Emi Kashima was born and educated in Japan. Through her experiences as an AFS exchange student when she went to Minnesota to become a farmer’s daughter in 1975 as one of 100 Japanese students who spent a year in the United States, Kashima became interested in intercultural adaptation and cross-cultural psychology. In 1989, she obtained her PhD from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is currently Professor at La Trobe University in Australia, where her family has lived for over 30 years. Her research topics include acculturation, language use, stereotype communication, and psychological threats. Her projects have been funded by the Australia Research Council.

Saba Safdar is a Persian Canadian Professor in the Psychology Department at the University of Guelph in Canada. Born in Tehran, Safdar grew up in different cities across Iran until she finished high school. The Islamic Revolution of Iran and the aftermath of political instability in the country, including the war between Iran and Iraq, was the major reason for her family to move to Canada. Safdar received her PhD in 2002 from York University, Toronto, and has held an academic position at the University of Guelph since 2002. She is Director of the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at the University of Guelph. Her research focus is on acculturation and examining factors that are relevant to understanding the adaptation processes of newcomers, including immigrants, refugees, and international students. Her research has been funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, among others. In addition to her Canadian academic position, Safdar has spent periods of six months to two years working and living in the USA, the UK, France, and Spain. She has held academic appointments in the USA, the UK, France, Spain, India, Kazakhstan, and Russia.