David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and the New York Times bestselling author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain and Sum: Tales from the Afterlives. He is the writer and host of the Emmy-nominated PBS television series The Brain. Eagleman is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, a Guggenheim fellow, and the director of the Center for Science and Law. He has written for The New York Times, Discover Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, Wired, and many other publications, and he appears regularly on National Public Radio and BBC.

Anthony Brandt is a composer and professor at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music. He is also the Artistic Director of the contemporary music ensemble Musiqa, winner of two Awards for Adventurous Programming from Chamber Music America and ASCAP. Brandt has received a Koussevitzky Commission from the Library of Congress and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer, and the Houston Arts Alliance. He lives in Houston with his wife and children.

Robert M. Sapolsky is the author of several works of nonfiction, including A Primate’s Memoir, The Trouble with Testosterone, and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers. He is a Professor of Biological Sciences, Neurology, Neurological Sciences, and Neurosurgery at Stanford University. Dr. Sapolsky is considered one of the world’s leading neuroscientists and has been called “one of the finest natural history writers around” by the New York Times. For more than thirty years, Sapolsky has divided his time between field work with baboons and highly technical neurological research in the laboratory. His study of stress in non-human primates has offered a fascinating insight into how human beings relate to this universal pressure. Dr. Sapolsky is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation genius grant and lives in San Francisco.

Amy Parish is a biological anthropologist, primatologist, and Darwinian feminist who has taught at the University of Southern California in the gender studies, arts and letters, anthropology, and preventive medicine programs and departments since 1999. Dr. Parish has been studying the world’s captive population of bonobos for the last twenty years. In all of her research, Dr. Parish uses an evolutionary approach to shed light on the origins of human behavior. Her work has been featured in Ms. Magazine, and she has appeared on Nova, National Geographic Explorer, NPR, and Discovery Health Channel productions.

Richard O. Prum is William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology at Yale University, and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He has conducted field work throughout the world, and has studied fossil theropod dinosaurs in China. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010.

Amy Parish is a biological anthropologist, primatologist, and Darwinian feminist who has taught at University of Southern California in the gender studies, arts and letters,anthropology, and preventive medicine programs and departments since 1999. Dr. Parish has been studying the world’s captive population of bonobos for the last twenty years. In all of her research, Dr. Parish uses an evolutionary approach to shed light on the origins of human behavior. Her work has been featured in Ms. Magazine and she has appeared on Nova, National Geographic Explorer, NPR, and Discovery Health Channel productions.

David Owen is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author more than a dozen books. He lives in northwest Connecticut with his wife, the writer Ann Hodgman.

Judith Lewis Mernit is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles. Her work on energy, the environment, economic justice and public health has appeared in Capital & Main, High Country News, Sierra Magazine, Yale Environment 360, TakePart, The Atlantic and the LA Weekly.

Jonathan White is a writer, conservationist, sailor, and educator. His first book, Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity, features interviews with Gretel Ehrlich, David Brower, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gary Snyder, Peter Matthiessen, and others. His writing has appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, The Sun, Sierra, the Whole Earth Review, and Fine Homebuilding. The former president of the Resource Institute, a Seattle-based nonprofit focusing on the culture and traditions of the Northwest, he now lives on Orcas Island, Washington.

Dan Flores is the A. B. Hammond Professor Emeritus of Western History at the University of Montana and the author of ten books on aspects of western US history. Flores lives just outside Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Melissa Cooper’s award-winning plays have been produced at theaters around the country, including Dallas Theater Center, Cincinnati Playhouse, Coterie Theatre, Asolo Rep, and San Diego Rep. Melissa lives in NYC, where she really did meet a coyote in Central Park. She writes about urban wildlife on her blog, Out Walking the Dog, which The New York Times called “poetic…part ecological journal, part personal meditation.” She is currently writing a play for an ensemble of formerly incarcerated men, exploring the challenges of reentering society after years of imprisonment.

