Advisors

Alan Alda, a six-time Emmy Award–winner, played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series, M*A*S*H, and, more recently, appeared in continuing roles on ER and The West Wing. Altogether, he has been nominated for the Emmy 32 times - as actor, writer, and director. In 1994, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

David Baltimore is chairman of the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. One of the world's most influential biologists, he has contributed widely to the understanding of cancer, AIDS, and the molecular basis of the human body's immune response.

John Barrow is a research professor of mathematical sciences in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge in England. He is also the author of nearly twenty books for a general audience, including The Book of Nothing, and is the director of the Millennium Mathematics Project, a mathematics education initiative.

Günter Blobel is the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Professor at Rockefeller University in New York City and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. For his research into the mechanisms by which proteins find their way around the inside of a cell, he received the 1999 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

David Bodanis is known to a wide audience as an author of popular science books such as the highly acclaimed E=mc²: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation and Electric Universe, which won the 2006 Royal Society Aventis Prize for Science Books.  He has worked with major corporations such as Shell and BMW in the area of future scenarios and technological trends, as well as given presentations on the subject to many clients,

John Seely Brown is a senior fellow at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Part scientist, part artist, and part strategist, he is an expert on organizational studies, and serves on the WSF Strategic Advisory Board for Digital Learning and Outreach.

Bill Bryson is a best-selling writer of 17 books (and counting) on travel, science, and the English language, and the current chancellor of Durham University in northern England.  He is a winner of the 2004 Royal Society Aventis Prize for Science Books and the European Commission's 2004 Descartes Prize for Science Communication.

Red Burns is an entrepreneur, inventor, and pioneer of alternative media. She is the founder and chair of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of Art in New York City, a creative home to more than 200 students, who are joined by some of the technology industry's top practitioners in their search for ever more creative ways of bringing digital and interactive media to a variety of audiences.

Ralph J. Cicerone is President of the National Academy of Sciences and Chair of the National Research Council. His work on atmospheric chemistry, climate change and energy has involved him in shaping science and environmental policy at the highest levels, nationally and internationally.

Betty Cohen, President of Betty Cohen Media Consulting, LLC, advises traditional and digital media companies building brands at the intersection of content, community, commerce and experiential learning. A senior cable industry executive, Cohen has served as CEO of Lifetime Entertainment, President of Cartoon Network and Turner Learning, and GM of TNT. A launcher of TV shows, companies, careers and ideas, Cohen gets a Big Bang out of new beginnings.

Paul Davies is Director of the BEYOND Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University and the co-Director of the ASU Cosmology Initiative. His research interests range from the origin of the universe to the origin of life.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and author, who is known for his popularization of Darwinian ideas as well as for original thinking on evolutionary theory.

Daniel Dennett is a philosopher who studies mind and consciousness through the lens of evolutionary biology and cognitive science. Author of several bestselling books including Darwin’s Dangerous Idea and Consciousness Explained, he is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.

Freeman Dyson, born and raised in England, excelled in all subjects from a very young age, going on to specialize in mathematics and theoretical physics in his studies at the University of Cambridge. Moving to the United States in 1947, he continued his research first at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and then at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey.

The National Geographic Society's explorer-in-residence since 1998, Sylvia Earle tirelessly works for the preservation and exploration of the world's marine ecosystems. She has led more than 50 expeditions and spent more than 6,500 hours of her life underwater.

Jane S. Englebardt is an advisor to philanthropies and nonprofit organizations and is a Principal of Upshot Advisors, LLC. She was previously CEO of Bideawee and of the Hasbro Children's Foundation, has held senior positions at the Big Apple Circus and KPMG Peat Marwick, and only recently figured out that science could be fun.

Timothy Ferris is an American science author, journalist, and film producer and narrator. He is the best-selling author of 12 books, including Coming of Age in the Milky Way, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1989. His work has garnered an impressive array of awards, including the 1978 and 1989 American Institute of Physics Science Writing Awards.

Peter Galison is a leading historian of science whose research explores the interaction of experimentation, instrumentation and theory in physics. An author, film producer and MacArthur Award-winner, he is the Joseph Pellegrino University Professor in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University.

Sylvester James (Jim) Gates, Jr. is currently the John S. Toll Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland-College Park. In spring of 2009 he was appointed to serve on President Obama's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and the Maryland State Board of Education.

Susan Greenfield is the Fullerian Professor of Physiology at Oxford University in England, the director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain in London, and a member of the Upper House of the British parliament. The focus of her research is on biochemical and electrical processes taking place in the human brain and their role in neurological disorders.

