Michael Russell’s research into the emergence of life and early evolution will help determine whether earth alone supports life in our universe. Russell was awarded the William Smith Medal from the Geological Society of London.

Marc 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.

Dennis Hong, a TED alumnus, is an associate professor and the founding director of RoMeLa (Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory) of the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech.

Rebecca 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.

Sandra 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.

Dr. Mario Livio is an astrophysicist, a best-selling author, and a popular speaker. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has published more than 400 scientific papers on topics ranging from Dark Energy and cosmology to black holes and extrasolar planets.

Since joining NASA in 1998, Tracy Caldwell Dyson has logged more than 300 hours in space. During her first trip aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2007 she served as the intra-vehicular (spacewalk coordinator and primary shuttle robotic arm operator).

Francis Collins is known for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and leadership of the Human Genome Project, an international project that culminated in 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.

Louise O. Fresco is an expert in the intersection of international development, agriculture and food, advising the Dutch government on socio-economic policy and climate change.

Mark Moffett began doing research in biology in college and went on to complete a PhD at Harvard. Moffett is known for documenting new animal species and behaviors during his exploration of remote places in more than a hundred countries.

Dava Newman specializes in investigating human performance across the spectrum of gravity. She is an expert in the areas of extravehicular activity, human movement, physics-based modeling, biomechanics, energetics and human-robotic cooperation.

Tom 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.

National Geographic Society Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Sylvia A. Earle is an oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer who has been called a “Living Legend” by the Library of Congress and “Hero for the Planet” by TIME magazine.

In 2008, Richard Garriott, a leading expert on private and commercial space travel, realized a lifelong dream to travel to space when he launched aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft to the International Space Station and became the sixth private citizen to fly in Earth’s orbit.

Leonard 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.

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

Monty Jones is co-winner of the prestigious 2004 World Food Prize, awarded for his discovery of the genetic process to create the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) which gives higher yields, shorter growth cycles and more protein content than its Asian and African parents.

Tod Machover, called “America’s Most Wired Composer” by the Los Angeles Times, is celebrated for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries.

Damian Woetzel is a former Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet who has moved into directing and producing. He also works with Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Connect Program in the New York City Public Schools.

Rosalind 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.

Seth 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.

Lawrence Parsons is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. His early research on action, spatial reasoning and object recognition was followed by his current work in reasoning, language, emotion and the improvisation of music and dancing.

Rob Boyd is Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. He studies the evolution of cooperation in large groups, and is the co-author of numerous books on cultural evolution, including Not By Genes Alone.

Iain Couzin is assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. He studies the actions and interactions that give rise to collective behavior—from marching ants and swarming locusts to flocking birds and crowds of people—and what we might learn from successful swarming.

Dominic Johnson received a D.Phil. in evolutionary biology from Oxford University and a Ph.D. in political science from Geneva University.

Monsignor Lorenzo Albacete is a Roman Catholic priest, theologian, physicist and author. A frequent contributor to The New York Times, he is one of the leaders in the United States for the international Catholic movement Communion and Liberation and is on the Board of Advisors of the Crossroads Cultural Center.

Robert Anderson has a message that resonates with audiences as he talks of building the smallest team to ascend Everest’s largest face, without oxygen.

David Battisti is The Tamaki Chair of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. His research is focused on understanding the natural variability in climate that stems from the interaction between the ocean, atmosphere, land and sea ice. He is also studying the impacts of natural climate variability and climate change on global food security.

George Ellis is Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at the University of Capetown and investigates cosmology, the nature of time, and the emergence of complexity. He is the co-author with Stephen Hawking of The Large Scale Structure of Space Time.

Over the course of his career, Harrison Ford has become one of the most popularly acclaimed actors of our time. His body of work includes 41 feature films, eleven of which have exceeded $100 million each at the box office.

Brother 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.

Dr. 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.

Gradjola Hazizaj came to the U.S. from Albania in 2005, and is now a junior at the Brooklyn International High School. She has long dreamed of working in medicine, and believes that through science she can help people and make their lives easier.

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

Nibh, a junior at Brooklyn International High School, arrived in New York from Bangladesh in 2007. He’s a member of the National Honor Society, he writes for the school newspaper, does extensive community service and recently completed an internship at the medical clinic of New York Methodist Hospital. Nibh loves the sense of discovery that comes with doing experiments, and is certain he will pursue a career in science.