Inger Tudor is a graduate of Harvard (college and law school) and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Recent credits include Honky (Ovation nomination–Best Production), Antigone, Going to St. Ives (LA Stage Scene Award, Stage Raw and NAACP nominations for Best Lead Actress), and Romeo and Juliet (NAACP nomination–Best Supporting Actress). Television and film credits include Goliath, On Time (on HBO February 2017) Doubt, Aquarius, Hand of God, Elizabeth Blue, Lemon, The Social Network, and The Making of “Grits” (Mockumentary Festival–Best Actress Award).

Alison Gopnik is a professor of psychology and an affiliate professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an internationally recognized leader in the study of children’s learning and development. She writes the Mind and Matter column for The Wall Street Journal and is the author of The Philosophical Baby and coauthor of The Scientist in the Crib. She has three sons and lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband, Alvy Ray Smith.

Alex Cohen is co-host of KPCC’s Take Two show. Prior to that, she was the host of KPCC’s All Things Considered. She has also hosted and reported for NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Day to Day, as well as American Public Media’s Marketplace and  Weekend America. Prior to that, she was the L.A. Bureau Chief for KQED FM in San Francisco. She has won various journalistic awards, including the LA Press Club’s Best Radio Anchor prize. Alex is also the author of Down and Derby: The Insider’s Guide to Roller Derby.

Peter Godfrey-Smith is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and a professor of history and the philosophy of science at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness and four scholarly books, including Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award for an outstanding work on the philosophy of science. His underwater videos of octopuses have been featured in National Geographic and New Scientist, and he has discussed them on National Public Radio and many cable TV channels.

Amy Parish is a biological anthropologist, primatologist, and Darwinian feminist who has taught at University of Southern California in the gender studies, arts and letters,anthropology, and preventive medicine programs and departments since 1999. Dr. Parish has been studying the world’s captive population of bonobos for the last twenty years. In all of her research, Dr. Parish uses an evolutionary approach to shed light on the origins of human behavior. Her work has been featured in Ms. Magazine and she has appeared on Nova, National Geographic Explorer, NPR, and Discovery Health Channel productions.

David France is the author of Our Fathers, a book about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal, which Showtime adapted into a film. He coauthored The Confession with former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey. He is a contributing editor for New York and has written as well for The New York Times. His documentary film How to Survive a Plague was an Oscar finalist, won a Directors Guild Award and a Peabody Award and was nominated for two Emmys, among other accolades.

Dr. Mark H. Katz has delivered care to persons with HIV for 30 years. Since 1985, he has been affiliated with Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles. From 1992-2006, he was the Regional HIV Physician Coordinator for the Southern California Kaiser region. In addition to his HIV outpatient work, he is currently a hospitalist at the West LA Medical Center and the Physician Lead at West LA for Clinician-Patient Communication, inspiring providers to be more empathic communicators. He has long been an educator as well as a physician activist–through work with organizations such as LA Shanti and Being Alive (for which he conducted a monthly medical update from 1988 through 1997). He is the recipient of many honors, but his greatest professional reward, he says, is "continually having the opportunity to be involved in the care of people who face the challenge of HIV with such grace and determination." Dr. Katz is at work on a series of essays and recollections about the HIV epidemic.

A graduate of the MFA in Creative Writing program of the California Institute of the Arts, Tony Valenzuela is the Executive Director of Lambda Literary, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization advancing LGBTQ literature. He is a longtime community activist and writer whose work has focused on LGBT civil rights, HIV/AIDS, and gay men’s health. He is credited with having ruptured the conventional wisdom in HIV/AIDS prevention among gay men by launching an international debate regarding sexual health beyond condom use. Out Magazine has listed him among the "Out 100." He wrote, produced, and performed his acclaimed one-man show, The (Bad) Boy Next Door, a second-generation AIDS narrative that toured in a dozen cities in the U.S. He has continued to publish essays, fiction, and journalism and is currently working on a memoir.

James Gleick is our leading chronicler of science and technology, the best-selling author of Chaos: Making a New Science, Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, and The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. His books have been translated into thirty languages.

Charles Yu is the author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, which was named one of the best books of the year by Time magazine. He received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award for his story collection Third Class Superhero, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award. His work has been published in The New York Times, Playboy, and Slate, among other periodicals. Yu lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Michelle, and their two children.