Brigitte L. Nacos is a political scientist who taught for three decades at Columbia University and the author of several books on terrorism and counterterrorism. She is also a journalist who worked for many years as U.S. correspondent for newspapers in Germany.

Yaeli Bloch-Elkon is a senior lecturer/associate professor of communications and political science and head of the International Communication program at Bar Ilan University, as well as an associate research scholar at Columbia University's Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy.

Robert Y. Shapiro is the Wallace S. Sayre Professor of Government in the Department of Political Science and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. The author of many books and academic articles, he received the 2022 Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement from the American Association for Public Opinion Research.

Nacos, Bloch-Elkon, and Shapiro previously coauthored Selling Fear: Counterterrorism, the Media, and Public Opinion (2011).