Alex Matthiessen is the President of Riverkeeper. By forging partnerships with leading academic and research institutions, he has strengthened and expanded Riverkeeper’s environmental enforcement efforts and advanced scientific understanding of the Hudson River.

Alan 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.

Femi 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.”

Robert Butler is a pioneer in gerontology — the study of aging and its biological, psychological, and social implications. His book, Why Survive? Being Old in America, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

Nathan Englander’s story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges became an international bestseller, earning him both the PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000. His first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, was published in 2007.

Ira Flatow is the host of Science Friday on PRI, Public Radio International. He anchors the show each Friday, bringing radio and Internet listeners worldwide a lively, informative discussion on science, technology, health, space and the environment. Flatow is president of ScienceFriday, Inc. and founder and president of Science Friday Initiative.

Garrick Utley served as founding president of the Levin Institute of the State University of New York from 2003 to 2011. He was a senior fellow and the director of New York in the World, an initiative of the Institute.

As director of the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities, William Solecki’s research focuses on urban environmental change, urban land use, and suburbanization.

Chris Eckstrom is a writer, videographer, and producer. Her stories have appeared in National Geographic Magazine, Audubon, International Wildlife, National Geographic Traveler, and other publications. Her Traveler story, “The Last Real Africa,” won a 2007 Lowell Thomas Award for Best Magazine Article on Foreign Travel from the Society of American Travel Writers.

Michael Novacek has served since 1982 as a curator at the American Museum of Natural History where he is currently Senior Vice President and Provost of Science and Curator of Paleontology.

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.

Recognized mathematician and science writer Amir D. Aczel is the author of numerous books that have appeared on various bestseller lists in the United States and abroad, with translations into 22 languages. Present at the Creation: The Story of CERN and the Large Hadron Collider is his most recent literary contribution.

Recognized 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.

Renowned for his groundbreaking contributions to the study of genius, Dean Keith Simonton has provided his expertise to over 400 publications on the topic, including a dozen books entitled Genius, Creativity, and Leadership; Scientific Genius; Greatness; Genius and Creativity; Origins of Genius; and more.

Eric Lander was one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, which from 1990-2003 mapped the human genetic code. He has pioneered the application of genomics to the understanding human disease. Lander serves as President and Founding Director of the Broad Institute.

A pioneer in researching the control of cellular senescence and its role in tumor suppression and aging, Judith Campisi has helped make several groundbreaking discoveries that continue to challenge and alter existing paradigms.

Kathryn Calley Galitz is a scholar of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century French art. At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Galitz has organized international exhibitions on artists including Chassériau, Girodet, and Turner.

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

Sissel Tolaas’s work focuses on smell, language, and communication while spanning science, art, and industry. She has identified the smell molecules in worn coats and covered the walls of an MIT gallery with chemically reproduced molecules from the sweat of men who suffer fear attacks.

Smell 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.

Judith Cox brings to the Foundation over 15 years of non-profit management experience. As General Counsel, and then as a Deputy Director for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, she was involved in major development projects, including the restoration and expansion of the Guggenheim Museum on Fifth Avenue.

Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist and author, who is known for his popularization of Darwinian ideas as well as for original thinking on evolutionary theory. The Selfish Gene is both the title of his groundbreaking first best seller and his most popular thesis.

Olufunmilayo Olopade is a Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor and Associate Dean for Global Health at The University of Chicago Medical Center. Olopade graduated with distinction from the University of Ibadan College of Medicine in Nigeria.

Jim 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.

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

Jean Berko Gleason is one of the world’s leading experts on children’s language and one of the founding mothers of the field of psycholinguistics. She created the famous Wug Test, which reveals how children learn the rules of language, such as how to make singular words plural.

Mark Kurlansky is a former commercial fisherman and New York Times bestselling author of Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World, Salt: A World History, The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell, and 16 other books.

Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by The New York Times for his groundbreaking monologs, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone.

Leslie 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.

Julie Burstein is a Peabody Award-winning radio producer, best-selling author, and public speaker who has spent her working life in conversation with highly creative people. She is the co-author of Spark: How Creativity Works.

