THE 2021 PIONEERS
THE 2020 FOOD PIONEERS
Oscar Ekponimo
Founder & CEO – Chowberry Inc
Named in Time Magazine’s list of 10 Next Generation Leaders. Oscar is the Founder of Chowberry Inc, a technology driven social business that helps retailers cut food waste and improves food accessibility and affordability for disadvantaged households facing food poverty. He has championed various innovative solutions, winning awards such as the International Telecoms Union (ITU) Young Innovators Award 2013 among others in recognition of his contribution in leveraging technology and enterprise to address local challenges in Africa. He was named in the list of top 30 African innovators 2017 by Quartz Media as well as the BBC Top 10 Innovators of 2018. He is a recipient of the prestigious Rolex Award for Enterprise in Applied Technology by Rolex Watch Company for his work on Chowberry which today has impacted over 50,000 disadvantaged households facing food poverty in Nigeria.
Mark Hyman
Physician
Dr. Mark Hyman is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, the Head of Strategy and Innovation of the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a thirteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Doctor’s Farmacy. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor on several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, and CNN. He is also an advisor and guest co-host on The Dr. Oz Show.
Marty Kolewe
President & CTO, Incredible Foods
President & CTO - Incredible Foods Marty Kolewe is a pioneering engineer, material scientist and food technology leader. Prior to joining Incredible Foods in 2014, where he has led development of the scientific and technical platform, Marty held positions in biotechnological plant systems and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Marty’s degrees in chemical engineering include a BS from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from UMass Amherst. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in drug the laboratory of Robert Langer at MIT, and has published scientific articles in the field of bio materials and drug delivery.
Nadia Michaud
Executive Chef, Senses Cambridge
Chef Nadia Michaud comes from Paris and Athens, where she has developed culinary programs for several Mediterranean restaurants, including Maison Noua in the 16th arrondissement (Voyage Gourmand du Liban, Elle, March 2018). Michaud is the executive Chef and co-founder of Senses Cambridge.
Dariush Mozzafarian
Cardiologist & Dean, Tufts University
Dariush Mozaffarian Cardiologist, Dean & Jean Mayer Professor at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, & Professor of Medicine at Tufts Medical School. Dr. Mozaffarian has authored more than 400 scientific publications on dietary priorities for obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, and on evidence-based policy approaches to reduce these burdens in the US and globally. In 2016, Thomson Reuters named him as one of the World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. Dr. Mozaffarian received a BS in biological sciences at Stanford (Phi Beta Kappa), MD at Columbia (Alpha Omega Alpha), residency training in internal medicine at Stanford, and fellowship training in cardiovascular medicine at the University of Washington. He also received an MPH from the University of Washington and a Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard. Before being appointed as Dean at Tufts in 2014, Dr. Mozaffarian was at Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health for a decade and clinically active in cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Nuha Saegh
Food Educator, Gastronomy, and cook.
Nuha is from Aleppo, Syria, where she studied Education at the University of Aleppo. After graduation, she worked as a teacher in Syrian public schools for 5 years, besides being a volunteer during the war, in Al Ikhaa, an association that was collaborating with WFP. She was forced to leave her country due to the war in 2017. Here in Italy, she participated in the course (Food For Inclusion) which was held with the joint collaboration between UNHCR and UNISG (University of Gastronomic Sciences) of Pollenzo. She then applied for a Master in Gastronomy Creativity, Ecology, and Education at UNISG. Eventually, Nuha graduated with a dissertation on “How Food Insecurity Changed Women's Roles In Syria During The War”. She did her internship in Berlin in (Food Art Week) Momentum Worldwide, now she collaborates with schools for her Educational project (Food Art Education). Besides having work experience in restaurants, she has spoken about food education, creativity, art, and migration in national and international events and occasions.
