Dr. Christian Arbelaez, MD, MPH, whose work has been focused on improving access to care and health outcomes of vulnerable populations, has recently been named the Department of Emergency Medicine Chief at Boston Medical Center and Chair at Boston University School of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Arbelaez is Vice Chair of Academic Affairs at Brown Emergency Medicine and Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University with appointments at Rhode Island, Hasbro Children’s, and The Miriam & Newport hospitals. Dr. Arbelaez completed his medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch, an emergency medicine residency at Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital, and a minority health policy fellowship at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He completed the Hispanic Mid-Career Executive Leadership Fellowship from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service Leadership Center.

Sunand Bhattacharya is the Associate Vice Provost of Design and Innovation Strategies at Boston College. Sunand is a learning architect with a specialization in design-based teaching and learning. He has served as consulting advisor and lecturer for various education establishments, such as the Office of the Provost, Boston College, Waltham school district, Franklin Olin College of Engineering, and Mass College of Art and Design. Before returning to academia, Sunand was the Global Learning Strategist for Autodesk, leading its Learning Futures team. Sunand is a graduate in Industrial Design from the National Institute of Design (NID) in India and holds his terminal graduate degree in Industrial Design and Human Factors from The Ohio State University.

Dr. Andy Boynton is the Dean of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. He co-chaired a committee of deans, faculty, and university administrators to revitalize the undergraduate core curriculum at Boston College. His blog on leadership and innovation is a regular feature on Forbes.com, and his two most recent books, The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make Them Happen and Virtuoso Teams: Lessons from Teams That Changed Their Worlds, received critical acclaim. Prior to his appointment at Boston College, he was a professor of strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland for over 10 years. At the IMD, he led a faculty team and was program director of one of the world’s top ten Executive Global MBA programs, as recognized by BusinessWeek.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is Claremont Graduate University’s Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Management. He is also the founder and co-director of the Quality of Life Research Center (QLRC). The QLRC is a nonprofit research institute that studies positive psychology, the study of human strengths such as optimism, creativity, intrinsic motivation, and responsibility. Csikszentmihalyi received his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Chicago. Since receiving his doctorate, he has served as the head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Chicago and of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College Csikszentmihalyi is known for his research on the experience of flow, a psychological concept he introduced in his best-selling book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.”

Dr. Andrew Eyre is a physician in the emergency departments of Brigham and Women’s and The Massachusetts General Hospital. His research has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Medicine and he has presented at the national meeting of the American Urologic Association. He began his medical career while an undergraduate at Williams College, working as a certified emergency medical technician with Village Ambulance Services. He brought his interest in medicine to EXPLO, where he worked as a staff member for three summers — as a teacher and residence director. Dr. Eyre was deeply involved in the development of both EXPLO’s Emergency Medicine and Sports Medicine Focus Programs. Dr. Eyre is a cum laude graduate of Williams College and earned his medical degree at The University of Vermont, where he won the Wasserman Prize for Scholastic Performance. He was inducted into the Gold Humanism Honor Society and the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.

Barry Fishman is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Learning Technologies in the University of Michigan School of Information and School of Education. His current research focuses on video games as models for learning environments, the design of mastery- and competency-based programs in higher education, and the development of usable, scalable, and sustainable learning innovations through design-based implementation research (DBIR), which he helped establish. He is the co-creator of GradeCraft, a game-inspired learning management system. In 2018, Dr. Fishman was named a Fellow of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. In 2017 he was named Distinguished Professor of the Year by the Michigan Association of State Universities. Dr. Fishman is the 2010 recipient of the Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize, the 2003 Pattishall Junior Faculty Research Award from the University of Michigan, and was the 2001 recipient of the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies. Dr. Fishman was co-author of the Obama Administration’s 2010 U.S. National Educational Technology Plan and served as Associate Editor of The Journal of the Learning Sciences from 2005-2012. He has served as a Faculty Innovator-In-Residence at the Office of Academic Innovation, and as Steward for Teaching and Learning on the Information Technology Council at the University of Michigan. 

Deborah Hirsch is the President of High Meadows Graduate School of Teaching and Learning in Cambridge, Massachusetts which, in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is reinventing American teacher preparation. With an undergraduate education in teacher education, Hirsch holds a doctorate in education from Harvard University. She has served as executive director of both the Boston Higher Education Partnership and the New England Resource Center for Higher Education. She has also held leadership posts at numerous colleges and universities in New England.

