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.

David Grier is a physicist specializing in soft condensed matter physics. He is a professor of physics at NYU and has worked on new techniques to probe and manipulate the microscopic world—including using single beams of light imprinted with computer-designed holograms and developing methods of particle tracking.