Tracy Day is the co-founder of the World Science Festival. She serves as CEO, overseeing the creative and programmatic offerings of the Festival and producing original theatrical, musical and multimedia works at the intersection of science and art.

Michio Kaku is one of the founders of string field theory, a field of research within string theory. He’s also the host of Sci Fi Science, the top-rated new series on the Science Channel, which is based on his New York Times best-selling book Physics of the Impossible.

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.

Robbert Dijkgraaf is director and Leon Levy Professor of the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world’s leading centers for curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities.

John Schaefer is the host and producer of WNYC’s long-running new music show New Sounds, which Billboard magazine has called “the #1 radio show for the Global Village,” founded in 1982, and its innovative Soundcheck podcast, which features live performances and interviews with a variety of guests.

Gary Small is the co-inventor of the first brain-scanning technology to detect the physical evidence of Alzheimer’s disease in living people. He also led the team of neuroscientists that was the first to reveal that Internet searching may result in rapid and significant alterations in brain neural circuitry.

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.

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.

John Lithgow’s many Broadway appearances include The Changing Room, My Fat Friend, Trelawney of the Wells, Comedians, Anna Christie, Once in a Lifetime, Spokesong, Bedroom Farce, Beyond Therapy, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Front Page, M. Butterfly, and Sweet Smell of Success.

Oliver Goodenough’s research and writing at the intersection of law, economics, finance, media, technology, neuroscience and behavioral biology make him an authority in several emerging areas of law and its application in society.

Buzz Hays is one of the pioneers in the field of 3D production, who in recent years was responsible for overseeing the adaptation of standard-release feature films into three-dimensional stereoscopic versions for the IMAX 3D and Real D platforms.

Liev Schreiber is considered one of the finest actors of his generation with a repertoire of resonant, humanistic and often-times gritty portrayals that have garnered him with praise in film, theater, and television. He most recently appeared in the contemporary action thriller Salt with Angelina Jolie from director Phillip Noyce.

Kelli O’Hara recently starred in the Tony Award-winning revival of South Pacific at Lincoln Center, enrapturing audiences and critics alike with her interpretation of Nellie Forbush, garnering a third Tony-nomination in the process.

Tiler Peck has danced leading roles in ballets by George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, in addition to a wide variety of choreographers, including Peter Martins, Susan Stroman and Christopher Wheeldon. She has also had numerous works created for her, most recently by Wheeldon and Wayne McGregor for the 2010 New York City Ballet Spring season.

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.

Since 2001 AL Holmes and AL Taylor have created an award winning body of films commissioned by Animate, Arts Council England, BFI, Channel 4 television, Cornerhouse Cinema, FACT gallery, Film London, MuHKA, Southbank Centre and the World Science Festival, exhibiting internationally in galleries, site specific installations, film festivals, television and concert halls.

Danny Burstein is a native New Yorker who got his Equity card at 19 and has been working ever since in summer stock, regional theatre, movies, television and on and off Broadway.

Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award-winning actress Glenn Close is best known for her riveting performances of complex women. The star of Damages for FX, Close’s portrayal of the high-stakes litigator Patty Hewes won her both an Emmy Award as “Best Actress in a Drama Series” and a Golden Globe for “Best Actress in a TV Drama.”

Hod Lipson is a roboticist who works in the areas of artificial intelligence and digital manufacturing. An award-winning researcher, teacher, and communicator, Lipson enjoys sharing the beauty of robotics though his books, essays, public lectures, and radio and television appearances.

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.

Paula S. Apsell heads the flagship PBS science series, NOVA, now in its 35th year. Under Apsell’s leadership, NOVA has won every major broadcast award and is the most popular science series on television. In 2005, Apsell introduced NOVA scienceNOW, a critically acclaimed science newsmagazine dedicated to covering the latest developments in science and technology.

Mia Barron is a theater, film and television actress. Her stage credits include Springtime for Henry and Heartbreak House, She Stoops to Comedy and Hedda Gabler. She appeared in 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl and also has a recurring role as the voice of Molotov in the cartoon network’s The Venture Brothers.

