Jordan Branch is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at UC Berkeley. His dissertation focuses on the development of modern cartography and its impact on the evolution of modern states and international relations in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Thomas Dandelet, an associate professor at UC Berkeley since 2001, focuses on the history of Renaissance and Baroque Italy and the Spanish Empire. He is the author of Spanish Rome, 1500-1700 (Yale, 2001) and the co-editor of Spain in Italy, 1500-1700 (Brill, 2007).

Christopher Edwards has been a National Park Ranger at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park since 1997 and previously worked in the National Park in Boston. He is a writer of both merchant marine and naval history.

Christine Hastorf received her Ph.D. from UCLA and is currently a professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley. She is known for her contributions in paleoethnobotany, agriculture sustainability, meaning and the everyday, food studies, political economy and middle range societies in the Andean region of South America.

Thomas Holloway, a professor of History at UC Davis, is the editor of A Companion to Latin American History (Blackwell Publishing, 2008). He served as Director of the UC Davis Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, 2000-07; as Executive Secretary of the Conference on Latin American History, 2002-07; and is a past President of the Latin American Studies Association (2000-01).

Susan Hogue is a doctoral candidate in History at UC Davis. Her dissertation explores the role of native elites in Peru in the development of the colonial system and the ideology of the Spanish Empire in the 16th century.

Bill Kooiman is a Reference Librarian at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. His first career was spent as a purser in Grace Lines and hospital ships, largely in Latin America. 

Alex Saragoza is Associate Professor of History in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. His current research investigates the privatization of the Mexican economy in general, and the tourism industry in particular. Through UC Extension he has led study tours that focus on early Mesoamerican history and Cuba.

Edward Von der Porten has served as the director of archaeological projects in California and Mexico, a consultant on nautical archeology for the National Geographic Society, the director of the Treasure Island Museum, a history teacher at Santa Rosa High School and an instructor of archeology at Santa Rosa Junior College.