Dirk Mateer is a senior lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, and an award-winning instructor. He has been featured in the Great Teachers in Economics series and he was also the inaugural winner of the Economic Communicator Contest sponsored by the Association of Private Enterprise Education. Previously, while he was at Penn State, he received the George W. Atherton Award, the university’s highest teaching award, and was voted the best overall teacher in the Smeal College of Business by the readers of Critique Magazine. Then, at the University of Arizona, he received the best large class lecture award in the Eller College of Management. He also founded the Journal of Economics Teaching in 2015 in order to create a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to innovative instruction in economics. He is also the author of Economics in the Movies (Cengage, 2014).

Lee Coppock is a professor and undergraduate director in the Department of Economics at the University of Virginia, where he has taught more than 15,000 students principles of macroeconomics. He has received several teaching awards, including the 2017 Kenneth G. Elzinga Distinguished teaching Award from the Southern Economics Association, and the 2018 UVA Alumni Distinguised Professor Award. Before teaching at UVA, Professor Coppock taught for nine years at Hillsdale College, where he honed his skills in small classes of 10–15 students, giving him an understanding of each student’s point of view. Now teaching more than 1,000 students in a class, he applies what he learned in those small classes through participation, captivating imagery, and relevant stories that draw students' attention.