Kate Burton is a Tony and Emmy Award-nominated actress. Currently on Broadway in the hit musical Spring Awakening, her other stage and screen credits include Hedda Gabler, The Elephant Man, The First Wives Club and The Ice Storm. Her television work includes recurring roles on The West Wing and Grey’s Anatomy.

Brian Cox is a physicist and BBC television and radio presenter who appears in programs such as In Einstein’s Shadow, Bitesize and Horizon.

Josh Dorfman is an environmental entrepreneur, green-living advisor, media personality and author. He wrote The Lazy Environmentalist: Your Guide to Easy, Stylish, Green Living. Dorfman is the founder and CEO of Vivavi, a retailer of modern, green furniture and home furnishings.

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.

Emily Levine has recently upgraded herself to Emily 3.0. Emily 1.0 was a stand-up comedian, appearing in comedy clubs and on Dave Letterman’s Late Night TV show, among others. Emily 2.0 was a television writer/producer, working on shows such as Designing Women, Love and War, and Dangerous Minds. She has created and produced pilots for ABC, NBC, CBS, and HBO.

Kurt Andersen is the author of two novels, the critically acclaimed bestsellers Heyday and Turn of the Century. His forthcoming book is called Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America. He is also host and co-creator of the Peabody Award-winning public radio program Studio 360.

Anthony LaPaglia is the Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor currently starring as FBI Missing Persons investigator Jack Malone in CBS’s popular television crime drama, Without a Trace. LaPaglia has appeared in a number of films, including Summer of Sam, Sweet and Lowdown, The House of Mirth, and Lantana.

MTV News correspondent SuChin Pak, began her television career as host of the PBS Science program Newton’s Apple. She has hosted the MTV Video Music Awards, the Movie Awards, and the documentary series My Life Translated. She will host The G-Word on Discovery’s forthcoming eco-lifestyle network, Planet Green.

Bill Ritter is a television news anchor and journalist. He began his journalism career as a newspaper reporter, for the Los Angeles Times and others, before moving into television. His work in local and national television has taken him to political conventions for almost 20 years.

After graduation from Oxford in 1964, Michael York joined the National Theatre company, making his film debut in The Taming of the Shrew. His more than 60 other screen credits include Romeo and Juliet, Cabaret, Jesus of Nazareth, The Three Musketeers, Logan’s Run, Murder on the Orient Express, Conduct Unbecoming, The Omega Code and all three Austin Powers movies.

Canadian rap artist, writer, and former tree-planter, Baba Brinkman has personally planted more than one million trees in the Rocky Mountains. After graduating with an M.A. in comparative literature in 2003, he began his career as a rap troubadour.

Consuelo De Moraes is an internationally known biologist and ecologist who studies the complex role of chemistry in interactions among plants and other organisms.

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.

Mathematician, researcher, writer and radio presenter Marcus du Sautoy has contributed to the Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent and the Guardian. For several years, he wrote a regular column in the Times called Sexy Science. He is also a frequent commentator on BBC radio and television.

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.

Rob Morrow is an actor, writer, and restaurant owner who is best known for his portrayal of Joel Fleishman in the hit TV series Northern Exposure. In the course of his career, he has been nominated multiple times for Golden Globe and Emmy Awards; he was most recently seen in the Rob Reiner film The Bucket List.

If reproduction is the engine that drives evolution, why engage in non-conceptive sex? In his attempt to tackle this question, Paul Vasey employs concurrent cross-species and cross-cultural perspectives.

Anna Deavere Smith has been hailed by Newsweek as “the most exciting individual in American theater.” She began interviewing people across the country 20 years ago. Without props, sets, or costumes, she translates those encounters into profound performances, each drawing verbatim from the original recorded interview.

Louie Psihoyos (rhymes with Sequoias) has been widely regarded as one of the top photographers in the world. He was hired directly out of college to shoot for National Geographic and created images for the yellow-bordered magazine for 18 years.

