Michael grew up in east Texas where he played football, raised show pigs, and read so much that it alarmed his high school counselor. In 1985, he won first prize in Guideposts magazine’s National Youth Writing Contest with a story about his grandfather, who at that time had not been diagnosed with AD. He graduated with honors from the Plan II Honors Program at University of Texas. He has an M.A. in literary studies from University of Iowa, and an M.A. in theology from the University of Durham, England, graduating first in his international class. He has taught English at the high school and university level for ten years. In 1997, he was named Lamar University’s Teacher of the Year. His short story, “Weasel Loves,” which explores the intractability of love and memory, was published in the nationally award-winning short story anthology, Texas Short Stories. His story was recognized in the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning Herald, and the San Antonio Times as one of the best in the collection. This November he has an article appearing in Illness in the Academy: A Collection of Pathographies by Academics. Michael’s abiding intellectual interests are in the areas of literature and religion, the verbal and cultural construction of selfhood, and the embodiments of memory.

Dwaine has worked in diverse fields: he has been a fire fighter, served in the military, taught high school English, and is currently a school administrator.  His leadership experience began in the Air Force’s Technical School where he led a squadron of approximately 56 airmen.  He began his teaching career at Ozen High School, an urban high school in Beaumont, Texas.  Dwaine holds a B.S. in Criminal Justice, a B.A. in English, a M.Ed. in education, and is currently a doctoral student at Lamar University, where he has also served as an adjunct instructor of student teachers.  He was Beaumont ISD’s Texas A&M Teacher of the Year in 2001.  Dwaine has been a presenter at the Texas Council of Teachers of English, has published in Texas Study of Secondary Education, and will present in 2008 at the Southwest Educational Research Association’s Conference.  His research interests are in high school reform, organizational behavior, student leadership, and models of dysfunctional masculinity in teenage males.

Carla Borden was Program/Publications Manager of the Smithsonian Institution from 1973 to 2006.  She conducted field research and organized programs for the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, working with community scholars, academics, and folk artists from cultural communities around the United States and a number of other countries. In addition to writing and editing the Center's publications, she directed a three-year fellowship program, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, on "Theorizing Cultural Heritage." She was instrumental in insuring recognition for cognitively impaired members of the World War II generation at the "National World War II Reunion," a major four-day event the Center produced to coincide with the dedication of the National World War II Memorial. Before moving to the Center, she worked for over 15 years at the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies; she helped organize international symposia that bridged the humanities and the sciences (such as the Bicentennial symposium, "Kin and Communities") and developed seminar series such as "Ways of Knowing" (which included a program on the cross-cultural meanings of health and illness). She has edited two books as well as articles in the journal Knowledge and a newsletter on material culture. She holds a graduate degree in sociology from Columbia University.

June also consults on philanthropic opportunities in biomedical research funding and serves on the Advisory Council of the Harvard-M.I.T. Health Science Technology Program. She has written on a wide range of scientific subjects for the New York Times Magazine, Science, Scientific American, and other publications, and was Science Editor for PBS documentaries including "The Forgetting," "Discovering Women," and "The Secret Life of the Brain." Graduated from Harvard University in 1980, where she majored in physics, she has garnered an international reputation for her meticulous, in-depth reporting on complex scientific topics. She has been awarded the M.I.T. Knight Science Journalism Fellowship, an award of excellence by the American Medical Writer's Association, and the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory's science writing fellowship. Her work has also been featured on NBC's "Today Show." June is also the author of a guidebook, Gateway to Japan (Kodansha International, 1990, 1993, 1998). She lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Phil is a cultural anthropologist. He received his BA from the University of Chicago (1971) and his Ph.D. from Indiana University (1977). In Bloomington, Phil has been instrumental in developing a wide range of programs for older persons: Alzheimer's Supports, Adult Day Care, Health Education, Respite, Housing Choice, and others. He has organized numerous state-wide training events and, at the national and international level, is active in research and publishing around issues of community development for elder-friendly communities. He has employed the humanities as a tool for community development in projects funded by the Retirement Research Foundation and the Indiana Humanities Council, including the community wide series Visions of Place, in 2000. He also serves as a consultant to a national project entitled The AdvantAge Initiative: Improving Communities for an Aging Society, an elder-friendly community initiative taking place in ten U.S. cities. He is a past president of the Association for Anthropology and Gerontology and the Indiana Federation of Alzheimer's Support Groups. He has published numerous articles on cultural aspects of dementia and the relationship between aging and place. He most recent publication is an edited book entitled Gray Areas: Ethnographic Encounters with Nursing Home Culture (2003, Santa Fe: SAR Press) and is currently co-editing another volume on memory practices in culture. Intermittently, Phil co-directs a residential field school in cultural documentation, sponsored by the Indiana University Folklore Institute and the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.