David Moinina Sengeh
Minister of Education of Sierra Leone
David is the Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education and Chief Innovation Officer for the Directorate of Science, Technology and Innovation in Sierra Leone. He studied biomedical engineering at Harvard University. He researched aerosolised vaccines for tuberculosis and graduated with a bachelor's degree in 2010. He was listed in the 2013 Wired magazine Smart List. David joined MIT for his postgraduate studies, working under the supervision of Hugh Herr. He was named as a TED fellow in 2014, delivering a talk entitled The sore problem of prosthetic limbs. He was selected as one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2014. He won the 2014 Lemelson–MIT Prize for his innovations in healthcare. He was selected as one of Face2Face Africa's Young Africans Committed to Excellence. He completed his PhD at MIT in 2016. David was offered a position at IBM in Africa, working on data driven healthcare. In May 2018 David joined the Office of the President of Sierra Leone, working as chief innovation officer. In 2019 he was named Minister of Education of Sierra Leone.
Xavière Masson Dziemian
Founding Director, World Frontiers Forum
Xavière Masson is the founding director of the World Frontiers Forum, and executive director of the Cloud ArtScience Foundation. Before joining in 2017 to launch the World frontiers Forum, she led various art institutions and not for profit. She was the Executive Director of Le Laboratoire Paris, the Director of Development & Communication for B.K. Museum Designs in NYC. She worked as lab administrator at Harvard University for several years. She started her career as Director at Nuage France. She is also the Co-Founder of Phase One Photography.
the 2020 health pioneers
Dennis A. Ausiello
Director of the Center for Assessment Technology & Continuous Health (CATCH)
Denny is the Director of the Center for Assessment Technology and Continuous Health (CATCH), a program he founded as a joint effort between Massachusetts General Hospital and MIT physicians, scientists and engineers to discover earlier markers of disease, real-time measurements in daily life, and analysis of the human phenotype in wellness and disease, for better patient control. He is also a Jackson Distinguished Professor of Clinical Medicine at Harvard Medical School.He is a nationally recognized leader in academic medicine, having been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science (1999) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003).
Stéphane Bancel
Chief Executive Officer, Moderna
Stéphane Bancel has served as Moderna's Chief Executive Officer since October 2011 and as a member of Moderna’s board of directors since March 2011. Before joining the Company, Stéphane served for five years as Chief Executive Officer of the French diagnostics company bioMérieux SA. From July 2000 to March 2006, he served in various roles at Eli Lilly and Company, including as Managing Director, Belgium and as Executive Director, Global Manufacturing Strategy and Supply Chain. Prior to Lilly, Stéphane served as Asia-Pacific Sales and Marketing Director for bioMérieux. Stéphane currently serves on the board of directors of Qiagen N.V. and previously served on the board of directors of BG Medicine, Inc. and Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: SYRS). He is currently a Venture Partner at Flagship Pioneering and a trustee of the Museum of Science in Boston. Stéphane holds a Master of Engineering degree from École Centrale Paris (ECP), a Master of Science in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
Uché Blackstock
Founder & CEO of Advancing Health Equity
Dr. Uché Blackstock is a thought leader and sought-after speaker on bias and racism in healthcare. She is the Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, which partners with healthcare and related organizations to address racism in healthcare and to eradicate racial health inequities, through trainings and consulting services.
In 2019, Dr. Blackstock was recognized by Forbes magazine as one of “10 Diversity and Inclusion Trailblazers You Need to Get Familiar With”. In 2020, she was one of thirty-one inaugural leaders awarded an unrestricted grant for her advocacy work from the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund.
Dr. Blackstock’s writing has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Scientific American, the Washington Post and STAT News for the Boston Globe. Since June 2020, she has been a Yahoo News Medical Contributor and appears regularly on cable and broadcast news programming to discuss the Coronavirus pandemic and to amplify the message around racial health inequities.
She is a former Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and the former Faculty Director for Recruitment, Retention and Inclusion in the Office of Diversity Affairs at NYU School of Medicine. She left her faculty position at NYU School of Medicine in December 2019 after almost 10 years to focus on Advancing Health Equity.
Anuraj Behar
CEO, Azim Premji Foundation
Anurag has been engaged with efforts to improve education in India for the past sixteen years. For the past few years he has also been engaged with environmental and ecological issues. He writes widely, including a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint.
