Deborah Lowe Vandell, Ph.D., is the Founding Dean of the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine, where she is a Professor of Education and of Psychology and Social Behavior. The author of more than one hundred fifty articles and three books, Dr. Vandell studies the effects of afterschool and summer programs on children's academic, social, and behavioral development.

Ben Paul is president and CEO of After-School All-Stars, a national nonprofit organization providing free daily afterschool programs to nearly ninety thousand low-income children in ten states, from New York to Hawaii. During his ten-year tenure as COO and then CEO, Paul has overseen the expansion of program operations from forty-five to nearly four hundred schools. He has expanded the organization's focus from sports to the three pillars of academics, enrichment, and health and fitness. Today, ASAS is one of the largest national afterschool program providers solely focused on comprehensive school-based programs.

Ellen S. Gannett is director of the National Institute on Out-of-School Time (NIOST) at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. A national action/research project, NIOST has provided research, evaluation, technical assistance, consultation, and specialized training on afterschool programs throughout the United States for more than thirty-five years.