Joel Best is professor and chair of the University of Delaware's Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

He has published more than a dozen books on aspects of social problems, including Damned Lies and Statistics (2001), More Damned Lies and Statistics (2004), and the forthcoming Flavor of the Month: Why Serious People Fall for Fads (2006). He is a former editor of the journal Social Problems, and a past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the Midwest Sociological Society.