Anurag has earlier played leadership roles in business. As the CEO of Wipro Infrastructure Engineering, he led the business from being No. 20 in the world to being the No. 1 in 5 years.
Anurag has served on various Boards including that of Wipro GE Healthcare Ltd, The University of Trans-Disciplinary Health Sciences and of the TERI University. He serves on many government & sector councils, such as the National Mission on Teachers and Teacher Education, the Government of India implementation committee for the Justice Verma Commission, Karnataka Knowledge Commission, and with the CII’s National Climate Change Council. He was elected as a ‘Young Global Leader’, by the World Economic Forum in 2008.
Utibe R. Essien
Board-certified generalist internist, & Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh
Utibe R. Essien, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and a general internist and health disparities researcher. Dr. Essien’s research focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in the use of novel therapeutics in the management of chronic cardiovascular diseases. He has recently applied this research framework to the COVID-19 pandemic, rapidly becoming an expert in the health disparities that are disproportionately affecting minority communities with COVID-19. His work has been featured in leading medical journals and he has been interviewed by several national news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and NPR. Dr. Essien is a fierce advocate for diversity and equity in medicine, leadership that led him to be named a 2019 National Minority Quality Forum 40 under 40 Leaders in Minority Health awardee and recent recognition by Business Insider as one of “30 Leaders under 40 Transforming Healthcare.”
Alex Goldberg
General Partner, AdAdstral Investment Partners
As a serial entrepreneur for more than two decades, Alex has deep domain expertise in enterprise software, artificial intelligence, and a wide range of emerging technologies. He spent the earlier part of his career working in strategic product management and business development roles at two of the earliest Unicorn tech startups that spawned from MIT, followed by a role working for one of the top executives at a Fortune 500 company, serving in the Office of the CTO. In parallel to Canary Ventures, Alex has acquired & operated several technology-based businesses as CEO or Executive Chairman. Alex is an active member of the New York Angels, a regular mentor to more than a dozen startup incubators in NYC and is frequently a speaker & panelist at a range of industry events. Alex has an MBA from Columbia Business School and studied finance in Mumbai, Buenos Aires, London and New York.
Robert Langer
Institute Professor, MIT
Robert Langer is an American chemical engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and one of the twelve Institute Professors at MIT. He was formerly the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and maintains activity in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is also a faculty member of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. His publications have been cited over 315,000 times and his h-index is 276. According to Google Scholar, Langer is one of the 10 most cited individuals in history. He is the most cited engineer in history. Langer's research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world; maintaining over $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. In 2015, Langer was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. Robert Langer is co-founder of the World Frontiers Forum alongside David Edwards and Denny Ausiello.
Olivier NosJean
Research Scientific Director, Servier
Olivier Nosjean is the Research Scientific Director at Servier and has been contributing to drug discovery activities for over 20 years. He has a strong experience in the management of research projects and inter-cultural collaborations. Olivier is leading the R&D Technology Program and the PhD and Post-doc Program at Servier. He is an active contributor to initiatives related to transformation, open innovation, entrepreneurship and strategic partnerships.
Padmini Pillai
Immunoengineer
Padmini Pillai is an immunoengineer who is bridging the gap between advances in immunology and the development of new biomaterials to treat human disease. Padmini received her Ph.D. in Immunobiology from Yale University, where she revealed how innate sensors orchestrate an antiviral response to fight influenza infection, and how death from the flu could be caused by the immune response to the infection rather than the virus itself. Padmini is a CRI Irvington Postdoctoral Fellow in the Langer Lab at MIT, where her research focuses on the design of diverse biomaterial strategies to boost antitumor immunity, resolve chronic inflammatory disease, and identify pathways involved in allergic inflammation. Padmini has provided backup vocals for Grammy award-winning artist Angélique Kidjo since 2011 and has performed with her at the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, the Newport Jazz Festival, Bonnaroo, and Carnegie Hall. She was a 2018-19 Koch Institute Convergence scholar and a 2019 delegate to the American Academy of Achievement.
