Participants
Chuck Close is a visual artist noted for his highly inventive techniques used to paint the human face, and is best known for his large-scale, photo-based portrait paintings. He has also participated in nearly 800 group exhibitions. In 1988, Close was paralyzed following a rare spinal artery collapse; he continues to paint using a brush-holding device strapped to his wrist and forearm.
Read MoreCharlie Kaufman wrote the screenplays for Being John Malkovich, Human Nature, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for which he won an Academy Award for best screenplay.
Read MoreKip Thorne is the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, at Caltech. He was the co-founder (with Rai Weiss and Ron Drever) of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) Project and he chaired the steering committee that led LIGO in its earliest years.
Read MoreGregory Chaitin is a mathematician and computer scientist who began making lasting contributions to his field while still a student at the Bronx High School of Science. His approach to mathematics views the field as much as an art form as science and inextricably linked with philosophical questions.
Read MoreLuciano Floridi is one of Italy’s most influential thinkers in the area of philosophy science, technology, and ethics, and is best known as the founder of two major areas of research, Information Ethics and the Philosophy of Information. Dr. Floridi is the first philosopher elected Gauss Professor by the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.
Read MoreMarc Hauser’s award-winning research, at the interface between evolutionary biology and cognitive neuroscience, is aimed at understanding how the minds of human and nonhuman animals evolved.
Read MoreRebecca Newberger Goldstein’s Orthodox Jewish background and advanced studies in philosophy came together in an original writing style for which she has been widely recognized.
Read MoreThupten Jinpa has been the principal English translator to the Dalai Lama for more than 25 years and has translated and edited many of his books, including Ethics for the New Millennium; Transforming the Mind; The Universe in a Single Atom: Convergence of Science and Spirituality.
Read MoreBrian 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).
Read MoreAndrea Lommen has been a pioneer in detecting gravitational waves with pulsars. Dr. Lommen’s research, and that of the team she leads, has taken theoretical concepts and transformed them into experimental practice.
Read MoreBrad Lubman, conductor/composer, is founding co-Artistic Director and Music Director of Ensemble Signal, hailed by The New York Times as “one of the most vital groups of its kind.” He has gained widespread recognition during the past two decades for his versatility, commanding technique, and insightful interpretations.
Read MoreSandra H. “Sandy” Magnus is the executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the world’s largest aerospace professional society. Magnus attended the Missouri University of Science and Technology, graduating with a degree in physics and a master’s degree in electrical engineering.
Read MoreOliver Sacks, a physician and author, has been called “the poet laureate of medicine” by The New York Times. His books and essays, including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, are used in schools and universities around the world.
Read MoreFabien Cousteau is an ocean explorer, the third generation to carry on the tradition of adventure pioneered by his grandfather Jacques Cousteau. His Natural Entertainment company works to raise environmental awareness through television and other media.
Read MoreAndré Fenton is a recognized neuroscientist, biomedical engineer, and entrepreneur. Dr. Fenton is a Professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University.
Read MoreRai Weiss is known for his pioneering measurements of the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation and his seminal leadership in the conception, design and operation of the laser interferometer gravitational wave detector; remarkable scientific achievements recognized by his roles as a co-founder and an intellectual leader of both the COBE Project and LIGO.
Read MoreTom Ashbrook is an award-winning journalist brought to public radio by the attacks of September 11, 2001, when he was enlisted by NPR and WBUR-Boston for special coverage, after a distinguished career in newspaper reporting and editing. He is the host of On Point. Ashbrook’s journalism career spans twenty years as a foreign correspondent, newspaper editor, and author.
Read MoreLeonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley and taught at the California Institute of Technology. He is a popular international speaker and the author of numerous academic papers in physics and eight popular science books, including four best sellers.
Read MoreThe Escher String Quartet has received acclaim for its individual sound and unique cohesiveness. The quartet takes its name from Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher; the members were inspired by Escher’s method of interplay between individual components working together to form a whole.
Read MoreMostafa A. El-Sayed is an internationally renowned nanoscience researcher whose work in the synthesis and study of the properties of nanomaterials of different shape may have applications in the treatment of cancer.
Read MoreOliver Goodenough’s research and writing at the intersection of law, economics, finance, media, technology, neuroscience and behavioral biology make him an authority in several emerging areas of law and its application in society.
Read MoreTod Machover, called “America’s Most Wired Composer” by the Los Angeles Times, is celebrated for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries.
Read MoreNobel 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.
Read MoreFaith Salie is a three-time Emmy-winning contributor to CBS Sunday Morning and a regular on NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! She’s hosted five seasons of PBS’s Science Goes to the Movies and is a storyteller for The Moth. She hosts the new podcast “One Plus One,” from Wondery.
Read MoreRosalind W. Picard is an international leader in envisioning and inventing innovative technology. Her award-winning book Affective Computing was instrumental in starting the new field by that name.
Read MoreSeth Shostak is an astronomer, lecturer and the author and editor of several books, including the 2009 Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (National Geographic). For much of his career, he conducted radio astronomy research on galaxies.
Read MoreNeil 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. Tyson is best known as an ardent popularizer of astronomy and astrophysics.
Read MoreBill Weir is an award-winning broadcast journalist, anchor and special correspondent for CNN. With a focus on our connected planet, he created and hosted The Wonder List with Bill Weir.
Read MoreMitchell Joachim is on the faculty at Columbia University and Parsons School of Design. He is a partner in Terrefuge, a New York-based organization for philanthropic architecture and ecological design.
Read MoreMajora Carter is a green economic consultant who combines social, economic development, and region wide infrastructure needs into positive feedback systems. She has been a driving force behind some of NYC’s most progressive environmental legislation, as well as cultural acceptance of sustainable practices.
Read MoreNick Bostrom is a co-founder of the World Transhumanist Association and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. His research areas of interest include artificial intelligence, bio-enhancement, and mind uploading.
Read MoreDavid Albert is the Frederick E. Woodbridge Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and a physicist who explores quantum mechanics. He is world-renowned for his insights into philosophical questions about the nature of time, space, and other problems of modern physics.
Read MoreEvalyn Gates is the Assistant Director of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago and a Senior Research Associate in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Her research focuses on theoretical cosmology and particle astrophysics.
Read MoreYoon Chang joined Argonne National Laboratory in 1974 and has been responsible for leadership of advanced reactor design and fuel cycle technology development activities in positions of increasing responsibility.
Read MoreBrother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, earned undergraduate and masters’ degrees from MIT, and a Ph. D. in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona. He was a researcher at Harvard and MIT, served in the US Peace Corps (Kenya), and taught university physics at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania, before entering the Jesuits in 1989.
Read MoreDr. Robert W. Corell, Vice President of Programs & Policy for The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment is also a Council Member for the Global Energy Assessment and a Senior Policy Fellow at the Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society.
Read MoreHugh Herr is Associate Professor at MIT and Director of the Biomechatronics group at the MIT Media Lab. His research seeks to advance technologies merging body and machine, and encompasses a diverse set of disciplines.
Read MorePaul Hoffman is the author of a memoir called King’s Gambit and two biographies, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers and Wings of Madness. Formerly the publisher of Encyclopaedia Britannica and the long-time editor in chief of Discover magazine, Paul has performed mathematical paper-folding tricks on David Letterman and strapped Oprah into a virtual hang-glider while she accused him of ogling her butt.
Read MoreAlan McDonald is Head, Programme Coordination Group, Department of Nuclear Energy, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The Department of Nuclear Energy supports interested Member States in improving the performance of nuclear power plants and the nuclear fuel cycle.
Read MoreColin McGinn is a professor and Cooper Fellow at University of Miami. In 2006, he joined the UM philosophy department, having taught previously at University of London, University of Oxford, and Rutgers University.
Read MoreFemi Oke is an international broadcaster and a special correspondent for the syndicated national news radio show The Takeaway broadcast from WNYC Radio in New York. Oke became known around the world for her reporting on Africa after joining CNN International in 1999. She also hosted CNN’s award-winning African affairs program “Inside Africa.”
