The Principal Investigator for this project is Xiao-huang Yin. Professor Yin (PhD, Harvard) is a recipient of the Haynes Fellowship, John D. Sawyer Fellowship, NEH Summer Stipend, Smithsonian Fellowship, Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities, and Harvard-Yenching Fellowship. He has taught at Harvard as a visiting professor and represented major U.S. educational organizations in program reviews in China. Specializing in Asian American studies, U.S.-Asia relations, and modern China, he is the author of Chinese American Literature since the 1850s (University of Illinois Press, 2000) and co-editor of The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (M.E. Sharpe, 2002). He is also a frequent contributor on China and Chinese Americans to the Los Angeles Times.

The Co-Principal Investigator, Robert Gottlieb, is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Urban Environmental Studies and Director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute. He is the author and co-author of eleven books, including Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City (MIT Press, 2007) The Next Los Angeles: The struggle for a Livable City with UEPI faculty and staff Mark Vallianatos, Regina Freer and Peter Dreier (UC Press 2006); Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Island Press, 1993); and Environmentalism Unbound: Exploring New Pathways for Change (MIT Press, 2001). He is also the editor of several MIT Press series and imprints, including "Urban and Industrial Environments," "Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Books," " Food, Health, and Environment," and "Food and Society Books". Professor Gottlieb was the 1996 University of California Distinguished Wellness Lecturer and has received the award on two occasions for supervising the most outstanding student project from the American Institute for Collegiate Planners.