Tessa Conroy is jointly appointed to the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Center for Community and Economic Development with University of Wisconsin-Extension. She earned her PhD in Economics from Colorado State University in 2014. Her research and outreach focus on community economic growth and development with particular emphasis on small business dynamics. Much of her research is used to directly analyze the challenges and opportunities facing the Wisconsin economy. Her reports on women-owned businesses, job creation, entrepreneurship, and labor market trends have been featured in both state and national media, including recently on Wisconsin Public Radio/Television.

Brad R. Humphreys is a native West Virginian and WVU alumni. He holds a BS in Business Administration and a BS in Economics from the WVU College of Business and Economics and an MA and PhD in economics from the Johns Hopkins University. He is a professor of economics in the College of Business and Economics. He previously held positions on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Alberta, and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

He is the 2016-17 Benedum Distinguished Scholar in Social and Behavioral Sciences at WVU.

He is Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Economic Policy, a general interest economics journal and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Sports Economics, the International Journal of Sport Finance, the International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, and International Gambling Studies.

Lindsay Allen is an assistant professor, health economist, and health services researcher in the Health Policy, Management, and Leadership Department at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. She studies how the health care system is organized and how people interact with it. Right now, she is interested in approaches that improve health care access, especially those related to urgent care centers, retail clinics, and the emergency department.

John Deskins serves as Assistant Dean for Outreach and Engagement, Director of the Bureau of Business & Economic Research, and as Associate Professor of Economics in the College of Business & Economics at West Virginia University. He leads the Bureau’s efforts to serve the state by providing rigorous economic analysis and macroeconomic forecasting to business leaders and policymakers across the state. He received his PhD in Economics from the University of Tennessee.

Deskins’ academic research has focused on economic development, small business economics, and government tax and expenditure policy, primarily at the US state level. His work has appeared in outlets such as Contemporary Economic Policy, Public Finance Review, Economic Development Quarterly, Small Business Economics, Public Budgeting and Finance, Regional Studies, Annals of Regional Science, Tax Notes, and State Tax Notes, as well as in books published by Cambridge University Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. He has delivered more than 100 speeches to business, government, and community groups and his quotes have appeared in numerous media outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, CNBC, National Public Radio, and PBS. He has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on more than $1 million in funded research.

Adam Storeygard is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Tufts University. His research interests are in development and urban economics, and particularly in urbanization, transportation, and the economic geography of sub-Saharan Africa. Much of his work uses geographic data, including satellite data. Professor Storeygard's work has appeared in journals including the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, Nature, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, and he is currently a co-Editor of Regional Science and Urban Economics.

Peter V. Schaeffer is Professor in the Division of Resource Economics and Management, Adjunct Professor of Economics, and Faculty Research Associate at the Regional Research Institute. He has previously served on the faculties of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Colorado at Denver, as a visiting professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, as a visiting scholar at the International Labour Organisation in Geneva, and as a faculty research associate at the Institute of Behavioral Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He has over 18 years of experience in academic administration at West Virginia University and the University of Colorado. He has consulted on regional economic development in North America, Europe, and the People’s Republic of China. Dr. Schaeffer is a past chair of the North American Regional Science Council and was president of the Southern Regional Science Association, 2008–9. He currently serves on the editorial boards of nine journals in urban and regional planning, regional science, social sciences, and applied economics. In 2008 he received the William H. Miernyk Award for Lifetime Scholarly Achievement from the Regional Research Institute and in 2016 he was recognized by the Southern Regional Science Association with the William A. Schaffer Award for Outstanding Service to Regional Science.

Josh Hall's areas of interest include applied microeconomics, with an emphasis on economic freedom, state and local public finance and entrepreneurship. In addition to being the author of more than 50 articles in journals such as Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Journal of Public Administration, Research, and Theory, Contemporary Economic Policy, and Southern Economic Journal, he is co-author of the widely-cited Economic Freedom of the World annual report.

He is currently the editor of Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy.

Robert (Rob) Dunn is an Associate Professor of Economics at Washington & Jefferson College. He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from W&J and his Ph.D. in Economics from West Virginia University. Rob typically teaches courses related to microeconomics, including urban and regional economics, public economics, public choice, and energy economics. Additionally, Rob has taught econometrics several times and worked extensively with undergraduates on the empirical research process. Rob’s research interests include domestic migration, spatial mismatch, energy production and consumption, and the impacts of resource extraction. He currently serves at the book review editor for the Review of Regional Studies and is affiliated with the Center for Energy Policy and Management at W&J.