MEREDITH BENNETT-SMITH is founding editor of both NBC News’ opinion section THINK, and MSNBC’s opinion section. Before NBC, she was at Quartz, where she began as an Ideas Editor before becoming deputy editor of the Geopolitics team, helping to shepherd Quartz’s global and domestic political reporting. Bennett-Smith was also the identities editor at Mic.com, where she spearheaded the site’s coverage of race, gender, and LGBT issues. Despite graduating from Cornell University and New York University’s Journalism School, Bennett-Smith remains a proud Northern Californian at heart. She is an associate professor of journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Twitter @MBennettSmith

CHRISTOPHER BONANOS is the city editor of New York magazine, where he has worked for 27 years, most recently as an editor on relaunch of New York’s urban-affairs and real-estate site Curbed. He’s also the author of three books of his own, most recently ‘Flash,’ the first biography of the great New York City photographer Weegee, which won the National Book Critics Circle award for best biography of 2018. He lives with his wife and their son in Manhattan. Twitter @heybonanos

TIFFANIE DRAYTON’s critically acclaimed New York Times article, “Black American Refugee,” helped her land a book deal with Penguin/Random House. She previously published two YA books, “Coping With Gun Violence” and “Developing Leadership Skill” and she is also a freelancer whose writing has been featured in The New York Times, Vox, Salon, Marie Claire, Playboy and many more. Drayton lives in Trinidad and Tobago with her two energetic, Irish-twins toddlers, doting mother, and (best friend) sister. She loves to share stories about the beauties and hardships of being a black woman.  Twitter @draytontiffanie

SUSAN SHAPIRO, an award-winning writing professor, freelances for the NY Times, NY Magazine, WSJ, Washington Post, L.A. Times, Elle, Oprah, Wired & New Yorker online. She’s the bestselling author/coauthor of 13 books her family hates like Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Lighting Up, Unhooked, The Bosnia List The Byline Bible  and the new memoir  Forgiveness Tour. She lives with her scriptwriter husband in Greenwich Village where she’s taught her popular “instant gratification takes too long” courses at The New School, NYU, Columbia University and in private classes & seminars – now online. Follow her on Twitter at @susanshapironet, Instagram at @Profsue123.

JESSICA SEIGEL is an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University with more than 20 years of award-winning media experience as a national correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, columnist for Glamour magazine, and the on-air “Countess of Culture” for NPR’s Day to Day. Her investigative work in science, health and culture has appeared in outlets including The New York Times, Washington Post, Salon and National Geographic Traveler. A vice president of the Deadline Club, she has curated and moderated panels on privacy, native advertising, the First Amendment, #Metoo and more. Twitter @jessicaseagull