Marie P. St. Fleur is a former Massachusetts State Representative who represented the Fifth Suffolk district from 1999-2011. Her district consisted of parts of the Boston neighborhoods Dorchester and Roxbury. St. Fleur joined non-profit research and advocacy organization Bessie Tartt Wilson Initiative for Children in November 2013. Ms. St. Fleur comes to her new position after a long career in public service, where she was known as a tireless advocate on behalf of children and families. Her new role allows her to use her experience as an attorney, legislator, and senior leader in municipal government to support grassroots research on early education and the care system, advocate for change, and expand outreach and engagement of families, providers, policymakers, and government agencies and the public in support of this sector. Ms. St. Fleur was appointed by Mayor Thomas M. Menino on June 13, 2010, as the Chief of Advocacy and Strategic Investment for the City of Boston. In that capacity, Ms. St. Fleur led the Mayor Menino Circle of Promise Initiative and oversaw the Department of Intergovernmental Relations, The Office of New Bostonians, The Small and Local Business/Boston Jobs For Boston Residents Policy, and his Diversity and Reentry Initiatives.

Regine O. Jackson is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Richmond. She specializes in race and ethnic relations, American immigration, and urban ethnography. Her current research project is titled "No Longer Visible: Haitian Immigrants in the 'New Boston.'"

Marc Prou is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Co-Director of the Center for African Caribbean and Community Development at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. He has published several articles and chapters on Caribbean social history and culture, Creole language, immigration and education. Prou's research on Haiti addresses educational reform, language, race and ethnicity. He is the author of Spoken Haitian Creole: Kreyol Pale Kreyol Konprann. He is currently the Executive Director of the Haitian Studies Association, a scholarly organization that addresses research on Haiti from a multi disciplinary perspective.