Read MoreSir Roger Penrose has made seminal contributions to our understanding of space and time. In describing the initial conditions of the universe, he provided the foundation for studying the origins of the arrow of time.
Read MoreAndrew Revkin is one of America’s most honored and experienced journalists and authors focused on environmental and human sustainability. He recently joined the staff of the National Geographic Society as strategic adviser for environmental and science journalism.
Read MoreAfter serving as President of Caltech for nine years, David Baltimore was appointed President Emeritus and the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology (2006). Baltimore was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 37 for research in virology.
Read MoreCynthia Breazeal is an associate professor of media arts and sciences and the director of the personal robots group at the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge. She is an expert on the interaction between people and sociable robots.
Read MoreTom Crawford has been helping athletes, executives and teams across the U.S. perform at their highest levels for over 20 years — from youth programs to Major League Baseball, the National Football League and the National Basketball association.
Read MoreGordon Davidson is a Tony Award-winning theater director. He was artistic director of the renowned Center Theater Group in Los Angeles for more than thirty years. His credits include Broadway productions of Children of a Lesser God and The Shadow Box.
Read MoreDaniel C. Dennett is a University Professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, as well as Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University.
Read MoreAs director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, William Solecki’s research focuses on urban environmental change, urban land use, and suburbanization.
Read MorePresident of the Future of Life Institute, Max Tegmark advocates for positive use of technology. He is also a professor doing physics and AI research at MIT.
Read MoreEugene Thacker is the author of several books and articles that combine philosophy, science, and technology, including Biomedia, The Global Genome, and The Exploit: A Theory of Networks which he co-authored with Alexander Galloway. He has collaborated with art collectives Biotech Hobbyist and the Radical Software Group.
Read MoreJonah Lehrer is contributing editor at Wired and the author of the bestselling books How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist. His articles regularly appear in The New Yorker, Nature, The New York Times Magazine, Seed, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe. He is also a contributing editor at Scientific American Mind and NPR’s Radio Lab.
Read MoreLaurie Santos is a cognitive psychologist who studies monkeys’ capacity for learning and the evolution of the human mind. She is an Associate Professor of Psychology and director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory at Yale University and was named one of Popular Science magazine’s “Brilliant 10” for 2007.
Read MoreAfter 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.
Read MoreCanadian rap artist, writer, and former tree-planter, Baba Brinkman has personally planted more than one million trees in the Rocky Mountains. After graduating with an M.A. in comparative literature in 2003, he began his career as a rap troubadour.
Read MoreRecognized 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.
Read MoreRecognized for his contributions to sleep research, Carlos H. Schenck has helped identify a wide range of extreme sleep behaviors known as parasomnias and therapies to treat them, as well as their potential forensic consequences.
Read MoreHeather Knight is an electrical engineer and social roboticist who runs Marilyn Monrobot in New York, where she and her cohort create “charismatic machine performances,” as well as founding the world’s first Robot Film Festival. Knight is currently conducting her doctoral research at the intersection of robotics and entertainment at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.
Read MoreRenowned for his influential contributions to string theory and its application in mathematics, particle physics, cosmology, and black hole physics, Herman Verlinde’s research has been widely recognized through many awards and fellowships.
Read MoreJürgen Schmidhuber has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers. His lab’s research on artificial neural nets won several handwriting recognition contests and number one rankings in several computer vision competitions and benchmarks.
Read MoreKatherine Freese is the George E. Uhlenbeck Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan and Visiting Professor of Physics at Stockholm University. She works on a wide range of topics in theoretical cosmology and astroparticle physics. She has been working to identify the dark matter and dark energy that permeate the universe, as well as to build a successful model for the early universe immediately after the Big Bang.
Read MoreCommitted to advancing discoveries in the science of aging and longevity, Leonard Guarente is recognized for his impactful contribution in identifying sirtuins, a group of related proteins that slow aging in model organisms and mitigate aging and diseases in mammals.
Read MoreMathematician, researcher, writer and radio presenter Marcus du Sautoy has contributed to the Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent and the Guardian. For several years, he wrote a regular column in the Times called Sexy Science. He is also a frequent commentator on BBC radio and television.
Read MoreMichael Rose began his work on the evolution of aging at the University of Sussex in 1976, where he created fruit fly stocks with postponed aging. His 1991 book Evolutionary Biology of Aging offered a view of aging that was a complete departure from the views that had dominated the aging field since 1960.
Read MoreSeth Mnookin’s most recent book, The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear, uses a combination of investigative reporting, intellectual and scientific history, and sociological analysis to explore the controversies over vaccines and their rumored connection to developmental disorders. The New York Times said it was “just what the public needs…a tour-de-force.”
Read MoreSteven Pinker is an experimental psychologist who conducts research in visual cognition, psycholinguistics, and social relations. Currently Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard, he has won numerous prizes for his research, teaching, and books.
Read MoreManager and research staff member of the Cryptography Research Group at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center, Tal Rabin’s research focuses on the general area of cryptography and, more specifically, on multiparty computations, threshold and proactive security.
Read MoreJoseph LeDoux is a professor of neural science at NYU and director of the Emotional Brain Institute involving NYU and the Nathan Kline Institute. LeDoux’s research is focused on the brain mechanisms of emotion and memory. He is the author of The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life.
Read MoreSince a young age, Mike Cahill would experiment with filmmaking on Fisher Price and VHS camcorders. He began working for National Geographic, first as an intern, but within a few months, he became the youngest field producer, editor, and cinematographer on the NG staff.
Read MoreNiels Rattenborg aims to gain insight into the function of sleep through studying birds, the only taxonomic group to independently evolve sleep patterns like those in mammals, including humans.
Read MoreSmell scientist, entrepreneur, and author Avery N. Gilbert is a fragrance industry innovator and pioneer in the areas of olfactory mental imagery, multisensory correlates of odor perception, and the psychological factors that bias odor judgments.
Read MoreCristina Alberini is a professor of neural science at New York University whose research focuses on the identification and characterization of the biological mechanisms that accompany long-term memory formation, storage …
Read MoreMae 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.
Read MoreMartin Rees is the UK’s Astronomer Royal and a Fellow (and former Master) of Trinity College, Cambridge. After studying at Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before becoming a professor at Sussex University.
Read MoreJim Pfaus has sex on the brain. An internationally known expert in the neurobiology of sexual behavior, Pfaus has authored over 150 publications and chapters that examine how the brain’s neurochemical and neuroanatomical systems are organized for sexual arousal, desire, pleasure, and inhibition.
Read MoreAaron Berkowitz is the author of The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical Moment, which explores improvisation from the perspectives of cognitive neuroscience, musicology/ethnomusicology, and music pedagogy.
Read MoreSteven Weinberg was a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. His honors included the Nobel Prize in Physics and National Medal of Science, election to numerous academies, and 16 honorary doctoral degrees.
Read MoreBob Balaban recently received an Emmy nomination for directing Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons in Georgia O’Keeffe (Lifetime). He received three 2008 Emmy Award nominations, two for directing and producing the HBO film Bernard and Doris, and the third for his performance in Recount.
Read MoreGary Marcus, scientist, bestselling author, and entrepreneur, is Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU and CEO and Co-Founder of the recently-formed Geometric Intelligence, Inc.
Read MorePat Metheny was born in Kansas City into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age.
Read MoreW. Dean Pesnell is the project scientist of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. He has published 80 papers in several research areas, including variable stars, the Sun-Earth connection, quantum mechanics, and meteors in planetary atmospheres.
Read MoreAfter having obtained a BA and Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard, Corina Tarnita applies her knowledge of mathematics to study evolution and evolutionary dynamics.
Read MoreThe Stone Forest Ensemble is an avant-garde hip-hop ensemble whose core consists of strings, beatbox, and hand drumming, with the occasional inclusion of traditional Asian instruments.
Read MoreAs Executive Producer of the PBS science series, NOVA, now in its 38th season, Howard Swartz manages all phases of production, from development through the creative execution of NOVA programs.
Read MoreThis is a collaborative, multi-user audio-visual experience. Sensors in a table and objects combine to create a sonic experience that is different every time a piece is moved.
