| Term | Definition |
| Katherine Bauer | Led the National Institute of Medicine study |
| Esther Lucile Brown | Social anthropologist and director of the Department of Studies in the Professions of the Russell Sage Foundation; also the author of the Brown report |
| Eli Ginzberg | Professor of economics at Columbia University; conducted a study with colleagues from nursing, medicine, and the social sciences that resulted in the publication of the Ginzberg report |
| Josephine Goldmark | Chief investigator in the Goldmark report |
| Inez Hinsvark | Primary researcher for The Study of Credentialing in Nursing; A New Approach |
| Jerome P Lysaught | Nurse researcher who worked with the National Commision for the Study of Nursing and Nursing Education to conduct the study that would be the basis for the Lysaught report |
| Mildred Montag | Author of the Montag study and Community College Education for Nursing |