Felix Sesay
Nurse and health advocate
Felix fled Sierra Leone with his family at the age of 10 years old to Ghana. He recently graduated from the St Karols School of nursing, in Accra, on a DAFI scholarship [The Albert Einstein German Academic Refugee Initiative], part of the Higher Education Programme of the United Nations Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Felix leads health screenings among the refugee community, scanning camp residents for disease and also advise them on health prevention.
Maurizio Vecchione
President & CEO, WGHA
Maurizio Vecchione is the president and CEO of WGHA. WGHA plays a pivotal role in this vision by fostering collaboration among leading global health institutions. Maurizio has spent the last 30 years at the forefront of global and public health, focusing on innovation to improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable people. From 2014 until 2020, he was the executive vice president for Global Good and Research at Intellectual Ventures (IV). He simultaneously led the research programs of the Intellectual Ventures Laboratory and Institute for Disease Modeling. Maurizio has built global alliances for breakthrough programs in women’s health, infectious disease prevention and elimination, primary care, and chronic disease management. Throughout his career, Maurizio has blended scientific research and innovation with public policy and global development and built alliances to improve health equity globally.
the 2020 culture pioneers
Nhial Deng
Journalism & Filmmaking student
Nhial Deng has lived in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya for ten years. His father, originally from South Sudan, was displaced by the Sudan Civil War in the 1970s and found a new home in Ethiopia. Nhial found hope and peace in Kakuma after fleeing an armed attack on his village in Ethiopia in 2010 and today he is a community activist helping young people in the camp to improve their lives through education, mentorship, and social entrepreneurship. He embraces the power of storytelling to change how people think about refugees and help shape narratives around the refugee crisis. He is also very articulate on the need for refugees to not only have authorship over their own stories but control over how those stories are framed and shared. Nhial is currently working toward a Certificate in Journalism and Filmmaking from the FilmAid International Media Training Program.
Janet Echelman
Artist
Janet Echeman is an American artist who gives visual form to ideas with soft sculpture at the scale of buildings. Recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, her work defies categorization, as it intersects Sculpture, Architecture, Urban Design, Material Science, Structural & Aeronautical Engineering, and Computer Science. Echelman was named an Architectural Digest Innovator for "changing the very essence of urban spaces," and received the Smithsonian American Ingenuity Award in Visual Arts. Echelman's artwork has been reviewed in The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and Oprah Magazine published her art as #1 on her List of 50 Things That Make You Say Wow! Echelman’s art transforms with wind and light, and shifts from being “an object you look at, into an experience you can get lost in.” She is the first visual artist to serve on Harvard University's Board of Overseers.
Howard Gardner
Professor Cognition & Education, Harvard University
Howard Gardner is the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Harvard University and senior director of Harvard Project Zero. Among numerous honors, Gardner received a MacArthur Prize Fellowship and a Fellowship from the John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1981 and 2000, respectively. In 1990, he was the first American to receive the University of Louisville’s Grawemeyer Award in Education. In recognition of his contributions to both academic theory and public policy, he has received honorary degrees from thirty-one colleges and universities. He has twice been selected by Foreign Policy and Prospect magazines as one of 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world. In 2011, Gardner received the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, and in 2015, he was chosen as the recipient of the Brock International Prize in Education. He has been elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Education, and the London-based Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.
Hans Ulrich Öbrist
Artistic director, Serpentine Galleries
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review. Prior to this, he was the Curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first show “World Soup” (The Kitchen Show) in 1991 he has curated more than 300 shows. In 2011 Obrist received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence, and in 2015 he was awarded the International Folkwang Prize for his commitment to the arts. Obrist has lectured internationally at academic and art institutions and is contributing editor to several magazines and journals. Some of his recent publications include “Conversations in Mexico”, “Ways of Curating”, “The Age of Earthquakes” with Douglas Coupland and Shumon Basar, and “Lives of The Artists, Lives of The Architects.”
