The Brain Surgeon's Take

Carlos Antonio Gimenez proudly represents the people of Florida's 28th congressional district, encompassing all of Monroe County and the southwest portion of Miami-Dade County. First elected to Congress in 2020, he serves on the House Armed Services Committee, the Homeland Security Committee, and the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the US & the Chinese Communist Party. He is the first career firefighter to ever serve in Congress.

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Dr. Frenk is the 6th President of UM. He is also Professor of Public Health, Health Sector Policy, and Sociology. Prior to joining the UM, he served as Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Public Health at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Julio was the Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. He was also the founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, executive director at The WHO and senior fellow in the global health program of the Gates Foundation.

Dr. Frenk holds an MD from the National University of Mexico, as well as an MPH/PhD from the University of Michigan. His scholarly production, which includes over 180 articles, has been cited >23,000 times. In addition, he has written three best-selling novels. He serves on the board of the United Nations Foundation and the RWJ Foundation and has chaired the board of the Institute for Health Metrics at the University of Washington. Dr Frenk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico. He was elected as a member of El Colegio Nacional, one of the most prestigious learned societies of Mexico.

He received the Clinton Global Citizen Award, the Yale University Bouchet Medal, the Welch-Rose Award, and the Columbia University Frank Calderone Prize.  He has honorary degrees from Universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and Mexico.

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Drago was born in Poland while under Communist rule. His father was a devout Communist who eventually became high-ranking Communist government official. Drago was never swayed by his father’s ideology and pressure to accept the Marxist/Communist ideology, and eventually was sent to prison for opposing Communist regime in Poland. After spending time in a Communist prison as a political prisoner for his activism against agains censorship, oppression and depravity of Communist regime, he immigrated to the United States in 1984. Drago became a US citizen in 1991.  After the first Persian War broke out, he enlisted in US Navy and became a Navy SEAL. He believes that it was his moral obligation to support in the best possible way his new Country that adopted him and gave him freedom. Dzieran was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Following his honorable retirement after twenty years in the Navy, Drago began a successful career as a software engineer.

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Adam Yala, PhD is an assistant professor of Computational Precision Health and Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley and UCSF. His research focuses on developing machine learning methods for precision health and translating them to clinical care. His previous research has contributed to three areas: 1) predicting future cancer risk, 2) designing personalized screening policies, and 3) learning encoding schemes for private data sharing. Dr. Yala’s tools have been deployed at multiple health systems around the world and his research has been featured in the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Wired. He obtained his PhD in Computer Science from MIT, and subsequently became a member of MIT’s Jameel Clinic and Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

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A revered leader with 25 years of command experience, DeDe has been described by Dr. Brené Brown as one of her “leadership heroes and a total badass.” She has held several pivotal roles, including as an advisor to the Department of Defense’s top leader, commander of Air Force bases in Barksdale and Iraq, a national security fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, congressional fellow advising an Indiana senator, senior advisor to the Air Force chief of staff, and chief public affairs officer for the Thunderbirds.

No stranger to high-stress environments: As a senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, DeDe was a trusted influence in developing solutions to the military’s most pressing issues. She also served as the military’s lead spokesperson responsible for implementing plans supporting the Department of Defense’s global communications strategy.

A Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, DeDe is an executive coach certified through Georgetown University’s Executive Leadership Coaching Program. DeDe holds a master’s degree in leadership from American Military University and a B.A. in Communications from the University of Iowa. She is also a graduate of Air War College, Air Command and Staff College, Squadron Officer School, and Defense Information School.

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Dr. Bruce Greyson is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia.  He was previously on the medical faculty at the University of Michigan and the University of Connecticut, where he was Clinical Chief of Psychiatry. Dr. Greyson has consulted with the National Institutes of Health and addressed symposia on consciousness at the United Nations and at the Dalai Lama’s compound in Dharamsala, India. He has earned awards for his medical research and was elected a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, the highest honor bestowed by that organization.

Dr. Greyson’s interest in near-death experiences began just a few months after graduating from medical school, when he treated an unconscious patient in the emergency room who stunned him the next morning with an account of leaving her body. That event challenged his beliefs about the mind and the brain, and ultimately led him on a journey to study near-death experiences scientifically, leading to more than a hundred publications in medical journals. He co-founded the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), an organization to support and promote research into these experiences, and for 27 years edited the Journal of Near-Death Studies, the only scholarly journal dedicated to near-death research. Dr. Greyson is the author of After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal About Life and Beyond.

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Dr Adams is a visual neuroscientist specializing in binocular vision in humans and non-human primates. He is a principle investigator at Neuralink. He uses psychophysical, behavioral, electrophysiological, and anatomical techniques to study the primate visual system at a number of levels from the retina to the cortex. He is currently investigating the neural adaptations that occur in the childhood disease of strabismus.

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Ray "Cash" Care is a 12-year veteran of the United States Navy, 10 years of which were spent serving as a member of the SEAL teams. After serving with the SEALs, Ray continued to serve his country for eight years as an overseas security officer for government agencies. With his specialized skill set, Ray deployed to remote areas around the world in the continuing efforts in the war against terrorism.

Ray infuses his training sessions with life experiences and knowledge, that which cannot be learned from a book. Knowledge amassed through grit. He brings action with both didactic and physical components. With the physical and mental fortitude of a SEAL, Ray has transformed the lives of men and women across the nation with not only tactical, but also practical seminars. Think, then execute.

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Jordan Amadio, M.D., M.B.A. is a neurosurgeon, entrepreneur, and bioethicist. He is an advocate for the transformative power of emerging neurotechnology. Dr. Amadio is the co-founder of NeuroLaunch, the leading accelerator program for neuroscience startups. His work with NeuroLaunch has led to 11 thriving neuro-ventures and over $15 million in value created for young innovators seeking to advance humanity through brain science. After receiving his education at Harvard, MIT, and Princeton, where he helped develop nano-manufacturing techniques using the atomic force microscope and was named a Barry Goldwater Scholar. He also earned an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. He completed his neurosurgery residency at Emory University.

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An Engineer turned Black Belt Martial Artist, Yoga and Meditation Teacher, Donato has been one of the leaders of the Wellness scene in Miami since 2005, and has now turned this tropical city into the unlikely mecca for training the Wim Hof Method.  Witty, sharp, intelligent, highly technical and creative, while fun, relatable and down-to-earth, Donato’s style and passion for teaching are refreshing in today’s spiritual world. His Integrative Living approach to being happy and healthy, combined with the techniques he learned directly from the Iceman himself, has given him the opportunity to teach worldwide and support people of all walks of life.

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