Rita Kaša holds a PhD in Comparative Education from the State University of New York in Buffalo, USA. Her research interests concern educational policy, finance and governance with specific focus on equity and equality in educational access, especially on the level of higher education. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Graduate School of Education, Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.

Inta Mieriņa is based at Yale University MacMillan Center for International and Area studies, as Juris Padegs Research Fellow, and she is also a Senior Researcher at the University of Latvia, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. Previously, Dr. Mieriņa was the scientific director of the ESF research grant “The emigrant communities of Latvia: National identity, transnational relations, and diaspora politics”, receiving for its successful leadership the 2014 University of Latvia Annual prize in science.  In 2015 she studied the processes of migration as a Fulbright Research Fellow at the University of Washington. Currently her main research interests concern migration, integration, nationalism and far-right attitudes, inequality, social and political participation.