Tyler Cowen is Holbert L. Harris Professor of Economics at George Mason University and also Director of the Mercatus Center. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University. He is a New York Times best-selling author, and has been called "one of the most influential economists of the last decade" (The Economist), "America's Hottest Economist" (Bloomberg BusinessWeek), and a "Top 100 Global Thinker" (Foreign Policy). He is the host of the Conversations with Tyler podcast series and, along with Alex Tabarrok, co-writes the Marginal Revolution blog. He is the co-author with Alex of Modern Principles of Economics, an introductory textbook.

Interested in studying with Tyler at George Mason University? Learn more about fellowships for both undergraduate and graduate students.

Joana Girante is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Arizona State University, where she also serves as the Online Course Coordinator. Formerly, she was on the faculty at the University of Minho (Portugal). Joana received her PhD in economics from North Carolina State University. She currently teaches between 500 and 1,000 economics students per semester in a mixture of in-person, online, and hybrid courses. Her research focuses on evaluating the efficacy of novel teaching methods.