The participants were M.I.T.'s Alan Guth, the
developer of the inflationary
model of the universe, Lawrence Krauss, a frequent contributor to Scientific American magazine and director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University, John Carlstrom from the University of Chicago, who studies the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the big bang and Scott Dodelson of the Fermi National Accelerator
Laboratory, who studies the origin and structure of the universe.