The Brain Surgeon's Take

Renée DiResta is the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, a cross-disciplinary program of research, teaching and policy engagement for the study of abuse in current information technologies. Renée investigates the spread of narratives across social and media networks, with an interest in understanding how platform algorithms and affordances intersect with user behavior and factional crowd dynamics. She studies how actors leverage the information ecosystem to exert influence, from domestic activists promoting health misinformation and conspiracy theories, to the full-spectrum information operations executed by state actors. She was a 2021 Emerson Fellow and 2018-2019 Mozilla Fellow, a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar, a Council on Foreign Relations term member, and a Truman National Security Fellow. She is the author of The Hardware Startup: Building your Product, Business, and Brand and has degrees in Computer Science and Political Science from Stony Brook University.

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Daniel Corbett III served as an elite Navy SEAL operator, part of SEAL Teams 5, 6, and 17. He’s now an ex-military operator for hire. He joined the navy shortly after graduating high school in 2002 and was deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2005 with SEAL Team 5. He joined SEAL Team 6 in 2007, deploying to various locations around the world. In 2010, Daniel returned to the West Coast and began instructing at the Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command (NSWBTC). Daniel ended his active-duty career after two years with NSWBTC and quickly fell into the world of private military contracting. Daniel joined the active reserves in 2014 and maintained his active reserve status until 2019. In 2017, Daniel made international news when he was thrown in jail in Belgrade, Serbia, for eighteen months after traveling there as a private contractor to track a terrorist financier. Daniel still monitors international news and continues to entertain phone calls and meetings with those who need unique solutions to unique problems.

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Alex R. Piquero is Professor in the Department of Sociology & Criminology and Arts & Sciences Distinguished Scholar the University of Miami and previously served as the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one of the nation’s thirteen federal statistical agencies (appointed by President Biden, June 2022). Dr. Piquero is a nationally and internationally recognized criminologist with more than 26 years of experience. Over the course of his career, Dr. Piquero has given congressional testimony on evidence-based crime prevention practices and has provided counsel and support to several local, state, national and international criminal justice agencies and elected leaders. His expertise ranges from criminal careers to criminal justice policy and crime prevention to the intersection of race/ethnicity and crime, with a focus on quantitative methodology. Dr. Piquero has published over 500 scholarly articles and several books and is among the most highly cited criminologists in the world. He also served as editor of the Journal of Quantitative Criminology and the Justice Evaluation Journal. He is a Fellow of both the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. In 2019, he received the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences Bruce Smith Sr. Award for outstanding contributions to criminal justice, and in 2020, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Division of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology of the American Society of Criminology.

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Rico Simonini is an Italian-American actor and cardiologist. Rico Simonini graduated New York University with a bachelor’s degree and the John Parkes History Award. As an actor he has enjoyed the opportunity to play leading roles in dozens of plays on stages in New York, Los Angeles and a few places in between. However, Rico’s journey in the dramatic arts has shadowed his primary vocational pursuit which propelled him from tree-lined Brooklyn roots, to New York’s Bellevue Hospital, then to San Francisco, Boston, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Chicago and eventually Los Angeles; cardiovascular medicine.
 
Eventually after being recruited by one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious medical centers, it was an inevitability that his artistic pursuits would blossom as often times his clients would recruit him and indulge his fancy for film and theater. In 2014, playwright Willard Manus chose Rico to originate the role of Frank Sinatra in “Frank and Ava” a two-hander developed at the Actors’ Studio, that portrayed the iconic romance between “extraordinary individuals” facing obstacles relatable to all: impossible love and lofty dreams, the yearnings for which push us to the brink. This story, based on true events, of Sinatra’s redemption and resurrection despite improbable odds in an unfriendly world (the scrutiny of the 1950’s) inspired Rico to undertake a screenplay adaptation and his first feature film production premiere in 2018, with global release in early 2019. The film, “Frank and Ava” is now available on major streaming platforms.

