Acclaimed journalist, photographer and author of The Boy Who Played With Fusion, Tom Clynes, longtime Contributing Editor at National Geographic Adventure brings audiences along on assignment to the ends of the Earth, telling the stories of individuals who managed to shape once-ordinary lives into extraordinary, world-changing adventures, and how each of us can do the same.
Author of the bestselling book and nationally syndicated column ¡Ask a Mexican!, and Orange County: A Personal History, Arellano, also a contributing editor to the LA Times, addresses immigration, integration and the role of stereotypes in American society, and helps organizations to better connect with Latinos.
Author of Live From the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20th Century and How They Shaped Modern America, Cohen, a Fellow at the Century Foundation, writes and lectures on wide-ranging political and national security issues, including the war in Afghanistan, the ongoing militarization of American foreign policy.
Author of Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future, Saleem H. Ali is professor of environmental planning and conflict resolution at the University of Vermont. Named one of eight “Revolutionary Minds in the World” by Seed magazine, Dr. Ali is a leading advocate for cross-cultural environmental pragmatism.
Food & Agriculture blogger at Mother Jones, and co-founder of Maverick Farms, a center for sustainable-food education, Philpott was named one of Food & Wine’s “ten innovators” who will “continue to shape [America’s] culinary consciousness.” Until recently, he was Food editor at Grist.org, where his biweekly “Victual Reality” column was a must-read on food politics.
Director of the multi-award-winning documentary “Darius Goes West,” which chronicles the epic cross-country road trip he and 10 others took with Darius Weems, a friend stricken with fatal Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Smalley is a change agent for a new generation. He and Darius prove that idealism and creativity can result in tangible progress.
The Internet was going to move us into the “information economy” – but information is worth less than ever. In Free Ride: How Digital Parasites are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, acclaimed journalist and former Exec. Editor of Billboard, Levine, lays out how the media business can save itself (in spite of itself).
A Senior writer at Salon.com, Leonard writes the hybrid blog/column “How the World Works” – a venue for exploring the interconnections between globalization, energy policy, economics, the environment, technology and politics; and, particularly the extent to which these inextricably linked subjects are driven by, and affect, China, India and the U.S.
Co-creator of the GrassROOTS Community Foundation (GCF), a health advocacy organization that develops, scales, and funds community health initiatives for impoverished women and girls, Dr. Johnson Dias is dedicated to devising research-informed, innovative solutions to the challenges facing the urban poor.
Award-winning New York Times columnist, bestselling author of Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of the Black Athlete, and frequent guest on ESPN’s “The Sports Reporters,” Rhoden uses the metaphors of sports to address crucial issues and conflicts in contemporary American society.
An acclaimed and prolific science journalist, Dan Hurley’s latest book Smarter: The New Science of Building Brain Power, is a fascinatingly deep dive into the field of intelligence research, revealing what scientists have called nothing short of a revolution in human intellectual abilities — the capacity to make ourselves quantifiably smarter.
Author of the acclaimed memoir, The War I Always Wanted, Friedman is the former Director of New Media at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He served from ’07-’09 as Vice Chairman of VoteVets.org and as editor of the blog VetVoice, and has worked extensively across all media platforms to communicate progressive defense and foreign policy strategies.
Former Executive Director of GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), Garry is widely recognized as one of the most vocal, passionate and effective civil rights leaders in America. She is a featured blogger at The Huffington Post, and frequently contributes commentary to major news publications and TV networks.
In his New York Times Bestseller, Breakpoint: Why the Web will Implode, Search will be Obsolete, and Everything Else you Need to Know about Technology is in Your Brain, Stibel, a brain scientist, entrepreneur and Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp, explores how the intersection of the brain, biology and technology can help businesses better leverage the world’s collective consciousness.
Co-Author of Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations, and author of Africa’s Turn?, Miguel is the Director of the Center of Evaluations for Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is an associate professor in economics, with a research focus on African economic development.
Co-Author of The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office and Economic Gangsters: Corruption, Violence and the Poverty of Nations, Fisman is the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise and Director of the Social Enterprise Program at the Columbia Business School. He also writes a monthly column for Slate on economics and popular culture.
Award-winning New York Times journalist and author of the bestseller Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen, Drape paints an inspiring portrait of a small town in Kansas that actually believes it takes a village to raise a child, and how its long-undefeated football team (79 games in a row) has embodied this ideal.
Based upon the acclaimed book he co-authored, Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson, filmmaker Shawn D. Wilson’s documentary explores the all black, separate-but-equal town of Greenville, MS in the 1950s-60s, and asks a most provocative question about desegregation: “Did we lose more than we gained?”
Award-winning journalist and author of Heart of Dryness, James G. Workman has devoted his life to helping solve the overriding paradox of our time: Water conservation is, ironically, unsustainable. But, why? A former advisor shaping national and global policy under Bruce Babbitt and Nelson Mandela, Workman addresses this riddle in a compelling multimedia program.
Award-winning former LA Times journalist, and author of the memoir Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America, Lobdell shares his spiritual journey investigating and reconciling the many oft-conflicting facets of faith in America, which took him from evangelical Christian to reluctant atheist.