Read MoreLeslie Bernstein delayed her scientific career to raise a family and received her Ph.D. in biostatistics at age 42. She then pursued a career as a cancer epidemiologist and was the first to demonstrate that exercise lowers women’s breast cancer risk.
Read MoreDan Harris was named co-anchor of ABC News’ weekend edition of Good Morning America in October 2010. Additionally, Harris is a New York-based correspondent for ABC News’ broadcasts and platforms.
Read MoreRichard E. Cytowic is a neurologist and coauthor of Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, which won the 2011 Montaigne Medal from the Eric Hoffer Book Awards. Cytowic’s work and writing focus on the intersection of creativity and neurological disorders.
Read MoreGillian Small was appointed vice chancellor for research of The City University of New York in 2008 after serving with distinction as dean for research since 2003.
Read MoreCynthia Bir studies what happens to the human body after sports injuries, ballistic impacts, and explosive blasts. She is known worldwide for her research into the effects of blunt ballistic impacts from rubber bullets and other less-lethal ammunition.
Read MoreMichael Osterholm is one of the nation’s foremost experts in public health, infectious disease and biosecurity. He is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Read MoreJonathan Gottschall writes books about the intersection of science and art. He is one of the leading figures in a new movement that is trying to bridge the humanities-sciences divide.
Read MoreMatthieu Ricard is a Buddhist monk, author, translator, and photographer. He has lived, studied, and worked in the Himalayan region for over forty years.
Read MoreAmber Miller aims to understand the origin and evolution of the universe by studying the cosmic microwave background, the faint glow of light left over from the Big Bang.
Read MoreKay Redfield Jamison has been called a “hero of medicine” for turning her own struggle with manic-depression into a lifelong career researching the illness and its treatment.
Read MoreFran Norris studies disaster and human resilience as a community-social psychologist and a research professor in Dartmouth Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry.
Read MoreAdam Wilson was the first person to communicate over the Internet using only his mind. The biomedical engineer studies neural prosthetic devices that can allow people with severe motor disabilities, such as Lou Gehrig’s disease or “locked-in” syndrome, to communicate with the outside world.
Read MoreEd Green has helped pioneer the use of advanced genetic sequencing technology to read ancient DNA extracted from fossilized bones. In 2010, he and large collaboration of other scientists announced that they had used 40,000-year-old bone fragments excavated in a cave in Croatia to map out the genetic code of Neanderthals, humans’ long-dead ancestral cousins.
Read MoreDennis Charney is one of the world’s leading experts in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.
Read MoreGeorge Bonanno is a pioneering researcher in the science of bereavement and loss. He is a professor of clinical psychology at the Teacher’s College of Columbia University, and under his direction, the Loss, Trauma and Emotion Lab is investigating how human beings cope with extreme adversity.
Read MoreJoris Dik studied art history and classical archaeology at the University of Amsterdam, receiving his M.A. in 1997. He spent a year as a Getty Graduate Intern at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. After returning to the Netherlands he graduated with a PhD in chemistry, focusing on historical pigment technology.
Read MoreAngela Belcher is the W. M. Keck Professor of Energy at MIT. She combines chemistry, molecular biology and electrical engineering to understand how living things make molecular-scale materials and incorporate their tricks into new organic-inorganic hybrid technologies.
Read MoreRenowned arachnologist Peter Jäger has discovered more than 200 species of spiders in the last decade, including a rare species in Malaysia that he named Heteropoda davidbowie after the legendary British rocker to raise awareness of endangered spiders and their threatened tropical habitats.
Read MoreBoaz Almog studies superconductors—materials with no electrical resistance—and their applications at Tel-Aviv University in Israel. By using exceptional superconductors, Boaz and his colleague Mishael Azoulay recently succeeded in demonstrating a phenomenon called “quantum levitation”: They trapped a superconductor disc in a powerful magnetic field, causing the disc to float uncannily in midair.
Read MoreNow in its 37th year, Orchestra of St. Luke’s (OSL) is one of America’s foremost and most versatile ensembles. St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble consists of 22 virtuoso artists who form the artistic core of OSL.
Read MoreMatt Mountain has been the Director of the Space Telescope Science Institute since September 1, 2005. He leads the 400-person organization responsible for the science operations and education and public outreach of the Hubble Space Telescope and of its planned successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Read MoreSara Seager is a planetary scientist and astrophysicist. She has been a pioneer in the vast and unknown world of exoplanets, planets that orbit stars other than the sun.
Read MoreLaurie Garrett is currently the senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Garrett is the only writer ever to have been awarded all three of the Big “Ps” of journalism: The Peabody, The Polk and The Pulitzer.
Read MoreSuzanne Staggs is an experimental physicist who uses cutting-edge detectors and optical technology to measure the cosmic microwave background, the low-level radiation left over from the very first moments of the universe. A physics professor at Princeton University, Staggs is now in charge of the detectors for the Atacama Cosmology Telescope project.
Read MoreTim Wu is an author, policy advocate, and professor at Columbia Law School, and director of the Poliak Center for the study of First Amendment Issues at Columbia Journalism School.
Read MoreHailed by Time Out New York as “one of New York’s most reliably adventurous performers”, violinist Jennifer Choi has charted a career that breaks through the conventional boundaries of solo violin, chamber music, and the art of creative improvisation.
Read MoreFor the past sixteen years, American composer Tyondai Braxton has been actively involved in music composition and performance. His music has received critical acclaim from an extraordinarily diverse expanse of the music world.
Read MorePetr Janata is a cognitive neuroscientist studying the psychology of music. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1996, where he performed electrophysiological studies of auditory object representations in the barn owl brain and musical image formation in the human brain.
Read MoreHelen Blair Simpson, M.D., Ph.D., is professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The Anxiety Disorders Clinic was founded in 1982 as one of the first research clinics in the world to study the causes of and treatments for anxiety.
Read MoreLeVar Burton has been capturing the admiring attention of both audiences and his industry peers for three decades and continues to enjoy longevity truly rare within the industry. His deftness in avoiding stereotype continues to be a hallmark of an incredibly diverse career.
Read MoreDavid Brancaccio is a correspondent for the radio program Marketplace produced by American Public Media. He hosted Marketplace for ten years after serving as a London-based correspondent for the program.
Read MoreThe fundamentals of foundational hip-hop pulsate vibrantly through the veins of the multi-dimensional artist, John Robinson. This native New Yorker has sojourned and resided in the underground scenes of New York, New Jersey, Atlanta and Los Angeles.
Read MoreEitan Grinspun is associate professor of computer science at Columbia University, and Director of the Columbia Computer Graphics Group. His research seeks to discover connections between geometry, physics, and computation.
Read MoreBruce Cuthbert, Ph.D., was named director of the Division of Adult Translational Research and Treatment Development (DATR) at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 2010. A major component of this position involves coordinating the new Research Domain Criteria project to develop neuroscience-based criteria for studying mental disorders.
Read MoreTed Widmer is a historian who has starred in a rock and roll band, written speeches for an American president, enjoyed a lifelong love affair with cartoons, and now leads one of the most cherished libraries in the land.
Read MoreElizabeth Stark is a visiting fellow at the Yale Information Society Project and a Lecturer in Computer Science at Yale University. She is an influential open internet advocate who was deeply involved in stopping SOPA and fostering online engagement in support of internet freedom.
Read MoreTuring Award
Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Facebook and Silver Professor at NYU affiliated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences & the Center for Data Science. He …
Read MoreKent Larson directs the Changing Places research group and co-directs the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Laboratory. His current research is focused on responsive urban housing, new urban vehicles, ubiquitous technologies, and living lab experiments.
Read MoreEthan Brown is a 12-year-old “Mathemagician.” After watching an online video of Arthur Benjamin’s performance at TED, Ethan was inspired to learn the art and science of performing Mental Mathematics on stage. He began with a 5th-grade talent show in May 2010 and only 1 month later joined Benjamin onstage at The World Science Festival in NYC.
Read MoreMark Skwarek is a new media artist working to bridge the gap between virtual reality and the real world by using augmented reality technology. He is one of the founding members of the artist augmented reality group manifest.AR.