Dr. Nathaniel O. Keohane is the Vice President for International Climate at the Environmental Defense Fund. His previous role at Environmental Defense was Director of Economic Policy and Analysis, as well as chief economist. In 2011, he served a stint as Special Assistant to the President on energy and the environment. Nat works to develop and advocate environmentally responsible and economically sound climate policies aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. He seeks to bring economic theory and empirical analysis to bear on questions such as the optimal design of cap-and-trade systems and the long-term impacts of climate policy on the U.S. economy. Prior to working at Environmental Defense, Nat was an assistant and then associate professor of economics at the Yale School of Management. He received his B.A. from Yale University and his Ph.D. in political economy and government from Harvard University.

Dr. Wei-Chung Allen Lee is an instructor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. His general research interest is understanding how information is processed in the brain. More specifically, he aims to elucidate the interplay between circuit structure and neuronal function by combining state-of-the-art imaging techniques to map network activity in the intact brain, then examine how neurons are wired together. Wei earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his S.B. in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and his A.B. in biochemistry and government from Bowdoin College.

Amon Millner is an Associate Professor of Computing and Innovation at Olin College of Engineering and the Co-inventor of the Scratch programming language. At Olin, Amon directs the Extending Access to STEM Empowerment (EASE) Lab. His research and teaching are informed by his work in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) domain, drawing heavily from his specialization: developing tangible interactive systems for making and learning. He develops technology and community platforms to facilitate learners becoming empowered to make and make a difference in their neighborhoods. Millner creates engaging environments and tools that support learners of all ages increasing their capacity to innovate, leveraging a hands-on approach. His international recognition includes a designation as a Fulbright Specialist/Grantee. Millner, a champion in the Maker Movement, has authored computing curricula for K-12 classrooms. Millner contributes to multiple research communities, particularly conferences that focus on: tangible user interface design, interaction design and children, and digital media and learning. Dr. Millner, a patent holder, earned a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT; an M.S. in Human-Computer Interactions from Georgia Institute of Technology; and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Southern California.

Dr. Gideon Rose was appointed Editor and Peter G. Peterson Chair of Foreign Affairs magazine in October 2010. For the previous ten years, he served as the magazine’s Managing Editor. From 1995 to 2000, he was the Olin Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and served as Chairman of the Council’s Roundtable on Terrorism. Previously, he served as Associate Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council and taught American foreign policy at Columbia and Princeton Universities. Gideon received a B.A. in classics from Yale University and a Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University. He writes extensively on terrorism and foreign affairs and wrote the 2010 book “How Wars End.”

Pasi Sahlberg is the Professor of Education Policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Pasi has worked as a schoolteacher, teacher-educator, researcher, and policymaker in Finland and advised schools and education system leaders around the world. He served as a Senior Education Specialist at the World Bank (Washington, DC), as a Lead Education Expert at the European Training Foundation (Torino, Italy), as a Director-general at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture (CIMO), and as a Visiting Professor of Practice at Harvard University. He is a recipient of several awards for his lifelong service in education, including the 2012 Education Award (Finland), the 2014 Robert Owen Award (Scotland), the 2016 Lego Prize (Denmark), and Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Resident Fellowship in 2017. In 2013 his book “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland” won the Grawemeyer Award for an idea that has the potential to change the world. His most recent books include "Let the Children Play: How more play will save our schools and help children thrive" and "Finnish Lessons 3.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland.”

Dr. Linda Siperstein is a staff doctor at the Berkeley Dog & Cat Hospital in Berkeley, California. Previously, she spent ten years at the VCA Wakefield Animal Hospital in Massachusetts. Linda earned her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and completed an internship in small animal medicine and surgery at the Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Boston. Linda received her B.S. from Northwestern University.

Dr. Jim Spohrer is the Director of Cognitive Open Tech, Understanding Cognitive Systems, and Global University Programs and Cognitive Systems Institute at IBM. His research group has received awards from IBM for modeling customers and mapping global service systems including measures of performance, methods of process improvement and innovation foresight methods, and more. He graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Yale University with a Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science, specialized in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science applied to modeling learners engaged in complex problem-solving tasks. He is a Fellow of PICMET (Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology), and received Apple’s Distinguished Engineer, Scientist, and Technology award for work on learning platform evolution. He has written or contributed to more than 90 publications and 9 patents, and published articles in INFORMS Journal of Service Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Production and Operations Management, Human-Computer Interactions, Information Systems and e-Business Management, and more.

George T. Whitesides is CEO of Virgin Galactic, a firm developing commercial space vehicles. He also serves as co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Space Technologies and Space News selected him as one of 12 “People to Watch” in the space industry. Before Virgin Galactic, he was named Chief of Staff of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration after serving on the NASA transition team for the incoming Obama Administration. He is also the former Executive Director of the National Space Society. George co-founded the global astronomy education program Permission to Dream (PTD) in 2002. A Fulbright Scholar, George received his graduate degree in remote sensing and geographical information systems from Cambridge University, and his undergraduate degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University. He is a licensed private pilot and certified parabolic flight coach.

Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Australia. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.