Nate Silver is the New York Times bestselling author of The Signal and the Noise and On the Edge. He writes the popular Substack “Silver Bulletin,” and was the founder of FiveThirtyEight.
A pioneer in the field of data journalism, he has been named one of Fast Company‘s 100 Most Creative People in Business, TIME's 100 Most Influential People, and Rolling Stone's 100 Agents of Change.
Dr. Vivek H. Murthy served as the 19th Surgeon General of the United States from December 15, 2014 to April 21, 2017 and as 21st Surgeon General of the United States from March 23, 2021 to January 20, 2025.
In his first term as America’s Doctor, Dr. Murthy created initiatives to tackle our country’s most urgent public health issues. He chose areas of focus that were raised by people across America during his inaugural listening tour. Highlights included:
Nicholas Mattei is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Tulane University and Co-Director of the Tulane Center for Community Engaged AI in New Orleans, LA, USA. His research lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence and machine learning with applications in data science, economics, decision making, and psychology. His projects leverage theory, data, and experiments to create novel algorithms, mechanisms, and systems that enable and support individual and group decision making.
Chris Lipp is a social psychologist and author of three books on personal power and persuasion. His first book The Startup Pitch introduced the modern framework for investment pitches that is now used ubiquitously by global accelerators and institutions. He regularly works with business leadership and delivers talks to large organizations. Currently he serves as professor and director of management communication at Tulane University Freeman School of Business, where he teaches popular classes in leadership communication.
Max Boot is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a columnist for The Washington Post, and a bestselling author. His new book, "Reagan: His Life and Legend" is a New York Times bestseller.
W. Kamau Bell is a comedian, author, and filmmaker. His CNN docu-series United Shades of America won five Emmy awards, and he was awarded a Peabody for his docu-series We Need To Talk About Cosby. He is most proud of his Emmy award winning and Television Academy Honors award winning documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. Kamau is a NYT best-selling author of the book Do The Work: An Antiracist Activity Book. In March of 2025, Kamau will have a chapter in bestselling author Michael Lewis’ new book Who is Government?
Bryan Stevenson is the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Alabama. Under his leadership, EJI has won major legal challenges eliminating excessive and unfair sentencing, exonerating innocent death row prisoners, confronting abuse of the incarcerated and the mentally ill, and aiding children prosecuted as adults.
Dr. Cowen is the recipient of several national awards, including the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award and the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education, as well as honorary degrees from the nation’s top institutions including the University of Notre Dame, Brown University, Yeshiva University, the University of Connecticut, and Case Western Reserve University.
In 2008, President Bush nominated and the U.S. Senate confirmed Ms. Ward to serve on the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the nation’s largest grantmaker for volunteering and service. She continued on the board under the Obama Administration, where she served as board chair.
Boyce Upholt is the author of The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi and the founder of the Substack Southlands, which explores native across the South. His writing has appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic, the Oxford American, and Virginia Quarterly Review, among other publications. He is the winner of a James Beard Award for investigative journalism, and he lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
