Ruowen Shen received her doctoral degree from the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University. Her research interests include how policy influences local and regional government as well as urban sustainability e.g. the effect of expanded bike paths on community health. For her dissertation, "Governance of Local Sustainability: Network, Environment and Policy,” Dr. Shen used Geographic Information System (GIS) software to conduct a spatial analysis of residential adoption of solar panels.                                                                                                           

Xiaoheng Wang received her doctoral degree from the Department of Public Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests include public budgeting and finance, financial management of state and local governments, and survey methods. For her dissertation, Dr. Wang gathered data from 100 of the largest U.S. cities to examine municipal financial condition in the wake of the great recession. Dr. Wang has been involved in survey research projects, such as a national survey of local government technology use and a network evaluation study of a public school district.