Both authors are mathematical statisticians at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and have published extensively in statistical and biomedical journals.

Colin O. Wu earned his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley (1990), and is also Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He served as Associate Editor for Biometrics and Statistics in Medicine, and reviewer for National Science Foundation, NIH, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Xin Tian earned her Ph.D. in statistics from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey (2003). She has served on various NIH committees and collaborated extensively with clinical researchers.