Anna Kuchment edits the Advances news section of Scientific American magazine. Before coming to SciAm, Kuchment was a writer and editor at Newsweek International and Newsweek magazines.

Cristine Russell is an award-winning journalist who has written about science, health, and the environment for more than three decades. She is a senior fellow in the Environment and Natural Resources Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

In 1998, Julie Taymor became the first woman to win the Tony® Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and also won a Tony® for Best Costumes, for her landmark production of The Lion King. The musical has won three Molière Awards including Best Musical and Best Costumes, garnered Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Drama League awards for Taymor’s direction.

Kevin Temmer is an independent artist, animator, composer, singer, and songwriter. Along with expressing himself through drawing, he began teaching himself animation, and also enjoys composing and performing his own original songs.

Peter Lovatt was a professional dancer who performed on the international circuit before switching gears and embarking on an academic career, earning degrees in psychology, computational neuroscience and cognitive psychology.

Michael 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.

Fran Norris studies disaster and human resilience as a community-social psychologist and a research professor in Dartmouth Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry.

Alison Brooks is Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at the George Washington University and a founding member of the Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology.

Nancy Knowlton researches the ecology, evolution, and conservation of coral reef organisms as the Sant Chair in Marine Science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

Now 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.

Matt 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.

Richard Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four books including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award; Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize in History; Why They Kill; a personal memoir, A Hole in the World; a biography, John James Audubon; and four novels.

Rachel Yehuda, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, is the Director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Mental Health Patient Care Center Director at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Cynthia McFadden is the senior legal and investigative correspondent for NBC News. Before joining NBC News, she co-anchored Nightline at ABC News. She has won Emmy, Peabody, and duPont awards, among others.

Kathleen Supové is one of America’s most acclaimed and versatile contemporary music pianists. She regularly presents a series of solo concerts entitled The Exploding Piano, in which she has performed and premiered works by the world’s leading composers as well as countless emerging ones.

LeVar 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.

Todd Ellison is one of the most accomplished music directors on Broadway, having worked on productions of Annie, Spamalot, Cats, and more. His international credits include directing Jerry Hadley, Dawn Upshaw, and the Dublin Film Orchestra.

Bruce 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.

Tricia Rose Burt grew up in the South, where she was strongly encouraged to pursue business, marry a Southerner, raise children, and live below the Mason-Dixon line. Attempts to lead that life backfired. She is now a writer, performer, and artist and lives in New England.

Stephanie Butler Velegol first heard about the ability of the seeds of the Moringa Oleifera tree to clean water while teaching Water and Wastewater Treatment at Penn State University. Since then she has advised over a dozen students on the use of Moringa seeds for sustainable water treatment in the developing world.

Oliver Medvedik earned his Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School, in the Biomedical and Biological Sciences program. As part of his doctoral work he has used single-celled budding yeast as a model system to map the genetic pathways that underlie the processes of aging in more complex organisms, such as humans.

Ellen Jorgensen is a molecular biologist and a passionate advocate of citizen science. Her research interests have encompassed such diverse areas as free radicals in disease, DNA fingerprinting, virus protein structure/function relationships, and cancer biomarkers.

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.

Thorsten Ritz is a biophysicist interested in the role of quantum mechanics in biological systems, ranging from photosynthetic light harvesting systems to sensory cells. He has championed the idea that a quantum mechanical reaction may lie at the heart of the magnetic compass of birds and other animals.

C. David Allis received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and performed postdoctoral work with Martin Gorovsky at the University of Rochester. Allis held several academic positions, including ones at the Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Virginia Health System.

Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University. She studies the evolution, brain systems (fMRI) and biological patterns of romantic love, mate choice, marriage, gender differences, personality, and the biology of leadership styles.

Neil Turok is Director and Niels Bohr Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario, Canada. Previously he was Professor of Physics at Princeton and Chair of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge. He is also Founder and Chair of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences.

Nita A. Farahany is a Professor of Law & Philosophy at Duke University and the director of Duke Science & Society. In 2010, she was appointed by President Obama to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and continues to serve as a member.

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.

Philip Clayton is the dean of Claremont School of Theology (CST) and provost of Claremont Lincoln University. He also holds the Ingraham Chair at CST.