Read MoreArla Berman is a Brooklyn-based actress. She is passionate about using the arts as a means of exciting passion for science, and likes to spend her time writing plays about science, interning at the World Science Festival, and teaching science classes to New York City children in an after school program.
Read MoreGregory Hildreth has appeared in Broadway shows such as Cinderella, Peter and the Starcatcher, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. His Off-Broadway credits include roles in Peter and the Starcatcher (New York Theatre Workshop), and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (The Public Theatre).
Read MoreMichael J. Cirino is the founder, principal, and executive chef of a razor, a shiny knife, a culinary performance art and experience design group. a razor, a shiny knife creates immersive experiences that break the boundaries of theater and restaurant.
Read MoreSantino Fontana was raised on the west coast, went to school in the Midwest, and currently lives in New York. After graduating from the Guthrie Theater/University of Minnesota’s Actor Training Program he played the title role in Hamlet at the Guthrie at 23.
Read MoreKristin Laidre is a marine mammal ecologist at the University of Washington, Seattle working at the Polar Science Center and the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. She is a member of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Cetacean Specialist Group and Polar Bear Specialist Group.
Read MorePeter 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.
Read MoreRichard Matthew is a professor in the schools of social ecology and social science at the University of California at Irvine, and founding director of the Center for Unconventional Security Affairs.
Read MoreBorn in the American Midwest, Christof Koch grew up in Holland, Germany, Canada, and Morocco. He studied Physics and Philosophy and was awarded his Ph.D. in Biophysics. In 1987, Koch joined the California Institute of Technology as a Professor in Biology and Engineering.
Read MoreFrances A. Champagne is an associate professor in the department of psychology at Columbia University. Champagne received a master’s degree in psychiatry in 1999 and a doctoral degree in neuroscience in 2004 from McGill University.
Read MoreBeth Simone Noveck served in the White House as the first United States deputy chief technology officer and founder and director of the White House Open Government Initiative.
Read MoreSteven E. Koonin was appointed as the founding director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress in April 2012. He previously served as the U.S. Department of Energy’s second Senate-confirmed under secretary for science from 2009–2011.
Read MoreKent Kiehl is an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of New Mexico, and executive science officer of the non-profit Mind Research Network in Albuquerque, NM.
Read MoreRachel Dutton, Ph.D. is a Bauer fellow at the Harvard University Center for Systems Biology. After receiving her Ph.D. in microbiology from Harvard Medical School, she founded her own lab with the mission of using cheese as a way to understand microbial ecosystems.
Read MoreOwen Clark is the executive chef at Gwynnett St., where he started as sous chef on the opening team. Clark has cooked in New York City for seven years. Starting his culinary career in a family style Italian restaurant, he decided to enter a culinary program in Boulder at the Culinary School of the Rockies.
Read MoreAnne E. McBride is the culinary program and editorial director for strategic initiatives at The Culinary Institute of America, where her responsibilities include leading the programming for the Worlds of Flavor® International Conference & Festival.
Read MoreRobert (Bob) Grant has 29 years of experience with HIV/AIDS research and clinical care. He is a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology and a professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco.
Read MoreBilly Barlow has been the Chef and Director of Operations for Blue Marble Ice Cream since 2011, although he has unofficially been involved with the company since 2008.
Read MoreAfter rapidly rising through the ranks of some of the world’s finest restaurants, Najat Kaanache “The Pilgrim Chef” continues to demonstrate her culinary skills not only with her creative restaurant concept but also with her tireless passion for culinary innovation, education, and clean food advocacy.
Read MoreKristen Harris is one of the world’s leading neuroscientists investigating synapse structure and function. She has been a professor of neuroscience at Harvard, Boston University, Georgia Health Sciences University, and since 2006 in the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of Texas at Austin.
Read MoreMelanie Boly is a neurologist and postdoctoral research fellow at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research and at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She conducts research investigating the neural correlates of decreased consciousness during vegetative state, anesthesia, and sleep using functional neuroimaging techniques.
Read MoreJean-Pierre Issa is a professor of medicine and director at Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology at Temple University. Issa’s laboratory has made important contributions to the understanding of the importance of epigenetics in the pathophysiology and treatment of cancer.
Read MoreBesides 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.
Read MoreRafael Yuste is professor of biological sciences and neuroscience at Columbia University. He was born in Madrid, where he obtained his M.D. at the Universidad Autónoma. He performed Ph.D. studies with Larry Katz in Torsten Wiesel’s laboratory at Rockefeller University and was a postdoctoral student of David Tank at Bell Labs.
Read MoreJoel David Hamkins conducts research in mathematical and philosophical logic, particularly set theory, with a focus on the mathematics and philosophy of the infinite.
Read MoreNell Benjamin is the playwright of The Explorers Club. She co-wrote the score to Legally Blonde: The Musical with composer Laurence O’Keefe, for which they received a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk nomination.
Read MoreJoel and Ethan Coen direct, produce and write their films and are among today’s most honored and respected filmmakers.
Read MoreCarter Burwell has composed the music for many feature films written, directed, and produced by the Coen Brothers, including Blood Simple, Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn’t There, No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading, A Serious Man, and True Grit.
Read MoreAniruddh D. Patel is associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Tufts University. After attending the University of Virginia as a Jefferson Scholar, he received a Ph.D. in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 1996.
Read MoreJob Cohen is the popular former mayor of Amsterdam and leader of the Dutch Labour Party. He studied law at the University of Groningen and joined the University of Maastricht in 1981 where he became full professor and Rector.
Read MoreAndré Kuipers is the first Dutchman with two space missions to his name. His second mission is the longest spaceflight in European history. In total, the ESA astronaut spent 204 days in space: 11 days during mission DELTA in 2004 and 193 days during mission PromISSe.
Read MoreErik Verlinde is a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Amsterdam. He is known for the Verlinde formula, which has a wide range of applications in physics and mathematics. In 2010, he attracted international attention with a paper in which he argued that gravity is emergent, and results from changes in the entropy associated with microscopic information.
Read MoreGianfranco Bertone is an Associate Professor at the University of Amsterdam, where he investigates topics at the interface between Particle Physics and Cosmology.
Read MoreSteve Vance is a scientist in the Planetary Chemistry and Astrobiology group at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Dr. Vance is an Acting Staff Scientist for the Europa Clipper, a NASA mission pre-formulation study for a robotic mission, which is being conducted by JPL in partnership with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
Read MoreSiu-Lan Tan is Professor of Psychology at Kalamazoo College. She served as primary editor of The Psychology of Music in Multimedia published by Oxford University Press 2013.
Read MoreDominic Walliman is a physicist and an award-winning science writer. He is co-creator of the Professor Astro Cat science books with illustrator Ben Newman. He also makes YouTube videos communicating science.
Read MoreMichelle Thaller is a nationally recognized spokesperson for astronomy and science and the Assistant Director of Science at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. She has a Bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University.
Read MoreDavid Brenner is the Director of the Columbia University Center for Radiological Research, which is the oldest and largest radiological research laboratory, worldwide. He is also the Principal Investigator of the Center for High-Throughput Minimally-Invasive Radiation Biodosimetry.
Read MoreAmir Levine is an adult, adolescent, and child psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York and The Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
Read MoreTodd Disotell is a biological anthropologist who researches primate and human evolution. He runs NYU’s Molecular Primatology Laboratory, a research group that has developed molecular analysis techniques and helped clarify the primate evolutionary tree.
Read MoreMichael S. Hopkins is a current NASA astronaut who returned from a six-month stay aboard the International Space Station in March. He served as a flight engineer and conducted both science experiments and maintenance, spending almost 13 hours outside of the station on spacewalks.
Read MoreCatherine Ball leads a group of population geneticists, statisticians, and computer scientists and oversees the analytical approaches behind Ancestry.com’s direct-to-consumer genotyping services.
Read MoreJulie Hecht is a canine researcher and science writer. She manages Alexandra Horowitz’s Dog Cognition Lab at Barnard College and has investigated dog olfaction, interspecies play, and theory of mind.
Read MoreMark Shriver is Professor of Anthropology and Genetics at The Pennsylvania State University. His research seeks to elucidate the genetic evolution that took place during and after the spread of modern humans.
