Suzanne Degges-White, PhD, LPC, LMHC, NCC, is professor and chair of the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. She is a licensed counselor and her research interests include intimate relationships (including friendship and motherhood). She is the author of Friends Forever: How Girls and Women Forge Lasting Relationships and Mothers and Daughters: Living, Loving, and Learning over a Lifetime. She is a featured blogger on the Psychology Today website and has edited four books on counseling in the community and in schools.
Judy Pochel Van Tieghem has over three decades of experience in reporting, writing, and researching for various publications. She was awarded the Illinois Associated Press Spot News Reporter of the Year honor in 1984 and was a winner of the Kenan Business Fellowship, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1990. She currently resides in the Chicago suburban area, where she works as a freelance reporter.