The Arik Korman Show

Pedro Domingos is a professor of computer science at the University of Washington in Seattle. He is a winner of the SIGKDD Innovation Award, the highest honor in data science. Professor Domingos is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and his new book is The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World. Info at pedrodomingos.org

Kaitlin Roig-DeBellis is the brave and resourceful young teacher who piled her 15 first-grade students into a tiny bathroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and hid there with them during what is now known as the worst mass murder of schoolchildren in the United States. She is the founder of the nonprofit organization Classes 4 Classes Inc., which teaches compassion, caring and empathy through active engagement to children around the United States. Kaitlin has been honored as a Glamour Magazine Woman of the Year and received the Dedicated Teacher Award from the Chicago International Conference on Education and two honorary doctorate degrees. Her new book is Choosing Hope: Moving Forward from Life’s Darkest Hours. She was in the Northwest to speak at Town Hall Seattle, presented by: Town Hall and University Book Store, as part of the Arts & Culture series.

Jane McGonigal is the director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future and the author of the New York Times bestseller Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, The New York Times and on MTV, CNN and NPR. Her TED talks on games have been viewed more than ten million times. Jane's new book is Super Better: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient. She was in the Northwest to speak at Town Hall Seattle, presented by Town Hall and University Book Store, as part of The Seattle Science Lectures.

Daniel Levitin is a cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, best-selling author, musician and record producer. Professor Levitin is best known for three #1 best-selling books: This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature, and his newest work, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload. Professor Levitin was in the Northwest to speak at Town Hall Seattle, presented by Town Hall and Elliott Bay Book Company, as part of The Seattle Science Lectures.

Jerome and Laura Tisserand are principal dancers with the Pacific Northwest Ballet and are husband and wife. Jerome Tisserand is from Lyon, France. He trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School, with Pascale Courdioux in Lyon, and at the School of American Ballet. Jerome joined Miami City Ballet as an apprentice in 2006 and moved west to Pacific Northwest Ballet as a member of the corps de ballet in 2007 and was promoted to soloist in 2012 and principal in 2014. Laura Tisserand is from Hammond, Louisiana. She trained with Phoebe Brantley in Baton Rouge, Joseph Giacobbe and Richard Rholdon in New Orleans, and on scholarship at the School of American Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. She joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 2003 and was promoted to corps de ballet in 2004, soloist in 2010, and principal in 2013. Don’t miss Jerome and Laura perform in See The Music, which opens this Friday. All the info at PNB.org

Sir Salman Rushdie is a novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children, won the Booker Prize in 1981. His work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations. His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, was the center of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā calling for his assassination issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on Valentine’s Day in 1989, and as a result he was put under police protection by the British government. Salman Rushdie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Britain's senior literary organization, in 1983. He was given France’s highest artistic honor in 1999. And in 2007, Queen Elizabeth knighted him for his services to literature. Since 2000, Mr. Rushdie has lived in the United States, where he has worked at Emory University and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is now a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. His most recent novel, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, was just published simultaneously around the world in the English language. Salman Rushdie was in the Northwest to speak at Town Hall Seattle, presented by Elliott Bay Book Company.

Ana Popović is a Memphis-based Serbian blues guitarist and singer. She was born in Belgrade, where her father introduced her to the blues, and she started to play guitar at age 15. Ana toured with the band Hush in 1995, formed her own band in 1999 and since then has played with Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, Bootsy Collins, John Hiatt, Susan Tedeschi, Gary Clark Jr., Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Joe Bonamassa. In 2014, she was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the 'Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year' category. Ana's latest album is Blue Room, which she recorded with her father, Milton Popovic. See Ana perform tonight and tomorrow at Jazz Alley. Info at JazzAlley.com and AnaPopovic.com

Pat Mills is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and actor, whose feature film debut “Guidance” was featured at this year’s Seattle International Film Festival. Pat is a former child actor who appeared on the TV series "You Can't Do That on Television." "Guidance" is in theaters now. Info at GuidanceTheFilm.com and SIFF.net

Dr. Rechele Brooks is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences. Her research has focused on the development of social cognition among infants. Dr. Brooks is the co-author of a new research paper demonstrating for the first time that an early social behavior called gaze shifting is linked to infants' ability to learn new language sounds. Info at ilabs.washington.edu

Esperanza Spalding is a bassist and singer who draws upon many genres in her own compositions. She has won four Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards in 2011, making her the first jazz artist to win the award. Esperanza’s most recent album is “Radio Music Society,” which reached #1 on the US Jazz charts and even hit #10 on the Billboard 200. She is currently on the road for her worldwide Emily’s D+Evolution Tour. Info at EsperanzaSpalding.com