Bob Balaban recently received an Emmy nomination for directing Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons in Georgia O’Keeffe (Lifetime). He received three 2008 Emmy Award nominations, two for directing and producing the HBO film Bernard and Doris, and the third for his performance in Recount.

American-born stage and screen actor Bill Camp is best known for his extensive theatre work both on and off Broadway. The recipient of several awards and honors, including Obie, Eliot Norton, and Boston Critics Association awards, he has performed in Tony Kushner’s play Homebody/Kabul, The Misanthrope, Olly’s Prison, Coram Boy, Heartbreak House, The Seagull, St.Joan and Jackie: An American Life to name a few.

Known internationally for presenting work of exceptional inventiveness and physical beauty, MOMIX is a company of dancer-illusionists under the direction of Moses Pendleton. In addition to stage performances world-wide, MOMIX has worked in film and television, recently appearing in a national commercial for Hanes underwear and a Target ad that premiered during the airing of the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards.

Allison Janney was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the 2011 Independent Spirit Awards for her role in Todd Solondz’s film Life During Wartime. In addition, she has completed production on the independent feature The Oranges alongside Catherine Keener and Hugh Laurie.

David Morse has long been recognized as an actor of great talent and versatility in film, television, and theater. His most recent film credits include Drive Angry opposite Nicholas Cage, Passengers with Anne Hathaway and the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

As Executive Producer of the PBS science series, NOVA, now in its 38th season, Howard Swartz manages all phases of production, from development through the creative execution of NOVA programs.

Brent Sexton was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to settling in Los Angeles to pursue a career in Film and Television, he spent four and half years touring theatrically throughout Europe and the United States. Sexton played Harry Manning on HBO’s critically acclaimed series, Deadwood and he is also known for playing Officer Bobby Stark on the NBC series, Life.

Tony-nominated Mireille Enos is currently starring in the critically acclaimed AMC drama series, The Killing. Enos will star opposite Brad Pitt in the Marc Forster-directed zombie extravaganza World War Z, which is based on the novel by Max Brooks and goes into production this summer. For the past three seasons, Enos starred in the HBO drama Big Love.

Award-winning broadcaster and author Lynn Sherr spent more than thirty years with ABC News, covering a wide range of stories—from women’s issues and social change to investigative reports, politics and the space program—at 20/20 and World News.

Mike Francis portrays Galileo and the Stargazer’s Apprentice using over thirty years of professional acting experience on stage, film, and television.

Cynthia Bir studies what happens to the human body after sports injuries, ballistic impacts, and explosive blasts. She is known worldwide for her research into the effects of blunt ballistic impacts from rubber bullets and other less-lethal ammunition.

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.

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

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.

John Rennie is a deputy editor at Quanta Magazine, overseeing its coverage of biology topics. Previously, he was the editor in chief of Scientific American for 15 years and the editorial director of McGraw-Hill’s AccessScience.

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.

David Brancaccio is a correspondent for the radio program Marketplace produced by American Public Media. He hosted Marketplace for ten years after serving as a London-based correspondent for the program.

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

David Kuhn, a musician, singer, songwriter, performer was one of the original musicians chosen for both the development and Broadway productions of Pete Townshend’s Tony Award-winning rock opera The Who’s Tommy.

Debra Monk has starred on Broadway in Curtains, Chicago; Reckless; Thou Shalt Not; Ah, Wilderness!; Steel Pier; Company; Picnic; Redwood Curtain; Nick and Nora; Pump Boys and Dinettes. Off-Broadway, she has appeared in Love, Loss, and What I Wore; Show People; The Seagull; The Time of the Cuckoo; Death-Defying Acts; Three Hotels; Assassins; and Oil City Symphony.

Drew Gehling was an original cast member of the revival of the classic musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever where he played the role of Warren to critical acclaim alongside the incomparable Harry Connick, Jr.

From Broadway and regional theatre to television and films, James Naughton has won critical acclaim in dramas, comedies, and musicals. Naughton has appeared on-screen in The Devil Wears Prada, Childless, Factory Girl, and Suburban Girl.

