Giddens, Anthony: - Anthony Giddens, the former director of the London School of Economics and a current member of the House of Lords, is a world-renowned social theorist who has written over forty books. He has written on just about every major topic in sociology, but is best known for his work on modernization theory and globalization.

Duneier, Mitchell: - Mitchell Duneier is an award-winning urban ethnographer at Princeton University and the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is most famous for his book Sidewalk, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Duneier's research focuses on the urban poor and other groups at the margins of society. His latest book, Ghetto: The Invention of a Place, the History of an Idea, traces the changing meaning of the ghetto and was named one of the best books of 2016 by the New York Times.

Appelbaum, Richard P.: - Richard P. Appelbaum, Distinguished Research Professor and former MacArthur Chair, Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has won several awards for his teaching and works mainly on globalization and labor issues. Appelbaum is the coauthor of Behind the Label and coeditor of Critical Globalization Studies and Achieving Workers' Rights in the Global Economy.

Carr, Deborah: - Deborah Carr is a demographer and an active teacher at Boston University, where she regularly teaches the intro course. Her work focuses on sociology of the life course, aging, social psychology, and gender. Carr's latest book, Worried Sick: How Stress Hurts Us and How to Bounce Back, looks at how stress gets under our skin, makes us sick, and how and why people cope with stress differently.