Brain trust began as a term for a group of close advisors to a political candidate or incumbent, prized for their expertise in particular fields. The term is most associated with the group of advisors to Franklin Roosevelt during his presidential administration. More recently the use of the term has expanded to encompass any group of advisers to a decision maker, whether or not in politics.

The first use of the term brain trust was in 1899 when it appeared in the Marion (Ohio) Daily Star: "Since everything else is tending to trusts, why not a brain trust?" This sense was referring to the era of trust-busting, a popular political slogan and objective of the time that helped spur the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act and was later a key policy of President Theodore Roosevelt's administration. The term appears to have not been used again until 1928, when Time magazine ran a headline on a meeting of the American Council on Learned Societies titled "Brain Trust."

Franklin Roosevelt speechwriter and legal counsel Samuel Rosenman suggested having an academic team to advise Roosevelt in March 1932. This concept was perhaps based on The Inquiry, a group of academic advisors President Woodrow Wilson formed in 1917 to prepare for the peace negotiations following World War I. In 1932, New York Times writer James Kieran first used the term Brains Trust (shortened to Brain Trust later) when he applied it to the close group of experts that surrounded United States presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt. According to Roosevelt Brain Trust member Raymond Moley, Kieran coined the term, however Rosenman contended that Louis Howe, a close advisor to the President, first used the term but used it derisively in a conversation with Roosevelt.

Gretchen Craft Rubin (born Kansas City, Missouri) is an American author and blogger. She is author of The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, along with her soon to to be released follow up Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life. Her first book, Power Money Fame Sex: A User’s Guide, parodied self-help books by analyzing and exposing the techniques used to exploit those who strive for those worldly ambitions.

Rubin is also the author and creator of the popular blog The Happiness Project where she writes about her adventures as she test-drives the studies and theories about how to be happier.

Her soon to be released follow up to The Happiness Project, Happier at Home: Kiss More, Jump More, Abandon a Project, Read Samuel Johnson, and My Other Experiments in the Practice of Everyday Life, comes out September 4, 2012.

Ron Lieber (born August 27, 1971) is an American journalist who writes the "Your Money" column for The New York Times. Lieber specializes in advising younger people on managing their money. From 2002 to 2007, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal, including the "Green Thumb" column on money management. From 2007 to 2008, Lieber was the managing editor of FiLife.com, a site designed to help people in their 20s and 30s manage money. FiLife.com was a joint venture between Dow Jones and IAC.

Lieber's previous staff credits including Fast Company and Fortune magazines. He has written several books, including "Taking Time Off," "Upstart Startups," and “Best Entry-Level Jobs."

Lieber is married to Jodi Kantor, a reporter for The New York Times, most recently covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He is a Chicago Cubs fan, and describes himself as obsessed by food.

Patricia Smith Churchland (born July 16, 1943) is a Canadian-American philosopher noted for her contributions to neurophilosophy and the philosophy of mind. She has been a Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) since 1984. Since 1999 she has been UC President's Professor of Philosophy at UCSD, and has held an adjunct professorship at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies since 1989. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Oxford, she taught philosophy at the University of Manitoba from 1969 to 1984 and is the wife of philosopher Paul Churchland.

Churchland was born Patricia Smith in Oliver, British Columbia,^{[citation needed]} and raised on a farm there in the South Okanagan valley. Both of her parents lacked a high-school education, her father and mother left school after grades 6 and 8 respectively. Her mother was a nurse and her father worked in newspaper publishing in addition to running the family farm. In spite of their limited education, Churchland has described her parents as interested in the sciences, and the worldview they instilled in her as a secular one. She has also described her parents as eager for her to attend college, and though many farmers in their community thought this "hilarious and a grotesque waste of money", they saw to it that she did so. She took her undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia, graduating with honors in 1965. She received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to study at the University of Pittsburgh, where she took an M.A. in 1966. Thereafter she studied at Oxford University as a British Council and Canada Council Fellow, obtaining a B. Phil in 1969.

Michael Robert "Mike" Posner (born February 12, 1988) is an American singer, songwriter, and producer. Posner released his debut album, 31 Minutes to Takeoff, on August 10, 2010. The album includes the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 single "Cooler Than Me," his second single, "Please Don't Go," as well as his third single, "Bow Chicka Wow Wow". As of 2012, he is the ambassador of Reebok Classic's RealFlex range.

Posner was born and raised in Southfield, Michigan. His father, a criminal defense attorney, is Jewish, and his mother is Catholic. Posner attended and graduated from Groves High School, where he ran varsity track and cross-country, and went on to attend Duke University. There, Posner went Sigma Nu and graduated in 2010 with a degree in sociology and a certificate in markets and management, with an overall GPA of 3.59.

Manager Daniel Weisman of Elitaste Inc. first heard about Mike Posner in 2008 when Jared Evan manager Saytum passed on some tracks Posner had created for Weisman's then client Wale. Weisman got in touch with Posner and, impressed by songs including "Cooler Than Me", began an informal mentoring relationship with the artist over iChat. The association was made official in early 2009 after Posner's second mixtape, A Matter of Time (the first mixtape being Reflections of a Lost Teen) started attracting industry attention. Working with Don Cannon and DJ Benzi, the mixtape was released from his dorm room at Duke University in March 2009 under the name, "Mike Posner & the Brain Trust," the Brain Trust referring to Posner's supporters. The release was unusual for being distributed for free through iTunes U, a channel designed for educational audio content. Although Posner was not the only artist to take advantage of this loophole, his release was the most organised and high profile, and attracted the largest response, immediately reaching the number one position on the iTunes U chart, thanks to his manager Saytum.