Dr. Lars Krutak is an anthropologist and photographer known for his research about Indigenous tattooing and its cultural background. For nearly 20 years, he has explored the more remote Tribal regions of our world to document and preserve the rich history of Indigenous tattooing before it disappears from view on the bodies of the last generation of tattoo bearers. Krutak also produced and hosted the 10-part documentary series "Tattoo Hunter" on the Discovery Channel, which traveled the Indigenous world to showcase vanishing art forms of body modification. He was a recipient of the 2003 American Book Award in Literature.

Krutak lectures internationally about the cultural heritage of tattooing and works as a curatorial advisor on international museum exhibitions and television programs. His photography has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Musée du quai Branly, Royal Ontario Museum, among other venues.

Interdisciplinary scholar Anna Felicity Friedman has been researching the history of tattooing for over 20 years, when, as a high school student, she wandered into the Peabody (now Peabody Essex) Museum's library seeking to look at rare books that discussed sailor tattoos. She has been collecting tattoos on her own body since 1990. Her two blogs, Tattoo History Daily and Tattoo History Occasionally, can be accessed through the hub tattoohistorian.com. Tattoo History Daily can be followed on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. She is currently the curatorial director for a new traveling exhibition in development, TATTOO: Ancient Myths, Modern Meanings (tattootheexhibition.com) and recently launched a new foundation, the Center for Tattoo History and Culture (centerfortattoo.org). She served as the curator of the tattoo material in the Freaks and Flash exhibition (2009) at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art. Several books are currently in the works, and her newest, World Atlas of Tattoos (Thames & Hudson and Yale University Press) just came out in Fall 2015. She writes occasional articles for magazines such as Things and Ink, Total Tattoo, and Tattoo Culture Magazine.

Although studying the history of tattooing and body art is a particular passion for her, she also has spent considerable time lecturing and publishing on other topics in visual culture including contemporary performance art (she also occasionally performs), rare books, and celestial cartography. For 10 years she taught a variety of classes at the university level at the University of Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in diverse fields including art history, liberal arts, social sciences, visual and critical studies, performance art, and freshman core classes (that combine literature, art, and film studies). For many years she worked as the assistant curator in the History of Astronomy department at Chicago's Adler Planetarium, and she has filled many other roles in museums (she also worked at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art and the Field Museum) and as an independent curator. She also plays bass and sings in several rock bands.

Amelia Klem Osterud is a tattooed librarian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who writes and speaks on circus, sideshow and tattoo history. She is the author of The Tattooed Lady: A History, a contributor to The World Atlas of Tattoo, and a regular writer for Things & Ink and Z Tattoo Magazine. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in History and Library Science. When she is not writing, knitting or playing ice hockey, she and her pocket watch-enthusiast husband can be found restoring old houses and taking care of their two off-kilter cats and their hedgehog. She is always planning her next tattoo.