Henry Jenkins joins the University of Southern California from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was Peter de Florez Professor in the Humanities. He directed MIT’s Comparative Media Studies graduate degree program from 1993-2009, setting an innovative research agenda during a time of fundamental change in communication, journalism and entertainment.

As one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, Jenkins has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of social-networking Web sites, networked computer games, online fan communities and other advocacy organizations, and emerging news media outlets.

Jenkins is recognized as a leading thinker in the effort to redefine the role of journalism in the digital age. Through parallels drawn between the consumption of pop culture and the processing of news information, he and his fellow researchers have identified new methods to encourage citizen engagement. Jenkins launched the Center for Future Civic Media at MIT to further explore these parallels.

Jenkins has also played a central role in demonstrating the importance of new media technologies in educational settings. At MIT, he led a consortium of educators and business leaders promoting the educational benefits of computer games, and oversaw a research group working to help teach 21st century literacy skills to high school students through documentary videos. He also has worked closely with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to shape a media literacy program designed to explore the effects of participatory media on young people, and reveal potential new pathways for education through emerging digital media.

His most recent book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, is recognized as a hallmark of recent research on the subject of transmedia storytelling. His other published works reflect the wide range of his research interests, touching on democracy and new media, the “wow factor” of popular culture, science-fiction fan communities and the early history of film comedy.

Liz is writing director of the Humanities Core Course at University of California, Irvine. She believes the Internet and social media are redefining how people write, and how they present themselves. She challenges students to become active, critical users of social media.

She is the author of Virtualpolitik: An Electronic History of Government Media-Making in a Time of War, Scandal, Disaster, Miscommunication, and Mistakes (MIT Press, 2009). Currently, she's at work on a second book, Early Adopters: The Instructional Technology Movement and the Myth of the Digital Generation.

Her current research interests include Digital Rhetoric; Critical Information Studies; Pedagogy and Technology; Democracy and Media Culture; Hypertext and Networked Communication; Second Language Literacy; and Writing Program Administration.

Liz also blogs at the award-winning Virtualpolitik, a blog about digital rhetoric, government and subversion

Howard's 2002 book, Smart Mobs, was acclaimed as a prescient forecast of the always-on era. The weblog associated with the book has become one of the top 200 of the 8 million blogs tracked by Technorati, and won Utne Magazine's Independent Press Award in 2003.

In 2005, Howard taught a course at Stanford University on A Literacy of Cooperation, part of a long-term investigation of cooperation and collective action that Howard undertook in partnership with the Institute for the Future. The Cooperation Commons is the site of his ongoing investigation of cooperation and collective action.

He teaches Participatory Media/Collective Action at UC Berkeley's School of Information, Digital Journalism and VirtualCommunity/Social Media at Stanford University. He is a non-resident Fellow of the Annenberg School for Communication, and a visiting Professor at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University in Leicester, UK.

In 2008, Howard was a winner in the MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning competition and he used his award to work with a developer to create a free and open source social media classroom. He has a very popular videoblog that covers a range of subjects.

Most recently, Howard has been concentrating on learning and teaching 21st Century literacies.

Terrence grew up on the South Side of Chicago and has always had an interest in film. His interest increased through playing with a home video camera that his father owned, and it evolved into using the camera as a creative outlet, and as a way to tell personal stories that were important to him.

He joined the Digital Youth Network in the 7th grade. There, he worked with Spoken Word and Digital Video classes, developed his writing skills, and began using the camera in a different way. The first real project Terrence embarked on was with two other classmates as they told the story of a well known, violent housing project located not too far from their own homes, and how the project had changed after the murder of a young boy who had lived there. Terrence and his team were invited to take their project to the Illinois state fair and were awarded an "Outstanding" for their work. He continued with the Digital Youth Network program for the rest of middle school, eventually becoming a Junior Mentor for Digital Youth Network in high school and, ever since, has done more extensive film work and assisted in teaching Broadcast and Digital Video classes to 6th-8th graders.

In the summer of 2008 he began writing his first screenplay entitled "Division 201," a film that challenges teenagers to think about how they perceive different races in the classroom. Produced by high school students, the film and its accompanying study guide have been requested by high schools around the nation.

In the fall of 2009, Terrence was featured in the documentary "Seven Days Across America" (sponsored by The Encouragement Foundation) for his filmmaking. The "Seven Days" documentary highlighted teens across the nation who were making positive contributions in their communities. As part of the 2009 National Day of Encouragement, Terrence also was one of 17 teenagers in America singled out for their efforts - in Terrence's case, for training young aspiring fimmakers and videographers how to use video cameras and produce films.

Recently, Terrence also appeared in Chicago Magazine as one of eight remarkable Chicago-area teenagers, and in September 2009, he traveled to Washington D.C. to appear before members of the U.S. Senate for a panel discussion on Digital Media and Learning and talk about how it has affected his life. He remains humble and true to himself and feels like most any other 17 year old.