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Management thought leader and award-winning organizational psychologist Wendy K. Smith is on a mission to help individuals and organizations turn our problems into possibilities.  Smith currently holds the prestigious title of Dana J. Johnson Professor of Management and serves as the faculty director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative at the Lerner College of Business and Economics, University of Delaware. Wendy is also one of the youngest people named as an Academy of Management Fellow. As an organizational psychologist, she is a leading expert on the power of paradox - applying both/and thinking to help us innovate, change and generate more creative, sustainable solutions to our toughest challenges. In her talks, Wendy brings science-based research to life with real world stories to both captivate and motivate her audiences.
 
Smith is the co-author of Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems, along with Marianne Lewis, named a Top 10 Management Book by Thinkers50, a finalist for the Next Big Idea Award, and a #1 Amazon New Release. Smith and Lewis were awarded the Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award for these groundbreaking ideas. Wendy is also an award-winning scholar. She has been named the Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers for being among the top 1% most-cited researchers for 5 years in a row.

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Dr Hernandez Rey specializes in treating patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), recurrent pregnancy loss (miscarriage), and severe endometriosis. He is especially interested in fertility preservation (egg freezing) for patients who must delay childbearing for personal or medical reasons, including cancer and systemic lupus erythematosus. As one of only two fertility specialists offering robotic surgery in Miami, Dr. Hernandez-Rey is able to offer minimally invasive surgeries with faster recovery times and minimal scarring, often as an alternative to advanced treatments such as IVF. He has performed numerous tubal reanastomosis procedures (tubal ligation reversal), myomectomies (removal of fibroids), and surgery for severe cases of endometriosis for the management of infertility.

Dr. Hernandez-Rey has made dreams come true for hundreds of families from South Florida and across the world. He prides himself on being accessible to his patients to ensure they are calm and reassured, a key component to his success. Dr. Hernandez-Rey is an assistant clinical professor at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University and serves as an ad-hoc reviewer for the prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Fertility and Sterility.

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EJ Manuel, a former first-round NFL Draft pick, joined ACC Network in 2019 and is a studio analyst on The Huddle, ACCN’s signature football show that airs Saturday mornings throughout the fall. He also co-hosts ACCN’s In Play with Kelsey Riggs and is a regular each week on ESPN’s College Football Live. Along with is his ESPN duties, Manuel co-hosts College Sports Today on SiriusXM with Brock Huard.

Myron was ranked the No. 1 high school football prospect in the country. With 83 scholarship offers from Division I institutions, Myron matriculated to FSU. At FSU, he earned his degree in just two and a half years and was awarded the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship upon graduation, enabling him to study at Oxford University in England. Rolle skipped his senior year of football to pursue a master’s degree at Oxford and simultaneously train for the NFL Draft. In 2010, Dr. Rolle was selected in NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans and finished his career three years later with the Pittsburgh Steelers. After life in the NFL, Myron enrolled at the FSU College of Medicine followed by neurosurgery residency at Harvard.

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Dr. Agarwal has been on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh and Harvard Medical School prior to returning to the University of Miami in 2007, where she has been inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society, Alpha Omega Alpha and the Iron Arrow Honor Society. She has developed, directed, and taught numerous courses at the medical school including the Cardiovascular Course, Respiratory Course, Doctoring/Physicianship courses, the Internal Medicine Clerkship, the Medical Education Elective, and the Transitioning to Residency Course. She has an interest in the medical humanities and served as the pathway director in ethics and medical humanities. She founded Obliterants, the medical school’s first humanities journal. She serves as the faculty advisor for the magazine and for UM’s chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She has won many school, regional, and national teaching awards including the American College of Physicians (ACP) Medical Educator Award.

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Kendall Burman serves as PHC Global’s President. Prior to joining PHC Global, Burman held leadership roles at Alloy, a data and technology start-up for the progressive political market. Burman previously served as the Deputy General Counsel for Strategic Initiatives at the Department of Commerce and as Associate White House Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the Obama Administration. She was also a counsel in the cybersecurity and data privacy practice at Mayer Brown and served as Chief Staff Counsel for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.
Burman is a graduate of Bowdoin College and received her J.D. from the University of Chicago where she was an editor of the law review. She was also was a fellow at both the New America Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology.

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Daisy Sanchez is a Mexican-American surgeon, cosmetologist, and social media influencer. She attended medical school at The Medical University of South Carolina and completed her general surgery residency at Memorial Healthcare System. She is currently a plastic surgery fellow at The University of Texas, San Antonio.

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