Read MoreJoseph J. Fins is The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College where he is a tenured Professor of Medicine, Professor of Medical Ethics in Neurology and Professor of Health Care Policy and Research.
Read MoreJames Fowler is a social scientist studying networks, behavior, evolution, and genetics. He is a professor of political science and medical genetics at the University of California, San Diego, and a 2010 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
Read MoreHilary Peddicord is a science educator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her work supports the Science On a Sphere program, which uses a massive globe and projection system to explain storms, climate change, and other atmospheric patterns.
Read MoreAnn Graybiel is a neuroscientist and investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Her research focuses on the basal ganglia, a group of forebrain structures involved in controlling movement, cognition, and habit learning.
Read MorePaul S. Weiss holds a UC Presidential Chair and is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and of materials science and engineering at UCLA. He served as the director of the California NanoSystems Institute and held the Fred Kavli Chair in NanoSystems Sciences.
Read MoreDr. Xichen Li works on climate modeling and climate changes in David Holland’s research group at New York University (NYU). He uses different diagnostic tools and numerical models to analyze and simulate the atmospheric circulations of the earth system, in order to study the natural variability and anthropogenic forcing to the present climate systems.
Read MoreBefore embarking on his film career, Mark Levinson earned a doctoral degree in particle physics from the University of California at Berkeley. In the film world, he became a specialist in the post-production writing and recording of dialogue known as ADR (Automated Dialog Replacement).
Read MoreFrancesca Faridany can currently be seen in NBC’s hit series Manifest as Dr. Fiona Clarke and she also appears in the movie Black Panther. Other credits include Broadway: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Macbeth, Man and Boy, The 39 Steps, The Homecoming.
Read MoreMark Brokaw’s work on Broadway includes Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, The Lyons, After Miss Julie, Cry-Baby, The Constant Wife, Reckless. He has directed at London’s Donmar Warehouse and Menier Chocolate Factory, Dublin’s Gate Theatre, and the Sydney Opera House. Brokaw is the Artistic Director of the Yale Institute for Music Theatre.
Read MoreKyle Cranmer is a physicist and a professor at New York University at the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics and Affiliated Faculty member at NYU’s Center for Data Science. He is an experimental particle physicist working, primarily, on the Large Hadron Collider, based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Read MoreCatherine Crier earned her B.A. in political science and international affairs from the University of Texas and her Juris Doctor from Southern Methodist University School of Law. In 1984, she was elected to the 162nd District Court in Dallas County, Texas as a State District Judge. During her tenure on the bench, Crier also served as Administrative Judge for the Civil District Courts.
Read MoreFrederick E. Lepore is Professor of Neurology and Ophthalmology at Rutgers University/Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He was formerly Chief of the Neurology Service at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Acting Chairman of the medical school’s Department of Neurology.
Read MoreEleanor G. Rieffel explores algorithm design and fundamental questions in quantum computation as a leader of NASA’s QuAIL team. Her book, Quantum Computing: A Gentle Introduction, with co-author Wolfgang Polak, was published by MIT Press and has received stellar reviews.
Read MoreTamar Kushnir is an associate professor at Cornell University and the director of the Early Childhood Cognition Laboratory. Her research examines the origins of causal and social knowledge in early childhood, and how children acquire this knowledge through play, observation, and social interaction.
Read MoreAfter receiving a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard, Paul Bingham spent two years at the National Institutes of Health in Research Triangle Park. He later joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
Read MoreRichard J. Haier is professor emeritus at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. Haier is also the associate editor of the Intelligence journal and the president-elect of the International Society for Intelligence Research.
Read MoreBestselling Author
Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist in the field of quantum gravity and in the history and philosophy of science. He is a co-founder of the loop approach to quantum …
Read MoreAs a theoretical physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, Vijay Balasubramanian pursues research in two different fields: string theory and theoretical neuroscience. He is an expert in statistical inference and “Occam’s Razor”—the trade-off between simple and accurate mathematical models.
Read MoreGabriela González is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University (LSU), where there is a large group of people working on the detection of gravitational waves, both in theory and experiment.
Read MoreDiane Ackerman is the author of 24 works of nonfiction and poetry. Her works include the New York Times best sellers The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us, which received the PEN Henry David Thoreau Award and One Hundred Names for Love, a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Circle Critics Award.
Read MoreAlexandra Zidovska is an assistant professor of physics at the Center for Soft Matter Research in the Physics Department at New York University. She received her Ph.D.from the University of California, Santa Barbara after she completed her undergraduate studies and M.Sc. at the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Read MoreChiye Aoki majored in biology at Barnard College, Columbia University. She entered the world of neuroscience during those years by participating in research that monitored brain activities of animals undergoing the natural transition from wakefulness to REM sleep to answer the question: Why do we need to sleep?
Read MoreJake Hofman is a Researcher at Microsoft Research in New York City, where his work in computational social science involves applications of statistics and machine learning to large-scale social data. Prior to joining Microsoft, he was a member of the Microeconomics and Social Systems group at Yahoo! Research.
Read MoreKoos Lodewijkx is the chief technical officer for IT risk in the office of the IBM CISO. His responsibilities include the multiyear technical strategy for Cybersecurity for the IBM Corporation, technical architecture, IT risk assessment, and various IT risk policies and standards.
Read MoreNancy Giles has been a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning since 2003, voicing her opinions on everything from politics and race to pop culture and the conspiracy of high heels. As an actress, she was in the ensemble cast of ABC-TV’s Emmy Award-winning series China Beach.
Read MoreTony Wilson is interested in how and why animals reproduce the way they do, and is fascinated by the remarkable reproductive diversity of aquatic organisms. Over the past decade, Wilson’s research has focused on seahorses and pipefish, a group with a unique and highly developed form of reproduction—male pregnancy.
Read MoreMindy Greenstein is a clinical psychologist, psycho-oncologist, and writer, who also serves as a consultant to the geriatric group in the Department of Psychiatry at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Read MoreChristine Vogel originally trained as a biochemist in Germany, but moved to Cambridge, England, to obtain her PhD in computational and structural biology with Dr. Cyrus Chothia and Dr. Sarah Teichmann at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology.
Read MoreMelissa Lee is an educator and researcher. She received a B.A. in biology from Johns Hopkins University, with her primary research focusing on Down syndrome. After college, Lee worked at New York University, studying mouse brain development.
Read MoreScott Atran is currently Research Professor and Presidential Scholar at the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Visiting Professor of Psychology and Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
Read MoreScott Barry Kaufman is scientific director of the Imagination Institute in the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania. He conducts research on the measurement and development of imagination, creativity, and play.
Read MoreHeather McKellar received her Ph.D. from Columbia where she studied the hippocampus, a part of the brain important for learning and memory. Now at the NYU Neuroscience Institute, she is passionate about education and runs the graduate program in Neuroscience and Physiology as well as NOGN at NYU.
Read MoreMarom Bikson is a Cattell Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY) of the City University of New York (CUNY) and codirector of the Neural Engineering Group at the New York Center for Biomedical Engineering.
Read MoreLee M. Morin was selected as a NASA astronaut candidate in 1996 and took part in the 13th space mission of the shuttle Atlantis in 2002 as it traveled to the International Space Station. After the Atlantis mission, Morin served in the State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Science, Space, and Health in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment, and Science.
Read MoreKelley Remole, Ph.D., is director of neuroscience outreach at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. She is a trained neuroscientist with a passion for communicating the wonders of the brain. As a doctoral student in neuroscience at Columbia University, she was not content to contain her enthusiasm for science to the lab.
Read MoreStacy McGaugh is an astrophysicist and cosmologist who studies galaxies, dark matter, and theories of modified gravity. He is an expert on low surface brightness galaxies, a class of objects in which the stars are spread thin compared to bright galaxies like our Milky Way.
Read MoreDavid Shoemaker is the Director of the MIT LIGO Lab and the Leader of the Advanced LIGO Project to build the detectors used in the discovery of gravitational waves.