Richard 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.

Sarah Robertson is an independent wildlife and science documentary producer and director specializing in the Arctic for 20 years. In 2007, Robertson was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award in recognition of excellence in exploring climate change.

Scott McVay is founding executive director of the Robert Sterling Clark and Geraldine R. Dodge Foundations, and the 16th president of the Chautauqua Institution. A graduate of Princeton, he discovered and documented the six-octave song of the Humpback whale and, with Roger Payne, published a cover article in Science.

Jay N. Giedd is a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist, chief of brain imaging at the child psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health, and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the department of population, family and reproductive health.

Lone Frank is an award-winning science journalist and author with a Ph.D. in neurobiology and a background in biomedical research. A native of Denmark, she lives in Copenhagen and is a well-known voice in European debates relating to science, technology, and society.

Maxime Bilet is the co-author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, which received the 2012 Book of the Year Award from the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals’ Visionary Achievement, among many other awards. He is also the co-author and of Modernist Cuisine at Home.

In 2004, Dave Arnold founded the Museum of Food and Drink in New York to promote learning about the history and culture of food. In 2005, The International Culinary Center, home of The French Culinary Institute, tapped him to head its new culinary technology department until 2013.

Anne 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.

César Vega earned his doctorate in food science from the University College Cork in Ireland. His areas of expertise include dairy products, particularly ice cream and yogurt, the physical chemistry of cocoa and chocolate, and the science of cooking.

Miyoung Chun is vice president of science programs at The Kavli Foundation in Oxnard, California. Prior to her current role, Chun was an assistant dean of science and engineering at University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), in particular serving for the California Nanosystems Institute.

Sarah Elizabeth Richards is a journalist specializing in health, medicine, psychology, and social issues. She has written for more than two dozen newspapers, magazines, and websites.

Alec Baldwin has appeared in more than 40 films, including Beetlejuice, Working Girl, Miami Blues, The Hunt for Red October, Glengarry Glen Ross, Malice, The Juror, The Edge, Ghosts of Mississippi, State and Main, The Cat in the Hat, The Cooler, The Aviator, The Departed, and It’s Complicated.

André 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.

Erik 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.

Siu-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.

Scott D. Lipscomb is Associate Professor of Music Education at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves as Associate Director and Director of Undergraduate Studies for the School of Music.

Naïma Azough is an author, editor, documentary filmmaker and a former member of parliament. She studied English, German and International Relations at the Universities of Antwerp and Amsterdam.

Fred Kavli, a Norwegian-born U.S. citizen, was a physicist, entrepreneur, business leader, innovator and philanthropist dedicated to supporting research and education that has a positive, long-term impact on the human condition.

DOWNTOWN Magazine Editor-in-Chief Mike Hammer is a veteran media consultant, marketing veteran, and journalist with a long track record of accomplishments as at a wide variety of publications and online products.

Eric Nestler is a neuroscientist, professor of psychiatry, and chair of the neuroscience department at Mount Sinai, and the director of the Friedman Brain Institute.

Michael 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.

Simon Levin is a professor of biology and director of the Center for BioComplexity at Princeton University. His research centers on understanding how macroscopic patterns are maintained at the level of ecosystems and finding parallels between ecological and economic systems.

Alvar Saenz-Otero is the director of the MIT Space Systems Laboratory at the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His primary role is as lead scientist of the SPHERES program, where he develops research activities for tests aboard the International Space Station and in ground facilities.

Tara M. Ruttley is an associate program scientist for the International Space Station for NASA at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Her current role consists of representing and communicating all research on the ISS, and supporting the ISS Chief Scientist’s research recommendations to NASA Headquarters.

Rick and Michael Mast are the co-founders and head chocolate makers of Mast Brothers Chocolate, a bean-to-bar chocolate making company located in Brooklyn. They are involved in every aspect of the process, from roasting and grinding the beans to aging the chocolate and molding the bars.

Mark Weislogel is a thermal and fluid dynamics researcher specializing in microscale thermal devices and fluids in small, complex geometric shapes. He has 10 years of aerospace experience with NASA, where he worked on microgravity capillary phenomena that played an important role in space flight experiments aboard the Space Shuttle, Russian Mir Space Station, and the International Space Station.

