Mahzarin Banaji

Mahzarin Banaji, authority on biases and stereotyping, studies our unconscious thoughts and feelings about others. She is a professor of psychology at Harvard and coauthor with Anthony Greenwald of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.

Steve Coleman

Steve Coleman, a saxophonist and composer known as perhaps the foremost innovator of jazz since Coltrane, has explored musical traditions from many parts of the world and drawn from science and nature to redefine the jazz sound.

Fred Dame

Fred Dame, the first American to serve as President of the Court of Master Sommeliers, has been active in expanding the master sommelier program across the U.S. He has honorary professorships at Purdue and University of South Carolina.

Annie Duke

Annie Duke, a world poker champion and authority on risk, has written several books on poker and decision-making, among them Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts.

Ricky Jay

Ricky Jay has been called “perhaps the most gifted sleight of hand artist alive” by The New Yorker. He is also a film actor and the author of a half-dozen books on the history of unusual entertainments.

Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio

Husband and wife team Peter Menzel and Faith D’Alusio document science and the environment with unique books that explore issues such as the material possessions (Material World) and diet (Hungry Planet).

Craig Packer

Craig Packer is a biologist, conservationist, and professor at the University of Minnesota. He appears often in National Geographic, is the leading authority on lions and the Serengeti and won the John Burroughs Medal for his book, Into Africa.

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky, twice poet laureate of the United States, is known for his efforts to make poetry a meaningful part of everyday life, most notably through his Favorite Poem Project, in which Americans read poems aloud for the Library of Congress.

Karen Russell

Karen Russell, author of St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, and Swamplandia! is a MacArthur winner, proclaimed by NPR “a literary genius” and “one of the great American writers of our young century.”

Bruce Schneier

Bruce Schneier, cryptographer and fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, has been called a security guru by The Economist, and is the author of Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.

Nick Ut

Nick Ut, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is best known for one of history’s most iconic images: the “napalm girl,” running from her burning village during the Vietnam war. The napalm girl herself, Kim Phúk, now an advocate for victims of war, joins Nick.

Harold Varmus

Harold Varmus, Nobel Laureate in Medicine for his research on cancer, has held many influential posts including directorships at the National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health. He is currently a professor at Weill Cornell.