Read MoreEddie Goldstein is a science communicator, program developer and performer who specializes in creating dynamic presentations, demonstrations and exhibits for museums and science centers. He also coaches scientists in communication skills to help them better tell the science stories that they want to tell.
Read MoreFrance A. Córdova is an astrophysicist and the 14th director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), the only government agency charged with advancing all fields of scientific discovery, technological innovation, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
Read MoreErick Ordoñez is currently in the Systems Engineering Group at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the lead systems engineer for In Space Manufacturing (ISM) and Additive Construction with Mobile Emplacement (ACME) Projects at NASA MSFC.
Read MoreChantel Prat is an associate professor of Psychology with an appointment at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at University of Washington. She is also faculty in the Neuroscience graduate program, at the Institute for Neuroengineering, and at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering.
Read MoreDaphna Shohamy, PhD is a neuroscientist and a professor in the department of Psychology and the Zuckerman Mind, Brain, Behavior Institute at Columbia University. Dr. Shohamy’s research aims to understand the neurobiological and cognitive mechanisms underlying learning, memory, and decision making.
Read MoreJohn Christian Plummer was head writer on all 3 seasons of Granite Flats, the cold war spy drama featuring Christopher Lloyd and Parker Posey, now on Netflix. He’s worked as a writer and producer for NBC, Fox, Bravo, Comedy Central, TBS, IFC, VH1, MTV, Discovery, and co-wrote the feature Knowing Me, Knowing You.
Read MoreDanielle Vellucci is a clinical assistant professor of Chemistry at New York University. She studied chemistry at Boston College and earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Irvine. Her research focused on using chemical cross-linkers to study the proteasome.
Read MoreWendell Wallach is a consultant, ethicist, and scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics. He is also a senior advisor to The Hastings Center, a fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law (Arizona State University), and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology.
Read MoreDan Juda is a product engineer at OXO. He studied both Mechanical Engineering and Product Design at Lehigh University. Soon after graduating from college, Juda worked at Arm & Hammer as a packaging engineer, designing detergent bottles.
Read MoreSzabolcs Marka is leader of the Columbia Experimental Gravity Group in LIGO and a professor of physics at Columbia. He has received an NSF Career Award and a Grand Challenges Explorations Award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Read MoreSeung-Schik Yoo is a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School, working as an associate professor of Radiology. He also serves as a faculty member of Mind Brain Behavior at Harvard University.
Read MoreJesse Prinz is a distinguished professor of Philosophy and director of Interdisciplinary Science Studies at the City University of New York, Graduate Center. Prinz has been a leader in the experimental philosophy movement, which brings empirical methods to bear on philosophical debates.
Read MoreHistorian, psychoanalyst, and psychiatrist George Makari is the author of Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind, which the Wall Street Journal called “brilliant, essential reading.” Makari also wrote the award-winning, widely acclaimed Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis.
Read MoreLaura Overdeck is the founder of Bedtime Math, a nonprofit that aims to help kids love math like playtime or dessert. Over a quarter million families enjoy Overdeck’s wacky nightly math problems. Bedtime Math is also the creator of Crazy 8s Club, a lively hands-on after-school math club for grades K-5 which has served nearly 90,000 kids in just 2 years.
Read MoreDuncan Watts is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and a founding member of the MSR-NYC lab. He is also an AD White Professor at Large at Cornell University. Prior to joining MSR, he was from 2000-2007 a professor of Sociology at Columbia University, and then a principal research scientist at Yahoo! Research.
Read MoreCathy Olkin is a planetary scientist at Southwest Research Institute in Colorado. Her main topic of research is the outer solar system. As a Deputy Project Scientist for NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto, Olkin has been busy soaking in all the new information about her favorite planet.
Read MorePaola Antonelli’s work investigates design’s influence on everyday experience, often including overlooked objects and practices, and combining design, architecture, art, science, and technology. She is a Senior Curator at The Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Architecture & Design, as well as MoMA’s founding Director of Research & Development.
Read MoreNeal Weiner received his undergraduate degree in Physics and Mathematics from Carleton College and a PhD in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. After completing his postdoctoral training at the University of Washington, Dr. Weiner joined the faculty of the Department of Physics at NYU in 2004.
Read MoreDavid Wallace is a philosopher of physics. In 2016, he arrived at the Philosophy School of the University of Southern California, after twenty-two years at the University of Oxford as a student, a researcher, and faculty member. Wallace’s original training was in theoretical physics.
Read MoreDietrich Stout is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Emory University, and Associate Director of the Emory’s Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture. He received his Ph.D. in Paleoanthropology from Indiana University, Bloomington.
Read MoreErin Styfco is an engineer working in a very unlikely industry, insurance. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Clarkson University, Styfco entered the workforce as a project manager in commercial construction. While working, she also earned her Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Norwich University which, like her undergraduate work, focused on structural engineering.
Read MoreJeff W. Lichtman is Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Ramón y Cajal Professor of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. Lichtman is a developmental neurobiologist interested in the way in which experience alters nervous system organization in long-lasting ways.
Read MoreBirgitta Whaley is Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, co-Director of the Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center, and Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Read MoreKevin Laland is Professor of Behavioural and Evolutionary Biology at the University of St Andrews, where he is a member of the Centre for Biological Diversity, the Centre for Social learning and Cognitive Evolution, the Institute for Behavioural and Neural Sciences, and the Scottish Primate Research Group.
Read MoreDr. Jackie Faherty received a Bachelors in Science as a Physics major from the University of Notre Dame in 2001. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Stony Brook University in 2010 with a thesis entitled the Brown Dwarf Kinematics Project, for which she received the University’s highest honors.
Read MoreCaleb Harper is the Principal Investigator and Director of the Open Agriculture (Open Ag) Initiative at the MIT Media Lab. He leads a diverse group of engineers, architects, and scientists in the exploration and development of future food systems.
Read MorePilobolus is a rebellious dance company. For 45 years, Pilobolus has tested the limits of human physicality to explore the beauty and the power of connected bodies. They continue to bring this tradition to global audiences through our post-disciplinary collaborations with some of the greatest influencers, thinkers, and creators in the world.
Read MoreHenry T. (Hank) Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University. Greely graduated from Stanford and Yale Law School. He was a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom on the Fifth Circuit and Justice Potter Stewart on the Supreme Court.
Read MoreDava Sobel has been writing about science for forty years, including a series of articles for The New York Times describing her month-long stint as a human subject in a laboratory study of circadian rhythm. Sobel is the author of several bestselling books about the history of astronomy.
Read MoreTime for Three (Tf3) transcends traditional classification, with high-energy performances free of conventional practices. Drawing from the members’ differing musical backgrounds, the trio performs its own arrangements of traditional repertoire with elements of classical, country western, gypsy and jazz idioms forming a blend all its own.
Read MoreDan Kahan is the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor of Law & Professor of Psychology at Yale Law School. His primary research interests are risk perception and science communication.
Read MoreTing (C.-ting) Wu is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. She is also Director of the Consortium for Space Genetics and Director of the Personal Genetics Education (pgEd.org) Project. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is a recipient of the NIH Director’s 2012 Pioneer Award for her laboratory’s work on genome organization and inheritance.
Read MoreDr. Elizabeth Hillman is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University, and a member of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and Kavli Institute for Brain Science.
Read MoreDr. John R. Smith is an IBM Fellow and Manager of Multimedia and Vision at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. He leads IBM’s Research & Development on Visual Comprehension including IBM Watson Developer Cloud Visual Recognition, Intelligent Video Analytics, and Video Understanding for Augmented Creativity.
Read MoreDr. Jerry M. Chow is the Manager of the Experimental Quantum Computing group at IBM and a Distinguished Research Staff Member. His technical expertise is in the area of design, measurement, and integration of superconducting qubits.
Read MoreFronting GRAMMY® Award-nominated multiplatinum rock leviathan Disturbed and industrial disruptor Device, vocalist, songwriter, and producer David Draiman casts an inescapable shadow over modern rock.
Read MoreDr. Christopher Mason is currently an Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine, with appointments at the Tri-Institutional Program on Computational Biology and Medicine between Cornell, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Rockefeller University, the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center, and the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute.