Before 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).

John Brockman is a cultural impresario whose career has encompassed the avant-garde art world, science, books, software, and the Internet. In the 1960s he coined the word “intermedia” and pioneered “intermedia kinetic environments” in art, theatre, and commerce, while also consulting for clients such as General Electric, Columbia Pictures, Scott Paper, The Pentagon, and the White House.

E.L. Doctorow’s works of fiction include Homer & Langley, The March, Billy Bathgate, Ragtime, the Book of Daniel, City of God, Welcome to Hard Times, Loon Lake, World’s Fair, The Waterworks, and All the Time in the World.

Jeff Boeke is the director of the newly founded Institute for Systems Genetics at NYU Langone Medical Center. He is leading an international team whose goal is to synthesize an engineered version of the yeast genome.

Catherine 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.

Josh Frieman is a senior staff scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Professor of Astronomy & Astrophysics. He’s also a member of the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago.

Richard 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.

Jim Holt writes about math, science, and philosophy for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Review of Books. His book Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story was an international bestseller.

Jack Stuster is a certified professional ergonomist specializing in human performance in extreme environments. He has analyzed the work performed by technicians, military specialists, and astronauts. His research for NASA began in 1982 with a systems analysis of space shuttle refurbishing procedures, followed by studies of conditions that are analogous to space missions.

Michael López-Alegría has over three decades of aviation and space experience with the U.S. Navy and NASA in a variety of roles.

Nicole Stott has explored from the heights of outer space to the depths of our oceans. In awe of what she has experienced from these very special vantage points, she has dedicated her life to sharing the beauty of space — and Earth — with others. A veteran NASA Astronaut, her experience includes two spaceflights and 104 days spent living and working in space on both the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station (ISS).

Steve Wolf has been producing film, TV and live events for 25 years. He is the President of Special FX International, and founder of Science in the Movies Inc., an organization that teaches physics and chemistry through stunt demonstrations.

Tanya Lowe has worked with Hawk Creek Wildlife Center, Inc., since 2004. As the director of wildlife education, she has presented Hawk Creek’s free-flying bird shows at the Bronx Zoo, Central Park, and the New York State Fair.

59 Productions is a multi-award-winning design studio and production company based in London and New York. Whether creating stage productions, museum installations, live music shows, large-scale events, or films, 59’s team generates creative and technical ideas to help realize ambitious artistic projects.

Scott 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.

Lee 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.

Miguel Nicolelis, M.D., Ph.D., is the Duke School of Medicine Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience at Duke University, professor of neurobiology, biomedical engineering, and psychology & neuroscience, and founder of Duke’s Center for Neuroengineering.

Angelique Corthals is a biomedical/forensic anthropologist who earned her PhD at the University of Oxford. Her work has focused on biomedical research, including the study of the ecology of infectious diseases and auto-immune diseases, as well as forensic anthropology in South America and the Middle East.

Keith Ellenbogen is an award-winning underwater conservation photographer that works at the intersection of art, science, and technology. He is 2015-16 Visiting Artist in Residence at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Eric Jordan has been sought by opera companies for his trademark “big bass and presence to match” (Opera News). His voice is described as possessing “a resonant, ringing tone that was well produced throughout its range” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and The New York Times stated that his “powerful, nuanced singing and thoughtful acting amounted to a wholly remarkable portrayal.”

Historian, 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.

Pedro G. Ferreira is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford. Originally from Portugal, he has studied and worked in London, Berkeley and at CERN in Geneva. His area of expertise is cosmology, focusing on the physics of the early universe and with a special interest in Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

Stephen Tsang is the László Bitó Associate Professor in Ophthalmology, Pathology & Cell Biology at Columbia University and an attending ophthalmologist at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He has been culturing embryonic stem (ES) cells since 1992.

Juan Manuel Benitez is a political reporter for the 24-hour news television station NY1. He hosts the weekly current-affairs program Pura Política on NY1 Noticias. Benitez also teaches journalism at CUNY and Columbia University. He is a frequent contributor to WNYC Radio and MSNBC.

