John Y. Kim received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2016 under the guidance of his advisor Swastik Kopparty. He currently trades commodities at Virtu Financial, an electronic market-making firm. He once considered a career in professional table tennis, but gave it up after losing in spectacular fashion to his advisor.

Swastik Kopparty got his his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 2010; his advisor was Madhu Sudan. He was a postdoc at I.A.S. during 2010-2011, and has been on the faculty at Rutgers ever since. His research interests are in complexity theory, coding theory, algebraic methods, randomness and pseudorandomness. He is addicted to cappuccinos and, recently, table tennis.