Martin Ottenheimer is an anthropology professor at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., whose research specializes in marriage and family relationships.

Maura I. Strassberg is a law professor at Drake University in Des Moines who has expertise in sexuality law and has written about polygamy.

Michele Alexandre, an associate law professor at the University of Mississippi, is a 2004 Fulbright Scholar researching the legal protection afforded to women under the Haitian practice of placage, an informal form of polygamy.

Patricia Dixon is associate professor in African-American studies at Georgia State University in Athens, Ga., and co-founder of the African-American Relationships Institute. She contends that a shortage of eligible African-American men, combined with men’s natural tendency to engage in multiple relationships, makes polygamy a practical option for African-Americans.

Rick Ross is founder and executive director of the nonprofit Ross A. Institute, which is based in Jersey City, N.J., and has a mission of studying controversial groups and movements. The institute maintains a database on polygamist groups

James J. Hughes is the executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, as well as a bioethicist and sociologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Help the Child Brides is led by Flora Jessop, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz.

Mary Mackert, a former plural wife who lives in Utah, wrote and published The Sixth of Seven Wives: Escape From Modern-Day Polygamy (xpolygamist.com, 2001).

Mark Henkel of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, is a national polygamy advocate and founder of TruthBearer.org, a non-Mormon organization that promotes Christian polygamy. Contact through the website.