Charlie 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.

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.

Gregory 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.

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

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

Sean Carroll is the Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University, and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. Prior to that he was a research …

Sir 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.

A managing partner at the consulting firm, Haseltine Partners, Eric Haseltine is a neuroscientist who has applied new discoveries about the human brain in fields as diverse as aerospace technology, virtual reality, special effects, journalism, entertainment and, most recently, national security and intelligence.

President 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.

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

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has made important contributions to the search for quantum gravity. Smolin is a founding faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His five books explore philosophical issues raised by contemporary physics and cosmology.

Created by Sean McDonald and Alex Hornbake, The Theremin Inspectors is a mixed-reality visualization experience that enables people to actually see the electromagnetic fields that they interact with every day.

Created by Kaffe Matthews, Sonic Bed is an instrument you play by lying and moving around in it. It is the central pin in “music for bodies” research and was awarded a Distinction in Digital Musics at Prix Ars Electronica. It is a sonic and social experiment exploring our perception of sound. Subtle, dynamic, at times beyond hearing, Sonic Bed plays music to feel rather than just listen to.

Lynette Wallworth is an Australian artist whose immersive video installations reflect on the connections between people and the natural world.

Tomás Saraceno’s work defies traditional notions of space, time, gravity, consciousness and perception through architectural, social and communitarian means that are utopian and participatory. His installations blend the boundary between sky and the earth, creating the sensation of flight.

Television personality, filmmaker and philosopher, Jason Silva was recently described as “part Timothy Leary, part Ray Kurzweil, and part Neo from The Matrix.”

Mark 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.

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.

Jim Baggott is a freelance science writer and author. He received his doctorate in chemical physics at the University of Oxford and became a lecturer at the University of Reading, England, where he also ran a research team studying aspects of chemical kinetics and high-energy molecular vibrations.

A Guggenheim Fellow in Science Writing, Richard Panek received the American Institute of Physics Science Communication Award in 2012. He teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University and in the MFA Writing program at Goddard College.

Dany Spencer Adams explores how ions moving among cells act as signals during regeneration, development, and cancer. She has uncovered evidence that bioelectric signals can trigger and regulate diverse complex processes that include gene expression changes.

Dava 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.

Sougwen Chung (愫君) is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist based in New York. Her work explores transitional edges — the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine — as an approach to understanding the interaction between humans and computers.

Jana Grcevich is co-author of The Vacation Guide to the Solar System, a travel guide to the planets. She holds a PhD in Astronomy from Columbia University, worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, and is a data scientist living in New York.

Adam Alter is an associate professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business with an affiliated appointment at the NYU Psychology Department where he studies human judgment and decision-making.

Jaron Lanier is the Prime Unifying Scientist at Microsoft, where he helps lead the company’s development and implementation of artificial intelligence systems. A leading computer scientist, he is renowned his …

Jessica Brillhart is an Immersive Director, Writer, and Theorist. She’s the founder of the independent studio, Vrai Pictures, and is on the roster for Mssng Peces. Previously, Brillhart was the Principal Filmmaker for VR at Google where she worked with engineers to develop Google Jump.

Dr. Serena McCalla has dedicated her life to the advancement of science and science education. Dr. McCalla was raised in New York City and fell in love with science in elementary school. She earned her Bachelors in Biological Sciences.

David Chalmers is University Professor of Philosophy and Neural Science and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University. He is the author of The …

Dr. Isabel Pedersen is Canada Research Chair in Digital Life, Media and Culture and an associate professor at Ontario Tech University. She founded Decimal Lab, a digital culture and media lab that concentrates on the social implications of emerging technology.

Donald Hoffman received his PhD from MIT and is a professor of cognitive science at the University of California Irvine. He is an author of over 120 scientific papers and three books, including Visual Intelligence: How We Create What We See.

Beau Lotto is a world-renowned neuroscientist who specializes in the biology and psychology of perception. His interest in education, business, and the arts has led him into entrepreneurship and engaging the public with science.

Jorge Sastre, PhD, is the Director of Performing Arts and Technology at the Universitat Politècnica de València. Sastre is also the Director of the Soundcool Project, a collaborative audiovisual project that uses smartphones and augmented reality.

Silvia Jonas is a philosopher and Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Her primary areas of research are in philosophy of mathematics and science, epistemology, and metaphysics.

Silvia Jonas is a philosopher and Marie-Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy. Her primary areas of research are in philosophy of mathematics and science, epistemology, and metaphysics. …

Julian Barbour is a British theoretical physicist renowned for his work on the nature of time and quantum gravity. Largely independent from academic institutions, he has pursued research outside traditional …