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of any affiliated or collaborating institutions.
James W. Cortada is a historian who has written over a dozen books on the role of information in modern societies. He is a senior research fellow at the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. His most recent book is Beyond the Facts: Tacit Knowledge and the Hidden Infrastructure of Our Informed Times(Bloomsbury, 2025). This builds on his related study, Today’s Facts: Understanding the Current Evolution of Information (Rowman & Littlefield, 2025). He may be reached at [email protected].
Anthropologist at the University of Exeter in the UK, with research interests in religion, medicine, and the environment. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Arizona since 2012 and has undertaken further fieldwork in Louisiana and Missouri in the US as well as in the UK, Sweden, and Belgium. Her first monograph, Ripples of the Universe: Spirituality in Sedona, Arizona, was published in the Class 200 list by the University of Chicago Press in 2021, and her second monograph, A Perturbed System: Religion and Climate Change from the End of a World, came out from the same publisher in July 2026.
Assistant Professor at the Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. She received her PhD in Urban Planning from MIT and is the author of Peace Infrastructures: How UN Peace Operations Build Roads, Bridges, and Solar Farms in the Pursuit of Sustainability (MIT Press, 2026). Her work focuses on socio-spatial and infrastructure planning in conflict settings and as part of peace efforts, as well as its intersection with climate and environmental efforts.
Associate Professor of International Relations at Richmond American University London and Lecturer at University College London. Her research connects international relations, peace studies and international law, challenging liberal assumptions about post-conflict reconstruction. Her 2026 book, Grassroots Reconciliation Activism from a Comparative Perspective: Rewilding Peace, examines grassroots reconciliation initiatives in eight countries and argues that peace is an ongoing, community-led process. Her current research explores warist assumptions in IR theory, political activism, and how they can be overcome.
Honorary Fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. He is the author of several academic articles on the use of soft power as a tool of power competition in international relations. He is also the author of Soft Power Competition Between Russia and the West: Contesting Georgian National Identity, 1991–2024.
Associate Professor of Sociology and the director of Queer Mississippi Histories Project at the University of Mississippi. McDowell’s research examines how shifting boundaries between church and state, religion and secularity, challenge and produce inequality in U.S. society. See her website to learn more.
Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University. Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Association for Psychological Science.
Ph.D. student in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Texas A&M University. Studies mental effort, decision-making, affect, and the psychological effects of guns.
Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Black Expressive Culture and Creativity in the Diaspora and Associate Professor of Performance at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the Founder and Director of Mapping Ontario's Black Archives (MOBA) and the Black Creative Lab, as well as a Member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists. She is the author of four books, including her most recent, Staging Blackface in Canada: Public Amusements, Variety Shows, and Racial Acts in an Age of Imitation, 1898–1919 (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2026). Her research has been supported by more than $5.9 million in competitive funding, including a $600,000 Canada Research Chair and grants from SSHRC, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. She is a TEDx speaker and a frequent media commentator on race, performance, and Black Canadian cultural history.