Lesley Stahl is one of America’s most honored and experienced broadcast journalists, her five-decade career marked by political scoops, surprising features and award-winning foreign reporting. She was CBS’ first female White House correspondent and moderator of Face The Nation.

Gregory Hildreth has appeared in Broadway shows such as Cinderella, Peter and the Starcatcher, and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. His Off-Broadway credits include roles in Peter and the Starcatcher (New York Theatre Workshop), and Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson (The Public Theatre).

Santino Fontana was raised on the west coast, went to school in the Midwest, and currently lives in New York. After graduating from the Guthrie Theater/University of Minnesota’s Actor Training Program he played the title role in Hamlet at the Guthrie at 23.

Samantha Zack has performed in Broadway roles such as Wicked and How to Succeed in Business—for which she was nominated for an Astaire Award. Other performances include It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s Superman, the Astaire awards with Dancing with the Stars’ Tony Dovolani, the 2012 Tony Awards, and Happy We’ll Be.

Clarke Thorell is currently playing Rooster Hannigan in the Broadway revival of Annie. He made his Broadway debut in The Who’s Tommy, and originated the roles of Corny Collins in Broadway’s Hairspray and Jim Farrell in Titanic.

Peter Benson is a Broadway performer, with roles in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Harvey, Promises, Promises, To Be or Not To Be, Boeing-Boeing, The Pajama Game, Wonderful Town, Cabaret, Little Me, American Daughter, and State Fair.

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.

Lawrence Rosenblum is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside and author of See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses. He is an award winning teacher of perceptual, cognitive, and introductory psychology.

Maia Guest trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, London, and has worked in theater, television and film in London, New York, Los Angeles, and throughout the United States. She can be currently seen playing a scientist in BYUtv’s new period scripted drama, Granite Flats, and has appeared on shows on PBS, VH1, BBC, MTV.

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.

Michael Laiskonis was named creative director of New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education in 2012. Previously executive pastry chef at Le Bernardin for eight years, his pastry philosophy manifested itself in a style of desserts that balanced art and science, and contemporary ideas with classic.

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.

Nell Benjamin is the playwright of The Explorers Club. She co-wrote the score to Legally Blonde: The Musical with composer Laurence O’Keefe, for which they received a Tony Award nomination and a Drama Desk nomination.

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.

The Metropole Orchestra is the world’s largest professional pop and jazz orchestra. Renowned for its wide-ranging abilities, the Metropole Orchestra performs anything from chansons to World-music, film-scores, Rock- or Pop-tunes as well as high-octane jazz.

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.

Michelle Thaller is a nationally recognized spokesperson for astronomy and science and the Assistant Director of Science at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center. She has a Bachelor’s in astrophysics from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Georgia State University.

David Kaplan is a theoretical particle physicist who explores supersymmetry, extra dimensions, dark matter, cosmology, and particles such as the Higgs boson. He is developing new techniques to discover physics beyond the standard model using particle colliders.

Brian Hecht is a serial entrepreneur and a veteran of many startups in the digital media space. He is currently at the helm of two NY-based startups, both of which he co-founded. With a specialty in content and consumer marketing, he was also the Publisher of Premium Services for TheStreet.com, a publicly-traded financial media company.

Paul Rudd has performed on Broadway in Grace, Three Days of Rain, The Last Night at Ballyhoo, Twelfth Night (Lincoln Center). Other theater: Long Day’s Journey Into Night (West End, London), The Shape of Things (Off Broadway, Almedia Theatre London), Bash (Off Broadway, LA), Ancestral Voices.

Cynthia Nixon made her film debut in Little Darlings at 12 years old and her Broadway debut at 14 in The Philadelphia Story. Since then she’s appeared in over 40 plays, countless films and television shows, and received Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards.

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.

Jami Floyd is an award-winning journalist and national television personality. She is the former anchor of Court TV’s Jami Floyd: Best Defense, a daily live show that tackled the day’s front-page legal stories.

Bob Reiss is a best-selling author of 20 books, as well as a journalist, a former Chicago Tribune reporter, and former correspondent for Outside Magazine. His work has been published in The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Parade, Rolling Stone, and other national publications.