S. Matthew Liao is Arthur Zitrin Professor of Bioethics, Director of the Center for Bioethics, and Affiliated Professor in the Department of Philosophy at New York University. He is the author of The Right to Be Loved, Moral Brains: The Neuroscience of Morality, and over 60 articles in philosophy and bioethics.

Paola 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.

Pablo Lavandera appears regularly in many prestigious venues in the United States, South America and Europe, both as a soloist and chamber musician, and in duo with violinist Joanna Kaczorowska with whom he received First Prize at the 2009 Liszt-Garrison International Piano Competition in the collaborative artists category including the Liszt and Bayreuth (Germany) performance prizes.

Dr. Eleanor Sterling is Chief Conservation Scientist at the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation. She has over thirty years of international field research and community outreach experience in terrestrial and marine systems.

Louise Barrett was trained in both ecology and anthropology and is currently Professor of Psychology and Canada Research Chair in Cognition, Evolution & Behaviour at the University of Lethbridge. She ran a long-term project on baboons in South Africa for twelve years.

Caleb 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.

Yury Gogotsi is Distinguished University Professor and Trustee Chair of Materials Science and Engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the founding Director of the A.J. Drexel Nanomaterials Institute and Associate Editor of ACS Nano.

Benjamin Pearcy joined 59 Productions in 2011 with the Broadway production of War Horse and works from 59’s New York studio. Also a projections designer, Pearcy has lit or designed projections for theater, opera, and architectural projects around the world.

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

Pilobolus 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.

Sanjoy Banerjee is Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the CUNY Energy Institute, which he founded on moving to CUNY from UC Santa Barbara in 2008. The Institute develops sustainable energy technologies with low carbon footprints.

Dr. Stephen Badylak, DVM, PhD, MD is a Professor in the Department of Surgery and deputy director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Doris A. Taylor, Ph.D., FACC, FAHA is the Director, Regenerative Medicine Research, and Director, Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston.

Writer and Director Peter Livolsi is a graduate of the American Film Institute and a Sundance Screenwriters Lab alum. Livolsi’s feature film debut The House of Tomorrow premiered in competition at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 2017. The Hollywood Reporter calls it “A confident and perfectly cast debut feature.”

Henry 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.

Professor Ponisseril Somasundaran received his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He was invested as the first La von Duddleson Krumb Professor.

Dr. 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.

Kate Orff is the Founder of SCAPE. She focuses on retooling the practice of landscape architecture relative to the uncertainty of climate change and fostering social life which she has explored through publications, activism, research, and projects.

A four-time Emmy Award-winning writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy, Lynn Brunelle has over 25 years experience writing for people of all ages, across all manner of media. Brunelle has created, developed and written projects for National Geographic, Scholastic, Random House, Penguin, A&E, The Discovery Channel, Disney, ABC TV, NBC, NPR, World Almanac, Cranium, and PBS.

Dr. Vicki Colvin is the Victor Kreible Professor of Chemistry and Engineering at Brown University and the Director of its Center for Biomedical Engineering. A physical chemist by training, Professor Colvin studies how very small crystalline materials such as quantum dots and carbon nanotubes interact with environmental and biological systems.

Carla Shatz has broken new ground for women in neuroscience. At Harvard Medical School, she was the first woman to receive a PhD in Neurobiology and the first woman to chair the department. Her research aims to understand how early developing brain circuits are transformed into adult connections during developmental critical periods.

David A. Relman, M.D., is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California.

Stephen 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.

Oki Gunawan is a Research Staff Member at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center, Yoktown Heights, NY. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Princeton University in Electrical Engineering. Gunawan’s research areas are semiconductor technology and physics such as nanoscale transistor, solar cell and novel sensors for internet of things technology.

Vincent A. Fischetti Ph.D. is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York. Fischetti’s research has focused on developing alternative methods to control bacterial infections.

Janice Kaplan has enjoyed wide success as a magazine editor, television producer, writer, and journalist. The former editor-in-chief of Parade magazine, she is the author of thirteen popular books including the New York Times bestseller The Gratitude Diaries, which received international praise.

Shep Doeleman is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Founding Director of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. He led the international team that three years ago …

Jay 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.

Victoria Bill is the founding Manager of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering MakerSpace Lab. She is also an adjunct faculty member in the first-year engineering program, teaching EG 1003 Introduction to Engineering and Design. Her research interests include IoT, wearable technology, and engineering education.

