Katrina M. Powell is Professor of Rhetoric and Writing and founding director of the Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on displacement narratives. She is cofounder of the digital-born oral history initiative, VTStories.org, founding editor of the journal Roots and Resettlement, and codirector of Monuments Across Appalachian Virginia.

Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Since 1987, she has been on the faculty of Virginia Tech, where she is a University Distinguished Professor.