Annie Murphy Paul is an acclaimed science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and The Best American Science Writing, among many other publications.

Adam Nagourney, a national political reporter for the New York Times,  is the author of “The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn and the Transformation of Journalism,” a history of the New York Times. He has been a reporter for over 45 years.

Admiral William H. McRaven, is a retired U.S. Navy Four-Star admiral and the former Chancellor
of the University of Texas System. During his time in the military, he commanded special
operations at every level. His career included combat during Desert Storm and both the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars. The forces under his command were responsible for the capture of
Saddam Hussein, the rescue of Captain Phillips and the mission to get Osama bin Laden. His
final assignment was the commander of all U.S. special operation’s forces.

Rachel Louise Martin, PhD, is a historian and writer whose work has appeared in outlets like The Atlantic and Oxford American. The author of Hot, Hot Chicken, a cultural history of Nashville hot chicken, and A Most Tolerant Little Town, the critically-acclaimed account of the forgotten story of the first school to attempt court-mandated desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board, she is especially interested by the politics of memory and by the power of stories to illuminate why injustice persists in America today.

Sal Khan is the founder and CEO of Khan Academy, a nonprofit educational organization that offers free lessons in math, science and humanities, as well as tools for parents, teachers and districts to track student progress. Khan Academy is piloting an AI guide called Khanmigo that is a tutor and teaching assistant. The organization partners with more than 500 public school districts and schools across the United States.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent who joined The New York Times in 2015 and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for reporting on Donald Trump’s advisers and their connections to Russia. She was part of a team that was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2021 for coverage of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus. She previously covered the Trump administration and continues to cover Donald Trump and politics in Washington. 

Known as the larger-than-life ambassador of New Orleans Bounce music, Big Freedia is a nationally recognized hip-hop artist, TV personality and cultural influencer. Most recently she made headline news for her feature on Beyoncé’s Grammy-Award winning single, “Break My Soul,” released in 2022. 

Maureen Dowd, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished commentary and author of three New York Times best sellers, became an Op-Ed columnist in 1995. In August 2014, she also became a writer for The Times Magazine. 

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel The Sympathizer won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and numerous other awards. His most recent publication is A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial. His other books are the sequel to The Sympathizer, The Committed; a short story collection, The Refugees; Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a finalist for the National Book Award in nonfiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award in General Nonfiction); and Race and Resistance: Literature and Politics in Asian America.

Helen Molesworth is a writer, curator, and podcaster based in Los Angeles. Her major monographic exhibitions include Ruth Asawa, Moyra Davey, Noah Davis, Steve Locke, Kerry James Marshall, Josiah McElheny, Catherine Opie, Amy Sillman, and Luc Tuymans. Molesworth, a prolific and award-winning author, is the recipient a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Art Writing Prize, and the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies Award for Curatorial Excellence. Her podcast Death of an Artist made numerous “Best of 2022” lists.