Jennifer S. Light is Associate Professor of Communication Studies, History, and Sociology and a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. Light has a BA in history and literature from Harvard, an MPhil in history and the philosophy of science from Cambridge University, and a PhD in the history of science from Harvard. Light's research investigates the work of technical experts in the political process, with special interest in these figures' influences on US urban history. She is the author of From Warfare to Welfare: Defense Intellectuals and Urban Problems in Cold War America (2003) and The Nature of Cities: Ecological Visions and the American Urban Professions (2009), both published by Johns Hopkins University Press.