Koen and I had this wide ranging and fascinating conversation on May 15, 2020.

Koen Bertels is the head of the Quantum Computer Architectures Lab.  He currently focus on Quantum Computing and more specifically on the overall system design and architecture aspects.

He is a principal investigator in Qutech where he collaborates  with experimental physicists on building prototype quantum processors.  Koen’s research interests spanned two of the three research pillars of the Lab, namely Multi and Many-core architectures and Electronic System Level Design.  He was responsible for the Delft Workbench project that aims to provide semi-automatic support for designing heterogeneous multicore platforms where reconfigurable technology offers plenty of possibilities to generate application specific hardware at runtime.  An overview of relevant publications on various topics related to heterogeneous multicore computing can be found on his research page.

He also started two companies. The first, called BlueBee, was formed with colleagues from the CE lab and Wayne Luk from Imperial College, that provides a cloud service for genome sequencing.  Bluebee received 10 Mio € venture capital in 2016. More information can be found on the the BlueBee website below. The second company is a financial portfoliomanagement software company in Luxemburg, called Upsilon, also below.  www.upsilon.lu

This is a link to Koen's lab: www.tudelft.nl/eemcs/the-faculty/departments/quantum-computer-engineering/quantum-computer-architecture-lab/staff/koen-bertels

Here is a link to BlueBee:  www.bluebee.com

Here is a link to one of Koen's Ted Talks and you can find many more of his presentations on the emerging field of quantum computing online:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPplkPKDZHI

Betsy West is the director/producer of RBG (Magnolia, Participant, CNN Films, 2018) along with Julie Cohen. She is a 21-time Emmy Award winner for her work as an ABC News producer and executive producer of the documentary series Turning Point. As vice president at CBS News from 1998 to 2005, she oversaw 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.

She was executive producer of the MAKERS (AOL & PBS, 2012) documentary and digital series, the short documentary, The 4%: Film’s Gender Problem (Epix, 2016) and the feature  documentary, The Lavender Scare (2017).

Betsy is a graduate of Brown University and is the Fred W. Friendly professor at Columbia Journalism School.

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan and was recorded on April 2, 2020.

This podcast was recorded on May 7, 2020.  Renée Yoworsky, Clay Boykin and I discuss Clay's spearheading of the Search of the New Compassionate Male and why the world needs this so much at this time of great change and challenge.

Renée Yaworsky is an attorney, activist, actor, musician, writer and producer. She has worked in criminal justice reform since she was a teenager, been active in women’s rights and justice all over the world.   Contact Renée at [email protected]

Clay Boykin is a writer, speaker and activist.  A former US Marine, multi-decade executive change agent with Motorola who more than 8 years ago embarked upon a conscious journey in what has become a search, inside himself and in the world, of the new compassionate male.

To learn more about the Search for the New Compassionate Male initiatives and his work:  www.clayboykin.com

Ross MacPhee is a paleomammalogist on the curatorial staff of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where he has worked since 1988. He has conducted more than 50 expeditions in many parts of the world, researching the evolution and extinction of Ice Age mammals.

In addition to numerous scientific papers in Science, Nature, PNAS and other professional journals, Ross is the author of End of the Megafauna: The Fate of the World’s Hugest, Fiercest, and Strangest Animals (WW Norton, 2018), Race to The End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole (Sterling, 2010) and the editor of Extinctions in Near Time: Causes, Contexts, and Consequences (Kluwer/Plenum, 1999).

Here is where you can buy Ross' book, End of the Megafauna:  https://tinyurl.com/uhldnca

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan.

This conversation with Dr. Crowe was recorded on April 5, 2020, while much of the US was on lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr. James Crowe is Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center and the Ann Scott Carell Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt.  His laboratory studies the human immune response to infection for a wide variety of major human pathogens, including many emerging infections.

Dr. Crowe is the Director of the HUMAN IMMUNOME PROJECT, an ambitious effort to identify the sequence of all transcripts for human adaptive immune receptors.  His research group uses a very broad array of techniques including molecular and cellular biology, state-of-the-art imaging and flow cytometry, bioinformatics, and bioengineering approaches to attack scientific problems at the forefront of immunity research.  The group has been recognized widely as a leader in antibody sciences, for instance as the Best Academic Research Team, 11th Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence Awards, World Vaccine Congress, recipient of the 2019 Merck Future Insight Prize for Pandemic Preparedness, and large-scale research grants and contracts from NIH and DoD, including the DARPA Pandemic Prevention Program (P3).

