Yuting Wang is a Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of International Studies at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, a Non-resident Research Fellow at the Center on Religion and the Global East at Purdue University, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Chinese and History at the City University of Hong Kong. She has previously held visiting positions at Northwestern University, Purdue University, the University of California-Berkley, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has published widely on immigrant Muslims in the United States, Chinese Muslims, overseas Chinese, and Sino-UAE relations. She is the author of Between Islam and the American Dream: An Immigrant Muslim Community in Post-9/11 America (Routledge, 2014) and Chinese in Dubai: Money, Pride, and Soul-Searching (Brill, 2020).

Shaojin Chai (PhD in Political Science, University of Notre Dame) is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sharjah, UAE. Previously, he taught at Zayed University (UAE) and was a non-residential research fellow at Hebei University (China). Dr. Chai has also held senior research and advisory roles within the UAE Ministry of Culture & Knowledge Development, the Ministry of Tolerance, and an Abu Dhabi-based international think tank. He has published journal articles and book chapters on Chinese global ethics and governance, China-Middle East relations, China's soft power, and Islam in China.