A professional magician, Arthur Benjamin can multiply large numbers faster than a calculator, figure out the weekday of any date in history, and has memorized the decimal numbers of Pi out to 100 digits.

Paul Nurse is a geneticist and cell biologist who has worked on how the eukaryotic cell cycle is controlled and how cell shape and cell dimensions are determined. His major work has been on the cyclin dependent protein kinases and how they regulate cell reproduction.

Marin Alsop made history with her appointment in 2007 as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the first woman to head a major American orchestra. This mirrored her ongoing success in the United Kingdom where she was Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony from 2002- 2008 and is now Conductor Emeritus.

Paul 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.

Gerd Gigerenzer is director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. He has trained U.S. Federal Judges, physicians, and top managers in decision-making and understanding risks and uncertainties.

Glennys Farrar is a collegiate professor of physics at New York University. She has made seminal contributions to theoretical particle physics, including demonstrating that quarks are not just mathematical constructs but are actually physically present in matter and pioneering the search for supersymmetry.

Roald Hoffmann is a professor of chemistry and the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He is a graduate of both Columbia and Harvard Universities.

Vinton Cerf, a vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, is widely known as one of the founding fathers of the Internet. In the 1970s, Cerf co-designed the network’s architecture and the protocols it uses to communicate, and he has been instrumental in shaping its direction in the decades since.

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.

Beth 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.

Wylie Dufresne opened WD-50 in 2003, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His partners in the venture are Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten and restaurateur Phil Suarez.

David 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.

Jeff Beal is an American composer of music for film and the concert hall. With musical beginnings as a jazz trumpeter and recording artist, his works are infused with an understanding of rhythm and spontaneity.

Barry Barish is an experimental physicist and a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at Caltech. He became the Principal Investigator of LIGO in 1994 and was LIGO Director from 1997-2005. Barish led the effort through the approval of funding by the NSF National Science Board in 1994, and the construction and commissioning of the LIGO interferometers in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA in 1997.

Anna L. Fisher is a NASA astronaut with a BsC in Chemistry, a PhD in Medicine, and a Master of Science in Chemistry, all from UCLA. With the completion of her first flight, Fisher logged a total of 192 hours in space.

Time 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.

Rob Knight is Professor of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering and is Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at the University of California San Diego. He authored Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes.

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 …

Bruce Goldstone has written more than a dozen books for children, many of which encourage readers to see the playful side of math and numbers, such as Great Estimations, I See a Pattern Here, 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days, and That’s a Possibility! His latest book, Super Summer, completes his exploration of the sights, smells, and science of the seasons.