Here is Dr. Crowe's powerful TEDx talk:  https://youtube.com/watch?v=YfuS3__1a-k

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan.

I had this conversation with Laura on March 20, 2019. Oh, so long ago…

Here is her bio:

Laura Redfern earned her Certified Financial PlannerTM designation in 2011, after working nearly 10 years in the areas of investment management and retirement planning. Over the past decade, Laura has extensive experience working with clients in life’s difficult transition stages: recent widows, divorcees, inheritors, and couples transitioning to retirement.

Comprehensive financial planning allows Laura to take a “big picture” view of clients’ finances that ultimately helps to lead them to better, more fulfilling lives. Laura has a special passion for educating women on financial topics, speaking in “real world” terms to inspire audiences to become more confident in the world of finance.

Laura currently resides in south Austin and enjoys yoga, travel, food, and a healthy, active lifestyle.

Her website is: www.peaceful-prosperity.com

To: Contact Laura Redfern: [email protected]

In December of 2011, I learned of I serendipitously learned of Charles through a YouTube video on the lessons learned from and going forward from the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I was so impressed by his mind, his heart as well as the clarity and insight with which he communicated.  He graciously assented to have a conversation with me.

Below is link to Charles’ website as well as to his books, articles and multimedia:  https://charleseisenstein.org

Mike P. Burton grew up in North Carolina and Delaware, listening to George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, and Steven Wright. He moved to New York after college with a Theatre Arts degree in hand.  He did some off-off-off Broadway shows while waiting tables and bartending but comedy was always something he wanted to do but never followed through with so one day he woke up and decided to stop talking about it and actually do it. That night he went to an open-mic paid $5 for five minutes of stage time and he’s been doing it ever since.

Mike has done plays, a music video, a variety show “The Fringe”, some independent films and a couple of commercials.  He was the regular warm-up for daytime talk shows The Revolution and Bethenny while also subbing in at Rachel Ray, The View and Dr.Oz

He travels all over doing stand-up from Maine to New Mexico to Florida and the exotic Dakota’s as well as working on cruises all over the sea.  Recently, Mike taped a Drybar comedy special which can be found on Drybarcomedy.com.   It has been said that he has the southern roots to make him hospitable and enough New York in him to give him an edge.

Here is Mike's website:  http://mikepburton.com

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan.

Dr. James Crowe is Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center and the Ann Scott Carell Professor of Pediatrics, Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology at Vanderbilt.  His laboratory studies the human immune response to infection for a wide variety of major human pathogens, including many emerging infections.

Dr. Crowe is the Director of the HUMAN IMMUNOME PROJECT, an ambitious effort to identify the sequence of all transcripts for human adaptive immune receptors.  His research group uses a very broad array of techniques including molecular and cellular biology, state-of-the-art imaging and flow cytometry, bioinformatics, and bioengineering approaches to attack scientific problems at the forefront of immunity research.  The group has been recognized widely as a leader in antibody sciences, for instance as the Best Academic Research Team, 11th Annual Vaccine Industry Excellence Awards, World Vaccine Congress, recipient of the 2019 Merck Future Insight Prize for Pandemic Preparedness, and large-scale research grants and contracts from NIH and DoD, including the DARPA Pandemic Prevention Program (P3).

Here is Dr. Crowe's powerful TEDx talk:  https://youtube.com/watch?v=YfuS3__1a-k

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan.

Dr. Don Thomas is an astronaut, scientist, professional speaker, educator, and author of Orbit of Discovery about his STS-70 mission aboard space shuttle Discovery.  A veteran of four flights, Don has spent 44 days in space and orbited the Earth nearly 700 times.  Don’s mission is helping to inform and excite the public about our future in space and preparing our next generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers for their missions in the future.

Here is a link to Don's website: http://ohioastronaut.com

Here is a link to Don's book, "Orbit of Discovery":  http://ohioastronaut.com/book

This episode of "A Conversation with..." was produced by Renée Yaworsky and Dennis Tardan.