Paul Greengard is the Vincent Astor Professor, head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, and director of the Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research at Rockefeller University in New York City.

David Gross is the Frederick W. Gluck Professor of Theoretical Physics and Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UCSB. Gross is a central figure completion of the Standard Model, which details how the three basic forces of particle physics--the electromagnetic force, the weak force, and the strong force--interact.

Heidi Hammel is a noted planetary scientist. Currently, she is senior research scientist and codirector of research at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and the University of Hawaii, she spent nearly nine years as the principal research scientist in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT.

William Haseltine is a researcher, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is the chairman and CEO of Haseltine Associates Ltd. and president of the William A. Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts. He pioneered the use of genetic information for fighting diseases such as AIDS.

Dudley Herschbach is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a professor of physics at Texas A&M University in College Station. For his work on the dynamics of chemical reactions, he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Roald Hoffmann is a professor of chemistry and the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. An internationally respected researcher, he is also a committed teacher and proud to have taught the first-year chemistry course almost without interruption for his entire academic career. He is a graduate of both Columbia University in New York City and Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Shirley Ann Jackson is President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She served as Chairman of the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission under the Clinton Administration and presently sits on President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Mae Jemison is a scientist, physician, astronaut, and educator. In 1992, she became the first woman astronaut of color when she flew aboard the space shuttle Endeavour as a science mission specialist. She is the founder of the Jemison Group, the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence, and the BioSentient Corporation.

Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and the Henry Semat Professor at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He is a graduate of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and earned his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.

Eric Kandel is Kavli Professor and University Professor at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, and a senior investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Kandel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for his research on the molecular mechanisms of learning and memory.

Mary—Claire King is the American Cancer Society Research Professor in the Department of Medicine and Genetics at the University of Washington in Seattle. The focus of her research is the genetics of complex human disorders such as cancer; she has also applied the methods of molecular biology to the study of human evolution.

Lawrence Krauss is Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration and Director of the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University. He is an internationally known theoretical physicist, winner of numerous international awards for his research accomplishments, and is also an acclaimed science writer.

Eric S. Lander is one of the driving forces behind the current revolution in genomics, the systematic study of an organism’s complete set of genetic information.

Leon Lederman is the Pritzker Professor of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and the Director Emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988. He is the author of several books, including The God Particle, and Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe.

Walter Lewin is a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, where he is a member of the X-ray Astronomy Group. He is a graduate of the University of Delft in the Netherlands.

Alan Lightman's novel Einstein's Dreams was an international bestseller and has been translated into thirty languages. Both a distinguished physicist and an accomplished novelist, Lightman was the first professor at MIT to receive a joint appointment in the sciences and the humanities.

Thomas Lovejoy holds the Biodiversity Chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment based in Washington, DC, and is a recipient of the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award.

Rob Morrow is an actor, writer, and restaurant owner who is best known for his portrayal of Joel Fleishman in the hit TV series Northern Exposure.

Paul Nurse is a Nobel Laureate and the President of Rockefeller University, where he continues to do research in cell biology. He is the former Chief Executive of Cancer Research, UK. In 1999 he was knighted in Great Britain for his contributions to cancer research.

Nobel Prize-winning physicist William Phillips is a professor at the University of Maryland and leads the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His research on manipulating atoms with laser light has led to more accurate atomic clocks and a more fundamental understanding of light-matter interactions.

Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is widely known for both his writings in publications such as The New York Times, Time, and The New Republic, and for his seven books, which include the two Pulitzer Prize finalists How the Mind Works and The Blank Slate.

V.S. Ramachandran investigates the nature of self and human consciousness. His work spans the causes and effects of synesthesia and phantom limb pain to questions about visual perception and the brain. He is Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, San Diego.

Lisa Randall is a professor of physics at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on models that extend standard particle physics, notably by including extra dimensions of space.  

Martin Rees is the president of the Royal Society and the British Astronomer Royal. He is both Master and a professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge’s Trinity College. He is also a member of the upper house of the British parliament. Image © University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Diana Rhoten directs the Knowledge Institutions program and the Digital Media and Learning project at the Social Science Research Council.  Researcher, educator, and entrepreneur, Diana is an expert in organization design, scientific collaboration, and creative change.  She serves on the WSF Strategic Advisory Board for Digital Learning and Outreach.

Matt Ridley is an English science communicator. Educated at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in zoology, he embarked upon a career as a science writer, serving as science editor for The Economist from 1984 to 1987.

Vera C. Rubin is an observational astronomer who has studied the motions of gas and stars in galaxies and motions of galaxies in the universe for 75 percent of her life. Her work was influential in discovering that most of the matter in the universe is dark — it does not emit or absorb any light, and it does not interact with ordinary matter (which is made of atoms) except via gravity.

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, a professor of Health Policy and Management, and the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City. He is the president and cofounder of the Millennium Promise Alliance, an initiative to end extreme poverty by the year 2025.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks has spent a lifetime exploring a vast array of human experience – from Tourette's syndrome and autism to phantom limb syndrome and schizophrenia. His many best-selling books include Uncle Tungsten, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and Awakenings, which became an acclaimed film. Sacks is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and a Columbia University Artist. His writings appear regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

James Schamus is CEO of Focus Features, and an associate professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts in New York City, where he teaches film history and theory.

David E. Shaw serves as chief scientist of D. E. Shaw Research and as a senior research fellow at the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics at Columbia University. He received his doctorate from Stanford University in 1980, served on the faculty of the Computer Science Department at Columbia until 1986, and founded the D. E. Shaw group in 1988.

Robert Shaye is a businessman, film producer, and director. He is also the founder of New Line Cinema, an independent motion picture production and distribution company that, following an early success with the classic horror movie A Nightmare on Elm Street, went on to back numerous highly successful films, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Se7en, About Schmidt, and Hairspray.

Anna Deavere Smith has been hailed by Newsweek as “the most exciting individual in American theater.” She began interviewing people across the country 20 years ago. Without props, sets, or costumes, she translates those encounters into profound performances, each drawing verbatim from the original recorded interview. The New York Times commented that “Anna Deavere Smith is the ultimate impressionist — she does people’s souls.”  

Lee Smolin is a founding member and research physicist at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor of physics at the University of Waterloo, and a cofounder of loop quantum gravity, a theory that attempts to unify quantum physics and Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Horst Stormer is the Isidor Isaac Rabi Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Columbia University in New York City and an expert in condensed-matter physics.

Michael Turner is the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He is a theoretical cosmologist who coined the term, “dark energy.” He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of inflationary cosmology, particle dark matter, and the theory of the Big Bang.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He is the author of several books and hosts the NOVA ScienceNow program on PBS.

Harold Varmus, president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, received the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Michael Bishop, his former colleague at the University of California, San Francisco, for their discovery of cellular genes that are progenitors of retroviral oncogenes.

James Watson is a molecular biologist. He is best known for his role in the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, for which he was co-recipient of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Steven Weinberg holds the Josey Regental Chair in Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is a member of the Physics and Astronomy departments. He received the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the standard model of elementary particle physics.

Jonathan Weiner is an award-winning nonfiction author. He is currently a professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City, where he teaches science writing. His book The Beak of the Finch won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995.

Carl Wieman was a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1984 to 2006 and still retains a part-time appointment at that institution as Director of the Colorado Science Education Initiative. In January 2007, he joined the University of British Columbia as the director of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative.

Torsten Wiesel is the Vincent and Brooke Astor Professor Emeritus and President Emeritus at Rockefeller University in New York City. For his work on the neurological basis of vision, he was a recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Medicine.

Professor Frank Wilczek is considered one of the world's eminent theoretical physicists. In 2004, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction – key to several major problems in particle physics and beyond.

E.O. Wilson is a life-long explorer of the natural world whose pioneering studies of ants have led to revolutionary insights across a wide range of fields, from evolution to animal and human behavior. A founding father of the environmental movement, Wilson teaches us to understand, protect, and celebrate the earth and has greatly influenced the way scientists and nonscientists view the interwoven complexity and diversity of our planet.

Damian Woetzel (director and producer) is the artistic director of the summer Vail International Dance Festival, the artist-in-residence of the Aspen Institute, and is a frequent speaker on arts policy. Mr. Woetzel was a principal dancer at New York City Ballet from 1989 until his retirement from the stage in June of 2008, and he has choreographed a number of ballets for NYCB among other companies.

Shing-Tung Yau is the William Casper Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. For his extensive work in differential geometry, the study of mathematical generalizations of curved surfaces, he was the recipient of the 1982 Fields Medal.

After graduation from Oxford in 1964, Michael York joined the National Theatre company, making his film debut in The Taming of the Shrew. His more than 60 other screen credits include Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, Jesus of Nazareth, The Three Musketeers, Logan’s Run, Murder on the Orient Express, Conduct Unbecoming, The Omega Code and all three Austin Powers movies.