Marianne Gonzalez is an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and is currently working on the Europa clipper, which will be looking for signs of life on Jupiter’s moon. Some of her previous projects include work on the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment and the Spacecraft Atmospheric Monitor.

Dr. Jill Tarter is an astronomer and the Chair Emeritus for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute. While at the SETI Institute, Dr. Tarter primarily works on securing support and funding for exploratory science, particularly for the search for extraterrestrial life. The institute uses several advanced processing technology to scan exoplanets for potential life forms and broadcast signals from distant populations.

Dr. Jennifer Tsai is an emergency medicine physician resident at Yale University and is a huge advocate for health and climate equity. She has focused her work on race-based medicine and the intersectionality of race, health, and society. Lastly, Dr. Tsai encourages conversations on critical race theory and the impacts of racism on community and individual health.

Vanessa Suarez is a senior policy advisor for the climate focused non-profit organization, Carbon 180. Her main focus is on federal policy on carbon removal with an emphasis on environmental justice.

Dr. Jacob George is the director of the Utah NeuroRobotics lab and a professor of neuroengineering at the University of Utah, where he conducts research on bionic prosthetics. Dr. George’s lab is currently looking at expanding and commercializing prosthetics that connect the machine with the patient’s nervous system, giving them greater sensory capacities.

Dr. Megan Ranney has maintained a distinguished career of academic roles, with a focus on the impacts of gun violence on health and healthcare systems in the US. In addition to serving as the Academic Dean for the School of Public Health at Brown University, she is also a practicing emergency physician and Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health. Dr. Ranney’s research mainly focuses on violence prevention, with a particular emphasis on firearm injury, as well as the use of technology to facilitate behavioral health.

Justin Ahn is a high school sophomore at Deerfield Academy who is passionate about political science and international relations. He previously hosted Election Day, a monologue podcast discussing the 2020 election and its aftermath, and he currently hosts Between the Headlines, an interview podcast that deconstructs important dynamics in American democracy and society. His research adopts a breadth-first approach, taking theories from various disciplines and applying them to cross-national sets of empirical data.

Dr, Lina AbiRafeh has worked for over 20 years in gender based violence response in the humanitarian aid and development fields. She has previously served as the director of the Arab Institute for Women at the Lebanese American University, as well as working in GBV prevention and response and women’s rights advocacy in the field in countries such as Afghanistan, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, and many more countries. In 2018 and 2019 she was listed among the Gender Equality Top 100 most influential people in Global Policy for her research and dedication to GBV prevention and response in conflict and emergency settings.

Drs. Tucker and Pop-Eleches recently co-authored a book, Communism’s Shadow: Historical Legacies and Contemporary Political Attitudes, which looks at the political, economic, and social views of post-Communist citizens.

Dr. Tucker is currently a professor of politics as well as an affiliated professor of Russian and Slavic studies and data science at New York University. Most of Professor Tucker’s work and research has looked at comparative politics, with a particular emphasis on Eastern Europe and what was formerly the Soviet Union. In addition to Communism’s Shadow, he has also written the book Regional Economic Voting: Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic, 1990-1999.

Professor Pop-Eleches is currently a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he is also the co-director of the Workshop on Post-Communist Politics. He also has worked on comparative and international economies in Eastern Europe and Latin America and done research on electoral behavior and political parties. Lastly, in addition to Communism’s Shadow, Dr. Pop-Eleches has also published his book From Economic Crisis to Reform: IMF Programs in Latin America and Eastern Europe.