Ryan T. Howell, Ph.D., co-founder, is assistant professor of psychology at San Francisco State University. His Personality & Well-being Lab aims to better understand the role of finances and consumption in people's happiness and subjective well-being, as well as the concept of happiness and quality of life in general.

Ravi Iyer, Ph.D., co-founder, is a data scientist at Ranker who loves to use data to study intangible things like values, ideology, and happiness. He blogs regularly at PoliPsych.com and is a director of CivilPolitics.Org as well as an active researcher at the University of Southern California .

Penny Bhathal, content manager, is a first-year graduate student at San Francisco State University. As a member of the Personality & Well-being Lab, her interests lie in better understanding subjective well-being and spending motivations.

Grant Donnelly, content manager, is a master's candidate at San Francisco State University. As a member of the Personality & Well-being Lab, he studies how individual money management influences financial and purchasing outcomes. He also serves as the treasurer for Beyond the Purchase.

Masha Ksendzova, content manager, is an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University. As a member of the Personality & Well-being Lab, she is interested in materialism, maladaptive consumption, self-regulation, and mortality salience.

Graham Hill, community manager, is a graduate student in the Personality & Well-being Lab, at San Francisco State University. His research interests include consumer decision making and the application of consumer psychology to marketing practice.

Claudio Yerahian, User Experience Research Analyst, is a graduate student in the Personality & Well-being Lab, at San Francisco State University. His research interests include design and conduct user research via qualitative and quantitative methods to understand consumer decision making and behaviors with a primary focus to Latino and LGBT populations.

Lea M. Lunden, content manager, is an undergraduate student at San Francisco State University. In the Fall, she will continue her studies at SF State as a graduate student in the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Master's Program. As a member of the Personality & Well-being Lab, her research interests include the effects of social exclusion on purchasing preferences and behavior, well-being & happiness, the victim blaming process, and the effects of emotions on perceptions and behavior.

Curtis Sheldon, User Experience Researcher, is a graduate student in the Personality & Well-being Lab, at San Francisco State University. His research interests include human cognition, decision making, and social interaction. At Beyond the Purchase, he works to better understand and optimize the user experience.

PolicyInteractive Research, of Eugene, Oregon, is a nonpartisan interdisciplinary research institute that focuses on issues concerning climate, consumption, and public opinion. Please visit their website for more information. PolicyInteractive was instrumental in founding BeyondThePurchase and provided the initial startup funds covering programming, hosting, and sponsoring graduate student research on consumption.

The John Templeton Foundation serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discoveries relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality. It supports research on subjects ranging from complexity, evolution, and infinity to creativity, forgiveness, love, and free will. They encourage civil, informed dialogue among scientists, philosophers, and theologians and between such experts and the public at large, for the purposes of definitional clarity and new insights.