Read MoreJessica Garrett is a science educator/author and a voice actress who thinks kids are fabulous. She loved writing slimy, kid-friendly “ICK-speriments” with her co-authors Joy Masoff and Ben Ligon, in the truly disgusting, yet totally interesting, Oh Ick! 114 Science Experiments Guaranteed to Gross You Out!
Read MoreDr. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie is a forensic psychiatrist with especial expertise in military and veteran’s issues. She is currently Chief of the Community Based Outpatient Clinics for the Washington DC VA.
Read MoreMayim Bialik is best known for her award-winning role on the hit CBS comedy, The Big Bang Theory as ‘Amy Farrah Fowler’ and her role as ‘Blossom Russo’ on the hit 90’s sitcom Blossom. After starring as the lead in her own TV show, she left acting to attend UCLA, where she earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience.
Read MoreBarry Loewer is a philosopher of science currently teaching at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. He received a BA from Amherst College in philosophy and mathematics and a Ph.D. from Stanford. Loewer has also taught at Stanford, University of South Carolina, University of Michigan, and CEU in Budapest.
Read MoreSeth Fletcher is chief features editor at Scientific American. His first book, Bottled Lightning, on the lithium-ion battery and the rebirth of the electric car, was published in 2011 by Hill & Wang/FSG. His next book, currently in progress, is about a group of astronomers and their quest to take the first picture of a black hole.
Read MoreDr. Kathy-Anne (Brickman) Soderberg, Senior Research Scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Information Directorate, is the primary investigator for AFRL’s Trapped-Ion Quantum Networking group.
Read MoreAnita de Waard has a degree in low-temperature physics from Leiden University and worked in Moscow before joining Elsevier as a physics publisher in 1988. Since 1997, she has worked on bridging the gap between science publishing and computational and information technologies, collaborating with groups in Europe and the United States.
Read MoreDr. Kirk Borne is the Principal Data Scientist in the Strategic Innovation Group at Booz-Allen Hamilton since 2015. He was Professor of Astrophysics and Computational Science in the George Mason University (GMU) School of Physics, Astronomy, and Computational Sciences during 2003-2015
Read MoreAnnalisa Calo has a degree in Chemistry and a master in Photochemistry and Chemistry of Materials, based in the design of molecules and materials with new properties and on their characterization by means of high-resolution techniques from the University of Bologna, Italy.
Read MoreDaniela Buccella is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at New York University. Born and raised in Venezuela, she received her B.S. in Chemistry in 2002 from Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, and started research as an undergraduate in the Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research under the supervision of Professor Roberto Sánchez-Delgado.
Read MoreChef Christopher Burgess is currently the executive chef/owner of Fresh Kitchen, where he spends his time between the kitchen and local organic hydroponic farms. Burgess grew up working in kitchens, where he learned at an early age that quality food was an essential ingredient to good living.
Read MoreDr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She is Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a group of climate science experts that provides regular updates about climate change in the metropolitan region to the Mayor of New York.
Read MoreTrey Taylor co-founded Verdant Power, a New York-based company. He is a founding member of the American Council on Renewable Energy and recently founded Anchor Coalition – a project of The Ocean Foundation, a non-profit organization – dedicated to securing water and energy for our communities.
Read MoreShannon Louie is a chemist in the Global R&D Regulatory Operations & Ingredient Coordination group at Avon Products, Inc. She works with ingredient suppliers to maintain Avon’s Raw Ingredient specifications to ensure a robust safety and technical evaluation of new materials and compliance with product related regulations.
Read MoreLiz Knapp is a senior chemist in the New Technology group in Research and Development at Avon Products, Inc. In this role, she uses her skill in science and art to develop new skin care and color cosmetics. She enjoys working on teams to come up with innovations to help consumers around the world look and feel like their best selves.
Read MoreMellanie Garner is a regulatory scientist in the Regulatory Operations/Raw Ingredients group in Research and Development at Avon Products, Inc. In her time at Avon she was responsible for global regulations on new raw ingredients for consumer products, including color; skincare; and hair care products.
Read MoreKely Norel is a research staff member in the Computational Biology Center at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center. She received a B.Sc. degree in Computer Engineering from Universidad de Chile, a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Weizmann Institute, Israel and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Read MoreSusan Schneider is the 2019 Distinguished Scholar at the Library of Congress and the Director of the AI, Mind and Society (AIMS) Group at the University of Connecticut. She writes about the fundamental nature of the self and mind.
Read MoreNobel Laureate
Andrea M. Ghez, professor of Physics and Astronomy and Lauren B. Leichtman & Arthur E. Levine chair in Astrophysics, is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and …
Read MoreMatt Lanier has worked at the Staten Island Zoo for almost 17 years. During his time in Staten Island, he helped in the development and construction of a new Reptile Wing. His everyday animal duties at the zoo have mainly focused on the care and maintenance of the large venomous collection which includes cobras, Asian pit vipers, and of course rattlesnakes, which the Staten Island Zoo is known for around the world.
Read MoreStephen Macknik is currently an Empire Innovator Scholar and a professor of Ophthalmology, Neurology, and Physiology/Pharmacology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Macknik received his PhD at Harvard University.
Read MoreMike Meacham holds a M.Eng. in mechanical engineering from Cornell University, concentrating in vehicular design and creating off-road skateboards as part of his education. He spent the first part of his career at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)
Read MoreMargaret Flanagan is a native New Yorker, who after years of serving as a classroom teacher, brought her marine education expertise out to the waterfront full time. While sailing, she continued inspiring students and community members to better understand and appreciate our valuable natural resources.
Read MoreLisa Kaltenegger is the director of the Carl Sagan Institute at Cornell and professor in Astronomy. She is fascinated by the new worlds orbiting other Suns. Her research focuses on modeling these new worlds especially on how to spot signs of life.
Read MoreMeredith Whittaker is co-founder of the AI Now Institute, a leading university institute dedicated to researching the social implications of artificial intelligence and related technologies in an interdisciplinary context.
Read MoreSusana Martinez-Conde is a neuroscientist and Professor at the State University of New York. She is best known for her studies on illusions, eye movements and perception, neurological disorders, and attentional misdirection in stage magic.
Read MoreAneesh Chaganty is a write and director whose two minute short film, a Google Glass spot called “Seeds”, became an internet sensation after garnering more than 1 million YouTube views in 24 hours. He is a recipient of the Future of Storytelling Fellowship.
Read MoreJay Van Bavel is an Associate Professor of Psychology & Neural Science at New York University. He conducts research on how group identities’ moral values and political beliefs shape the mind and brain.
Read MoreJonathan Haidt is a Social Psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Haidt’s research examines the intuitive foundations of morality, and how morality varies across cultural and political divides.
Read MoreMatthew R. Willmann is the Director of the Plant Transformation Facility (PTF) at Cornell University. PTF is a service facility that makes transgenic and CRISPR/Cas genome-edited plants (maize, rice, wheat, and apple) for Cornell and external faculty.
Read MoreTimnit Gebru works in the Fairness Accountability Transparency and Ethics (FATE) group at Microsoft Research, New York. She is currently studying the ethical considerations underlying any data mining project, and methods of auditing and mitigating bias in sociotechnical systems.
Read MoreJocelyn Read is an assistant professor in the Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Center of California State University, Fullerton. She has spent more than a decade studying neutron star astrophysics and gravitational waves.
Read MoreDr. Scott M. Smith leads the Nutritional Biochemistry Laboratory at the NASA Johnson Space Center. This group is charged with keeping crews healthy with respect to nutrition, including using nutrition as a means to optimize astronaut health and safety.
Read MorePsyche Loui is an Assistant Professor in Psychology and in Neuroscience and Behavior at Wesleyan University. She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with her PhD in Psychology, and attended Duke University as an undergraduate with degrees in Psychology and Music.
Read MoreAndrea Pocar joined the physics faculty at UMass-Amherst in 2009, where his research in experimental nuclear/particle physics includes searches for neutrino-less double beta decay, for weakly-interacting dark matter particles, and solar neutrinos.
