Justine Nelson, M.A., is a doctoral student in the Department of Family Social Science, University of Minnesota. Two of her main interests of study are family economics and adolescent development in the family context.

Ramona Faith Oswald, Ph.D., Department of Human and Community Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is chair of the 2007 Groves Preconference. Her research examines how gay and lesbian family well-being is influenced by external factors such as community climate and legal recognition. Two currently funded collaborative projects are to examine the experience of domestic violence within the lives of lesbian mothers and to organize rural gay and lesbian parents and develop resources that serve their families.

Mijung Park, M.S.N., RN, is a doctoral candidate, Department of Family Health Care Nursing, University of California, San Francisco.

Dan Pitera, M. Arch., Detroit Collaborative Design Center, University of Detroit Mercy, is an architect and political activist, providing not only design services but also empowering residents to facilitate their own process of urban regeneration.  In 2004-2005, he was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University. Under his direction, the Design Center team is dedicated to fostering university and community partnerships that create inspired and sustainable neighborhoods and spaces for all people.

Gloria Rivera, IHM, executive director, Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, and former director of Freedom House, a non-denominational nonprofit organization established in 1983 to address the needs of homeless and/or indigent refugees seeking asylum in either the U.S. or Canada.

Roger Rubin, Ph.D. emeritus, Department of Family Studies, University of Maryland, has research interests in African American families, family diversity, delayed fatherhood, mental illness and families, and family policy. He is a past president of the Groves Conference on Marriage and Family and a current Groves board member.