Kathryn Denning is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at York University in Toronto. Her research includes projects on the social impacts of astrobiology and SETI, the evolution of intelligence, and contemporary ideas concerning the colonization of space.

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

Dr. 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.

Soumyadeep 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.

Violinist Jennifer Koh is recognized for intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. She collaborates with artists across disciplines, including today’s foremost composers, and curates projects that …

Catherine 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.

Neeraj Sakhrani is a rising sophomore at Columbia University planning to major in mathematics and pre-medicine. Accompanying his academic pursuits, Sakhrani is an associate editor for the Journal of Global Health.

Cyndy Desjardins is a Food Web Biologist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area. She has extensive field experience in limnology research, having managed and trained both laboratory teams and fieldwork teams in a large-scale, multi-year aquatic ecology project.

Tamara Tunie is a versatile actress who consistently garners praise and recognition for her work on the big and small screens, in theater, and in her community. She currently stars in the upcoming AMC dark comedy Dietland as Julia with Joy Nash and Julianna Margulies.

Anjali Chadha is a rising Senior at duPont Manual High School, a Math Science Technology Magnet school in Louisville, Kentucky. She has a deep passion for technology and innovation and has been developing a novel IoT based 3D printed arsenic sensor for the past 2 years.

A student of Jericho High School, Marc Huo is an aspiring scientist who has conducted research on nanotechnology, won 1st Place in Cell and Molecular Biology at the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), was named a Regeneron Scholar, and co-authored a paper that was published in Advanced Materials.

Michael Lai is currently pursuing a medical degree in Hofstra University’s combined BS/MD program in which he will directly matriculate into the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine. He attended Jericho High School in Jericho New York.

Joseph Silk is Homewood Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, a researcher at Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, and a Senior Fellow at the Beecroft Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at the University of Oxford.

William 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.

Dr. Joe Henrich is currently a Harvard professor and Chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. Before moving to Harvard, he was a professor of both economics and psychology at the University of British Columbia, where he held the Canada Research Chair in Culture, Cognition and Coevolution.

Dr. Omer Mei-Dan is an Orthopedic Sports and Trauma Surgeon. Originally from Israel, he has also trained and practiced medicine in Spain, New Zealand, and Australia, prior to establishing the Hip Preservation Service with the University of Colorado School of Medicine. 

Ronald 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.

Scott Kelly is a former military fighter pilot and test pilot, an engineer, a retired astronaut, and a retired US Navy captain. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station (ISS) on three expeditions and was a member of the yearlong mission to the ISS.

Eduardo 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.

Kimberly Arcand is one of the world’s preeminent experts in astronomy visualization and has been a pioneer in 3D imaging and printing in this field. Arcand began her career in molecular biology and public health.

Ariane Cornell is currently on the board of the Society of Satellite Professionals International. She has served on the board of Women in Aerospace – Europe. Previously, Cornell worked in international management consulting.

Michelle 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.

Kenya Murray is the director of Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Currently, she leads the development of a citywide disease surveillance system focused on detecting tracking and enhancing containment of two emerging multi-drug resistant superbugs.

Barbara Natterson.-Horowitz, M.D., is a cardiologist and psychiatrist who turns to the natural world for insights into human health and development. Faculty in Harvard-MIT HST Program, Harvard Department of Human …

Ewine van Dishoeck is Professor of molecular astrophysics at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. She is co-editor of the Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and was president of the International Astronomical Union between 2018 and 2021.

Elise Crull received a B.Sc. with Honors in Physics and Astronomy at Calvin University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in History & Philosophy of Science from the University of Notre …

Daphne Koller is CEO and founder of Insitro, a machine learning-driven drug discovery and development company transforming the way drugs are discovered and delivered to patients. She was the co-founder, …

Michael Levi is a senior scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physics Division and the Director of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). DESI is the world’s most powerful multi-fiber spectrometer and …

Warren “Woody” Hoburg was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class, and. In 2020, NASA announced that he would be one of 18 astronauts chosen for the …

Ian McEwan is a prolific British author whose novels have established him as one of the leading voices in contemporary English-language literature. Winner of the 1998 Booker Prize for Amsterdam, he …