Read MoreLindley Winslow’s work focuses on answering big questions about the universe by developing novel particle detectors. She received her BA in physics and astronomy in 2001 and her PhD in physics in 2008, both from the University of California at Berkeley.
Read MoreSolon Barocas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information Science at Cornell University. His current research explores ethical and policy issues in artificial intelligence, particularly fairness in machine learning, methods for bringing accountability to automated decision-making, and the privacy implications of inference.
Read MoreFlorian Pinel is a Senior Technical Staff Member and Master Inventor in the Watson Content and IoT group at IBM. He is the co-inventor of IBM Chef Watson, an application that uses machine learning and natural language processing to demonstrate computational creativity and suggest original recipe ideas.
Read MoreSoumyadeep Mukherjee aka “Deep” is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Program in Public Health (PPH) at Stony Brook University. He is interested in better understanding how past traumatic and stressful experiences can impact long-term mental health and well-being.
Read MoreGrowing up in South Africa, Master distiller Kevin Herson, formulated concoctions with his now antique chemistry set. His love for culture led him to travel the world and experience food and drinks of all customs and varieties. With a doctorate degree, “The Doc” has developed a unique palate for distilling, introducing delightful spirits to the craft beverage industry.
Read MoreCatherine Birndorf, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology and Founding Director of the Payne Whitney Women’s Program, is Co-Founder of The Motherhood Center. The Motherhood Center provides supportive services for new and expecting moms.
Read MoreMatthew Chun graduated from Jericho High School in 2014 and participated in ISEF in 2013 (4th place: Materials and Bioengineering) and 2014 (2nd place: Chemistry). Chun is currently a senior at MIT studying Mechanical Engineering.
Read MoreOlivier Elemento, PhD is the Director of the Weill Cornell Medicine Englander Institute for Precision Medicine, an institute that focuses on using genomics and informatics to make medicine more individualized.
Read MoreDr. Ruth Gotian is the inaugural Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of the newly launched Mentoring Academy at Weill Cornell Medicine, and the Chief Learning Officer in Anesthesiology.
Read MoreDr. Stephen Ross researches the therapeutic application of psychedelic treatment models to treat psychiatric and addictive disorders. He is an expert in psycho-oncology and is studying novel pharmacologic-psychosocial approaches to treating psychological and existential distress associated with advanced or terminal cancer.
Read MoreWilliam B. Hurlbut is a physician and adjunct professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University Medical Center. His primary areas of interest involve the ethical issues associated with advancing biomedical technology, the biological basis of moral awareness, and studies in the integration of theology and philosophy of biology.
Read MoreAlison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley. She is a world leader in cognitive science, particularly the study of children’s learning and development, and the author of over 100 journal articles and several books.
Read MoreLara Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Affiliate Professor of Mathematics, and currently a Hamlett Fellow in Integrated Science at Virginia Tech. She is currently visiting faculty at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics.
Read MoreRick Potts, PhD, heads the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program at the National Museum of Natural History. Since joining the Smithsonian, Potts’s research has focused on piecing together the record of Earth’s environmental change and human adaptation.
Read MoreDavid Chalmers is a philosopher of the mind and the brain. He is especially well-known for his work on consciousness. His formulation of the “hard problem” of consciousness inspired Tom Stoppard’s play, The Hard Problem.
Read MoreMichael Collins flew in both the Gemini 10 and the Apollo 11 space missions in the 1960s. After retiring from NASA in 1970, he became director of the National Air and Space Museum until 1978, when he became Under Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
Read MoreLera Boroditsky is an associate professor of cognitive science at University of California San Diego. She previously served on the faculty at MIT and Stanford. Her research is on the relationships between mind, world, and language (or how humans get so smart).
Read MoreJim Hudspeth conducts research on hair cells, the sensory receptors of the inner ear. He and his colleagues are especially interested in the active process that sensitizes the ear, sharpens its frequency selectivity, and broadens its dynamic range. They also investigate the replacement of hair cells as a potential therapy for hearing loss.
Read MoreDouglas McCuistion has 40 years’ experience in high technology and aerospace sectors. His NASA career culminated in the landing of the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity rover mission after leading the “Golden Decade” of Mars exploration as NASA’s director of the Mars Program.
Read MoreRonald Arkin is Regents’ Professor and Director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Georgia Tech. He served as visiting professor at KTH Stockholm, Sabbatical Chair at Sony in Tokyo, member Robotics/AI Group at LAAS/CNRS in Toulouse, and in Queensland University of Technology and CSIRO/Brisbane.
Read MoreDaniel Kish has been an innovator in neuroscience since he learned to walk. After losing both eyes to retinal cancer by the age of 13 months, he spontaneously began to echolocate by clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth and listening to the echoes from the environment around him to navigate.
Read MoreE.J. Chichilnisky is the John R. Adler Professor of Neurosurgery, and Professor of Ophthalmology, at Stanford University, where he has worked since 2013 after 15 years at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Read MoreMichael Bartlett is an Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State University. His research investigates and creates soft materials with multifunctional properties for soft robotics and electronics, adaptive materials, and ‘smart’ adhesives.
Read MoreElizabeth Hellmuth Margulis studies music from the perspective of cognitive science. She is interested in how people without formal training come to make sense of music and be moved by it.
Read MoreGloria P. Huang is a research scientist in the New Technology group in Research and Development at Avon Products, Inc. She works to develop innovations for skin care and color cosmetics by combining her love of research and collaboration to help uncover ways to delight consumers around the world.
Read MoreStefano Scarani is the founder of Tangatamanu group with Alberto Morelli. He is professor of Electroacoustic and Audiovisual composition at Musikene and associate professor in Fine Art faculty at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV).
Read MoreEduardo Kohn is associate professor of Anthropology at McGill University. He studies the intimate relationships that the indigenous peoples of Ecuador’s Upper Amazon have with one of Earth’s most complex ecosystems.
Read MoreMoira R. Dillon PhD is an assistant professor of Psychology at New York University and director of the Lab for the Developing Mind at New York University. She is a 2019 recipient of a National Science Foundation CAREER Award.
Read MoreJasmine Lawrence currently serves as a technical program manager on the Portal team at Facebook. This team is building products that make it easier for people to connect with the ones they love most.
Read MoreMichelle Rucker is a native of Anchorage, Alaska and a veteran of NASA. She began her career in the Houston oil industry, designing down-hole sensors while pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering.
Read MoreDaniel Sieberg is the CEO and founder of iO—a startup building an empathic AI/AR experience in service of what humans need. He also advises other startups including Pressland and Ground.
Read MoreNuria Lloret Romero PhD, is a professor of Digital Communication and collaborative online projects at Universitat Politècnica de València. Her research focuses on the use of technology to create and enable online collaborative projects.
Read MoreRobert Conn is the former president and CEO of The Kavli Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to advance science for the benefit of humanity. He retired at the end of 2020 after serving 12 years in this role. Dr. Conn is a co-founder of the Science Philanthropy Alliance and served as board chair from 2015 to 2019.
Read MoreNoam Chomsky is a seminal figure in the field of linguistics, and ranks among the most cited widely scholars in modern history. In 1959, he revolutionized the study of modern …
Read MoreChristopher Walsh is Bullard Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital, and an Investigator of the …
Read MoreReggie Watts is an internationally renowned vocal artist, beatboxer, musician, and comedian. He blurs the lines between music and comedy in his live performances, which are 100% improvised. On screen, …
Read MoreJohn Krakauer has pioneered the use of immersive gaming to heal the physical effects of brain damage. He is the John C. Malone Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Physical Medicine …
Read MoreKirsten is the Research and Payloads Group Lead at the European Space Agency’s Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration. In that role, she leads a team of expert scientists and …
Read MoreKarl Glazebrook is a Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. Karl is an observational astronomer whose research interests …
Read MoreDr. Chiara M. F. Mingarelli is an assistant professor at Yale University, and a gravitational-wave astrophysicist. She is best known for predicting the gravitational wave signatures of the cosmic population …
Read MoreNewton Lacy Pierce Prize
Erin Kara is MIT’s Class of 1958 Career Development Assistant Professor of Physics. Her research focuses on how black holes grow and affect their environments. She also works to develop …
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