Steffen W. Schmidt is a professor of political science at Iowa State University. He grew up in Colombia, South America, and has studied in Colombia, Switzerland, and France. He obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York, in public law and government. Schmidt has published six books and over 70 articles in scholarly journals, and is the recipient of numerous prestigious teaching prizes, including the Amoco Award for Lifetime Career Achievement in Teaching and the Teacher of the Year award. He is a pioneer in the use of Web-based and real-time video courses and is a member of the American Political Science Association's section on Computers and Multimedia. He is on the editorial… board of the Political Science Educator. Schmidt also has a political talk show on WOI radio, where he is known as Dr. Politics. The show has been broadcast live from various U.S. and international venues.
Mack C. Shelley, II is a professor of political science and statistics at Iowa State University. After receiving his bachelor's degree from American University in Washington, DC, he went on to graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where he received a master's degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Political Science. He arrived at Iowa State in 1979. From 1993 to 2002 he served as elected co-editor of the POLICY STUDIES JOURNAL. Shelley has also published numerous articles, books, and monographs on public policy, including THE PERMANENT MAJORITY: THE CONSERVATIVE COALITION IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS; BIOTECHNOLOGY AND THE RESEARCH ENTERPRISE: A GUIDE TO THE LITERATURE… (with William F. Woodman and Brian J. Reichel); AMERICAN PUBLIC POLICY: THE CONTEMPORARY AGENDA (with Steven G. Koven and Bert E. Swanson); and QUALITY RESEARCH IN LITERACY AND SCIENCE EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES AND GOLD STANDARDS (with Larry Yore and Brian Hand).
Barbara A. Bardes is professor of political science at Raymond Walters College at the University of Cincinnati. She held a faculty position at Loyola University in Chicago for many years before returning to Cincinnati, her hometown, as a college administrator. Bardes has written articles on public opinion and foreign policy, and on women and politics. She authored THINKING ABOUT PUBLIC POLICY AND DECLARATIONS OF INDEPENDENCE: WOMEN AND POLITICAL POWER IN NINETEENTH CENTURY AMERICAN NOVELS and co-authored PUBLIC OPINION: MEASURING THE AMERICAN MIND. She received bachelor's and master's degrees from Kent State University and her Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati.