John H. Halpern, MD, a psychiatrist in private practice, previously served as medical director of the Boston Center for Addiction Treatment, the largest substance use disorder hospital in New England. He completed his residency and a fellowship in addiction research at Harvard Medical School programs. He spent more than twenty years on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and during his professorship served as the director of his own research laboratory at McLean Hospital, supported by private grants and National Institute on Drug Abuse funding.

David Blistein wrote the award-winning PBS documentary The Mayo Clinic: Faith - Hope - Science and is currently writing a film about Henry David Thoreau as well as a comprehensive three-part series on brain disorders and mental health. He also co-wrote Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene for PBS and is the author of David's Inferno, a book that combines personal anecdotes with insights into manic depression and descriptions of how it is diagnosed and treated.