James J. Cochran is associate dean for research with the University of Alabama’s Culverhouse College. He is also professor of statistics and the Rogers-Spivey Research Fellow.

Ryan McNeill is the London-based deputy editor for the Reuters global data team. During his more than 10 years at Reuters, he has worked on investigations revealing underground markets for adopted children, America’s failure to prepare for sea-level rise, failures by governments across the US to stop the spread of antibiotic resistant infections, the scale of Africa’s illicit gold flows to Dubai, how and where humans are raising the risk of zoonotic spillover around the globe, and ethnic cleansing in Sudan. In 2024, he was part of teams that won two Overseas Press Club of America Awards, using satellite imagery and remote sensing methods to document human rights violations – such as the burning of villages and documentation of mass graves in Darfur – and reveal how humans are raising the risk of another global pandemic.