George Francis Rayner Ellis is the Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-authored The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time with University of Cambridge physicist Stephen Hawking, published in 1973, and is considered one of the world’s leading…
William John Grassie is an American interdisciplinary scholar, social activist, and organizational consultant. He received his doctorate in comparative religion from Temple University and his BA in political science from Middlebury College. Grassie has taught in a variety of positions at Temple University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to graduate school, Grassie…
Susan Adele Greenfield is a British scientist, writer, broadcaster, and member of the House of Lords. Greenfield, whose specialty is the physiology of the brain, has worked to research and bring attention to Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Greenfield is Professor of Synaptic Pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford. On 1 February 2006, she was installed…
Daniel Clement Dennett III was an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist. He was most recently Professor Emeritus at Tufts University. Dennett was a firm atheist and secularist, a member of the Secular Coalition for America advisory board, as well as an outspoken supporter of the Brights movement. Dennett was referred to as one of…
Alison Gopnik is an American Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is known for her work in the areas of cognitive and language development, specializing in the effect of language on thought, the development of a theory of mind, and causal learning. Gopnik received her BA…
Jared Mason Diamond is an American scientist, historian, and author. He is a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, and he has written hundreds of scientific articles and books. In 1999, he received the National Medal of Science, an honor bestowed by the President of the United States and the National Science Foundation. He is currently a…
David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and writer at Stanford University. He is best known for his published work on time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, a council member in the World Economic Forum, and a New York Times bestselling author published in 27 languages. As an undergraduate at Rice University, he…
Alan Harvey Guth is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. Guth has researched elementary particle theory (and how particle theory is applicable to the early universe). He is currently serving as Victor Weisskopf Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he is the originator of the inflationary universe theory. He graduated from…
Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist. He is currently Regents’ Professor of Physics and Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science at Arizona State University, where he also runs a cancer research project and co-directs a cosmology program. Davies’ research ranges from the origin of the universe to the origin…
Wendy Laurel Freedman is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble Constant, and as John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. She received a PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Joining the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, as a post-doctoral…
Anthony Clifford Grayling is an English philosopher who founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Grayling is a former Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. Grayling…
Murali Doraiswamy is a leading physician scientist in the areas of brain health and personalized medicine at Duke Medicine where he is a Professor in the Division of Translational Neuroscience and Director of the Neurocognitive Disorders Program in Psychiatry. He also serves as a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and the Duke…