Nancy Giles has been a contributor to CBS Sunday Morning since 2003, voicing her opinions on everything from politics and race to pop culture and the conspiracy of high heels. As an actress, she was in the ensemble cast of ABC-TV’s Emmy Award-winning series China Beach.

Kelley Remole, Ph.D., is director of neuroscience outreach at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. She is a trained neuroscientist with a passion for communicating the wonders of the brain. As a doctoral student in neuroscience at Columbia University, she was not content to contain her enthusiasm for science to the lab.

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.

Christine Ebersole has captivated audiences throughout her performing career, from the Broadway stage to television series and specials, films, concert appearances, and recordings.

Peter Parnell’s most recent play Dada Woof Papa Hot was produced by the Lincoln Center Theater Company in 2015. He wrote the new books for Disney Theatrical’s production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (music and lyrics Menken-Schwartz), and the Broadway revival of Lerner and Lane’s On a Clear Day You Can See Forever starring Harry Connick, Jr. and Jessie Mueller.

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.

Caren Zucker is a veteran and award-winning television producer with ABC News and PBS, and the mother of an adult son with autism.

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.”

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.”

Ellen Burstyn’s illustrious sixty-year acting career encompasses film, stage, and television. In 1975 she became only the third woman in history to win both the Tony Award and the Academy Award in the same year for her work in Same Time, Next Year on Broadway and in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore for which she also received a Golden Globe nomination and a British Academy Award for Best Actress.

Ting (C.-ting) Wu is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. She is also Director of the Consortium for Space Genetics and Director of the Personal Genetics Education (pgEd.org) Project. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is a recipient of the NIH Director’s 2012 Pioneer Award for her laboratory’s work on genome organization and inheritance.

Bill Nye is a science educator, mechanical engineer, New York Times bestselling author, and the creator and host of the Emmy award-winning syndicated television show Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Seth Fletcher is chief features editor at Scientific American. His first book, Bottled Lightning, on the lithium-ion battery and the rebirth of the electric car, was published in 2011 by Hill & Wang/FSG. His next book, currently in progress, is about a group of astronomers and their quest to take the first picture of a black hole.

Dubbed “The Last Leading Man” by the New York Times, Brian Stokes Mitchell has enjoyed a rich and varied career on Broadway, television, film and recordings, along with appearances in the great American concert halls.

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.

Bernadette Woods Placky is often called upon to discuss and explain extreme weather events and has appeared on a number of national and local television broadcasts. Before coming to Climate Central, she spent 11 years as a TV weather forecaster. Her most recent station was WJZ in Baltimore, where she earned an Emmy.

Carolee Carmello is an actress and singer best known for her performances in Broadway musicals. She is a three-time Tony Award nominee and a 5-time Drama Desk nominee, winning the 1999 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical for her role in Parade.

Actor Maria Dizzia’s New York credits include: If I Forget, The Layover, Belleville (2013 Drama Desk Nomination), Uncle Vanya, Cradle and All, In the Next Room (2010 Tony Award nomination), The Hallway Trilogy, and more. Dizzia portrayed Polly on two seasons of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black.

Ana Nogueira is an actor, playwright and screenwriter who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Her Off-Broadway appearances include: Engagements, Mala Hierba (Second Stage Uptown), and Knives and Other Sharp Objects (The Public).

When he isn’t saving strangers from certain death, Chad Lindsey is an actor, director, and artist based in New York. He is the co-artistic director of Hook & Eye Theater, helms The Mark O’Donnell Theater at The Actors Fund Arts Center in downtown Brooklyn–a modern black-box theater, dance, film and rehearsal space. 

Marlee Matlin’s first film Children of a Lesser God garnered her the Academy Award for Best Actress. At 21 she became the youngest recipient and only one of four actresses to receive the honor for a film debut.

Dr Helen Scales teaches at Cambridge University, where she completed her PhD in Marine Biology. She is an avid scuba diver, and  author of several bestselling books, most recently The …