Orrin H. Pilkey is James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Geology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, and Founder and Director Emeritus of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, based at Western Carolina University. Pilkey has written and edited many books, including, most recently, (with Rob Young) The Rising Sea and (with Linda Pilkey-Jarvis) Useless Arithmetic, an indictment of mathematical models used to predict environmental change. He is the author or co-author of many books in the Living with the Shore book series that he co-edited for Duke University Press. Pilkey is the recipient of numerous honors, including the Francis Shepard Medal for excellence in Marine Geology, the Priestley Award for distinguished contributions to environmental science, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the North Carolina Coastal Federation, and the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Pilkey lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Keith C. Pilkey is an attorney with a longstanding interest in geoengineering and corporate influence on science policy. He lives in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Mary Edna Fraser is an artist who highlights environmental concerns in large silk batiks, which are often based on maps, satellite images, and the photographs that she takes while flying her family's 1946 propeller plane. Deemed a "pilot with a palette" by Michael Kilian of the Chicago Tribune, Fraser has exhibited widely, including at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Reviewing that show, Hank Burchard of the Washington Post declared that "the batiks amount to visual poetry." Fraser and Orrin H. Pilkey are the co-authors of A Celebration of the World's Barrier Islands. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina.