Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University, and is recognized for a number of groundbreaking discoveries in his field of superstring theory. His books, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality, have collectively spent 65 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list.

Brian Hare is an expert in chimpanzee and bonobo behavior in African sanctuaries, and founded the Hominoid Psychology Research Group, which compares the psychology of hominoids (human and non-human ape).

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and while there, earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation.

David Henry Hwang is a playwright, librettist and screenwriter. He is best known as the author of M. Butterfly, which won the 1988 Tony, Drama Desk, John Gassner, and Outer Critics Circle Awards, and was also a finalist for the 1989 Pulitzer Prize.

Kelli O’Hara recently starred in the Tony Award-winning revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center, enrapturing audiences and critics alike with her interpretation of Nellie Forbush, garnering a third Tony-nomination in the process.

Since 2001 AL Holmes and AL Taylor have created an award winning body of films commissioned by Animate, Arts Council England, BFI, Channel 4 television, Cornerhouse Cinema, FACT gallery, Film London, MuHKA, Southbank Centre and the World Science Festival, exhibiting internationally in galleries, site specific installations, film festivals, television and concert halls.

Theoretical physicist Stephon Alexander explores unresolved questions about the early universe. Also an accomplished jazz musician, Alexander has collaborated with Grammy Award-winning musician Will Calhoun.

Brian Cox is a physicist and BBC television and radio presenter who appears in programs such as In Einstein’s Shadow, Bitesize and Horizon.

Recognized mathematician and computer scientist Brian Snow’s early work spans from teaching mathematics and laying the groundwork for a computer science department at Ohio University in the 1960’s, to working as a cryptologic designer and architect at the National Security Agency (NSA) in the 1970s.

Saul Perlmutter is a professor in Berkeley’s Department of Physics and a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He is the leader of the Supernova Cosmology Project, an international collaboration of research teams from seven countries measuring the expansion history of the universe.

Peter Staley has been a long-term AIDS and gay rights activist, first as a member of ACT UP New York, then as the founding director of TAG, the Treatment Action Group. He served on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) for 13 years.

Besides being the voice double for Matthew McConaughey, Brian Ralph has an amazing way with cheese. Ralph made his way into the cheese world after studying neurobiology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, so clearly, the man knows a thing or two about science.

Brian Hecht is a serial entrepreneur and a veteran of many startups in the digital media space. He is currently at the helm of two NY-based startups, both of which he co-founded. With a specialty in content and consumer marketing, he was also the Publisher of Premium Services for TheStreet.com, a publicly-traded financial media company.

Ann Bordwine Beeder, MD is the Chief of the Division of Public Health Programs in the Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and The New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Brian Lehrer is host of the Peabody Award–winning program The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC New York Public Radio, 93.9 FM, AM 820, and wnyc.org. From scientists to heads of state, Lehrer hosts major thinkers and major newsmakers and involves the audience through phone calls and social media.

Michael Winther has appeared on Broadway in 33 Variations, Mamma Mia, 1776, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Crucible, and Damn Yankees. His recent credits include “Bruce standby” Fun Home National Tour, “Albert Einstein” in physicist Brian Greene’s Light Falls in New York and Princeton, Australia.

Brian Elbel is an associate professor of population health and health policy at the NYU School of Medicine, where he heads the section on health choice, policy and evaluation within the department of population health, and at the NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

Pilobolus has created and toured over 120 pieces of repertory to more than 65 countries and currently performs its work each year for over 300,000 people across the U.S. and around the world. In 2015, Pilobolus was named one of the Dance Heritage Coalition’s “Irreplaceable Dance Treasures.”

Susannah Meadows is a former Senior Writer for Newsweek. She has been a frequent contributor to The New York Times, most recently writing a column for the Arts section about books, along with reviews.

Budd Mishkin is a broadcast journalist in New York City. As correspondent and host for NY1’s weekly profile series, One on 1 with Budd Mishkin, Mishkin profiled almost 400 influential New Yorkers with significant personal and professional ties to the city.

Dubbed “The Last Leading Man” by the New York Times, Brian Stokes Mitchell has enjoyed a rich and varied career on Broadway, television, film and recordings, along with appearances in the great American concert halls.

Laura H. Greene is the chief scientist at the National MagLab, Eppes Professor of Physics at Florida State University, and past-president of the American Physical Society. Her research is in quantum materials, including high-temperature superconductivity.

Brian Avers’ Broadway credits include American Son, The Father (opposite Frank Langella), Rock N’ Roll by Tom Stoppard, Travesties (Stoppard), and The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh.

Brian Floca is the author and illustrator of Locomotive, winner of the 2013 Caldecott Medal; Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book; Lightship, also a Sibert Honor Book; and Racecar Alphabet, an ALA Notable Children’s Book.

Brian Schmidt shares the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Adam Riess and Saul Perlmutter for their discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe through observations of distant supernovae. …