Jody Koenig Kellas (Ph.D., University of Washington) is Professor of Communication at the University of Nebraska. She studies how people communicate to make sense of identity, difficulty, health, and relationships. She is founder of Narrative Nebraska, dedicated to understanding the ways in which communicated sense-making, narratives, storytelling content, process, and functions can be translated to enhance individuals' and families' well-being. She has published over 40 articles and chapters and received national awards for her scholarship.

Elizabeth A. Suter (Ph.D. University of Illinois) is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Denver specializing in Critical Interpersonal and Family Communication. Her research lies at the intersection of relationships and culture, addressing issues of power, struggle, and social change. She co-edited the special issue of the Journal of Family Communication on critical approaches to family communication research. She is currently editing the second edition of Engaging Theories of Family Communication and serving as the Vice-Chair for the Family Communication Division of the National Communication Association.

Jennifer Theiss (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is an Association Professor in the Department of Communication at Rutgers University. Jen's research focuses on the role of interpersonal communication in the development and maintenance of romantic relationships, marriages, and families. Her work has contributed to the development of relational turbulence theory, which focuses on conditions during transitions in close relationships and families that give rise to cognitive, emotional, and communicative turmoil. Specifically, her work highlights experiences of relational uncertainty and interference from partners as features of close relationships that are amplified during transitions when individuals are forced to adopt new roles and routines to cope with changing relational circumstances. Under these conditions, individuals tend to be more reactive to interpersonal episodes that might otherwise be experienced as mundane. She has applied relational turbulence theory to investigate a variety of important events in close relationships and families, including the transition to parenthood, the transition to the empty nest phase of marriage, the transition from deployment to reintegration among military couples, and the diagnosis and management of type 2 diabetes. Jen's book, The Experience and Expression of Uncertainty in Close Relationships, explores the ways in which relational uncertainty both shapes and reflects the interpersonal climate and communication between relationship partners. Jen is a Rutgers University Chancellor's Scholar and her scholarship has received several awards, including the early career award from the Interpersonal Communication Division of the National Communication Association and the 2012 Distinguished Article Award from the International Association for Relationship Research.