Steven W. Squyres is a veteran of several of NASA’s planetary exploration missions, including the Voyager mission to Jupiter and Saturn, the Magellan mission to Venus, and the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission.

Fabien 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.

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.

David E. Guggenheim, also known as the “Ocean Doctor,” is a marine scientist, conservation policy specialist, submarine pilot and ocean explorer.

The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. In 1998 Mr. Ma established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.

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.

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.

Jane Lubchenco, University Distinguished Professor at Oregon State University, is a marine ecologist with expertise in the ocean, climate change, and interactions between the environment and human well-being.

Ellen Prager is a marine biologist, author and chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Aquarius Undersea Laboratory in Key Largo, Florida. She is the Chairman of the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel for the federal government and an author of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy’s 2004 report to Congress and the President.

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.

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.

Suzanne Carbotte is a marine geophysicist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. Her research interests span from the global, focused on magma chambers beneath deep-sea mid-ocean ridge volcanoes, to studies closer to home of sedimentation within the Hudson River.

Mark Siddall is known as “the leech guy,” though he has focused on the evolutionary biology of a wide range of parasites. He has led expeditions around the world, most recently including South Sudan, Cambodia, and the Lower Amazon of Brazil.

David Holland is a physical climate scientist who studies phenomena relating to the polar regions and their impacts on global climate. His current research focuses on the computer modeling of the interaction of the Earth’s ice sheets with ocean waters.

Dr. 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.

Merry Camhi is director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Seascape program. This initiative, based at the NY Aquarium, seeks to raise public awareness and action to conserve threatened marine wildlife and habitats in the New York Bight, through field research, improved policy, and education.

James B. McClintock is the Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is an expert on invertebrate nutrition, reproduction, and primarily, Antarctic marine chemical ecology, climate change, and ocean acidification.

Carl Safina’s work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals.

Sean Dixon is an attorney at Hudson Riverkeeper where he is primarily responsible for Riverkeeper’s New York City Programs. Dixon is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Pace Law School and Senior Fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist, policy expert, conservation strategist, and Brooklyn native. She is founder and principal of Ocean Collectiv.

Trey 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.

Ariel Zych is an educator, scientist, writer, and producer dedicated to sparking a love of science and math in others. Currently education director at Science Friday, she’s produced and created hundreds of experiments, activities, lessons, events, and workshops for kids, parents, and teachers in video, radio, print, web, and social media.

Hans Walters is an animal department supervisor at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York Aquarium in Brooklyn NY, and a field scientist with WCS’ New York Seascape Program. As animal supervisor, he oversees the daily care of sharks and rays, sea turtles and numerous marine fishes and invertebrates.

Naomi Leonard is the Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and associated faculty member of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University.

Victor Vescovo is the first person to dive “The Five Deeps” – the deepest point in all five of the world’s oceans. He is the first person to dive the …

Michael Blumenstein is currently a Professor and the Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) in the Faculty of Engineering and IT at University of Technology Sydney. Michael is a nationally and …