Kim Samson
Headmaster, Beaver Country Day School
Kim Samson brings 35 years of experience as a teacher, leader, and innovator in education. More specifically, her work as the Assistant Head and Director of the Upper School for eight years at Hawken School in Cleveland, Ohio. An innovator who knows how to develop ideas and put them into action and a developer of people, Kim has been leading the charge to make school relevant and impactful for students and teachers. She is devoted to championing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and serving the needs of a diverse student body. Most of all, she gets students! Kim is known for her close and intentional relationships with kids, faculty, staff, and parents.
Returning to her New England roots, Kim, her wife, Folly, and their puppy, Riley are thrilled to be closer to family, including their two daughters. An active skier, hiker, and swimmer, Kim will be right at home.
Maya Sanbar
Artist & Film Director
Her work in both moving image and installation is centered on the art of storytelling.Her award-winning films have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Berlinale, Sundance, Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film festival, Dubai International Film Festival and others. Her art works have been exhibited internationally, notably installations at Shoreditch Town Hall in London “Waiting” 2015, the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City “Alex in Wonderland” scented experience (2016), and at the Berlin Wall on the 30th anniversary of its fall “Chasing the Light” (2019). She is fluent in 6 languages, and passionate about crossing cultural boundaries using words with images to bring about a fresh point of view. Her experience is varied as is her career. From her beginnings in international law and the United Nations, to her pioneering work in marketing and branding as Head of Advertising at HSBC, she has honed the skill of telling stories that have relevance, in both the public and corporate worlds. Maya also has background in technology, one of her previous roles being Head of Partnerships at 3 (Hutchison telecoms), and Head of Mobile Marketing at the Cabinet Office under Tony Blair. She takes a keen interest in education as an engine for change – Maya is a Trustee of Madrinha mentoring children to thrive to their highest potential, and she is a Governor of a London state school.
Tavares Strachan
Artist
Tavares Strachan is a contemporary conceptual artist whose practice activates the intersections of art, science, and politics, offering uniquely synthesized points of view on the cultural dynamics of scientific knowledge. Aeronautics, astronomy, deep-sea exploration, and extreme climatology are but some of the thematic arenas out of which Strachan creates monumental allegories that tell of cultural displacement, human aspiration, and mortal limitation. His text-based neon sculptures are an anthem for our political and cultural moment, and his lexicon an effort to mobilize community and societal change. Strachan’s ambitious, open-ended practice has included collaborations with numerous organizations and institutions across the disciplines. Strachan was born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas, and currently lives and works between New York City and Nassau. He received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2006. Strachan was the 2018 Frontier Art Prize recipient, as part of the World Frontiers Forum.
The 2019 Pioneers
Andy Clark - Philosophy
Andy Clark is Professor of Cognitive Philosophy at the University of Sussex. He is currently PI on a European Research Council Advanced Grant ‘Expecting Ourselves’, looking at Consciousness and the Predictive Brain.
Jessica L. Mega - Health data
As CMO, at Verily Life Science Dr. Mega's focus is on translating technological innovations and scientific insights into partnerships and programs that improve patient outcomes.
José M. Aguilera - Food Engineering
Aguilera is currently Emeritus Professor of Chemical & Food Engineering at the P. Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) in Santiago. His research program has been focused on the role that food microstructure has in health, nutrition and wellbeing.
Lawrence Lessig - Law
Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. He taught at Stanford Law School, where he founded the Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals & Justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court.
Sophie Marquitan - Healthcare
Marquitan is enthusiastic about digital solutions to today’s most pressing global challenges. She engages in social tech start-ups that work towards achieving the SDGs since 2015. With the digital platform mTOMADY she dedicates herself to leveraging technology for universal access to healthcare and poverty protection.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas - Machine Intelligence
Agüera is a software engineer, software architect, and designer. He is an authority in computer vision, machine intelligence, and computational photography and presents regularly at conferences.
Chef Binta - Fulani Kitchen
Born and raised in Freetown, Sierra Leone, to first generation Sierra Leonean Fulanis of Guinean descent, Binta describes herself as a modern nomadic chef. she combines her nomadic Fulani roots, classical training at the Kenyan Culinary institute and love for rural life and nature.
Florian Tschorsch
Tschorsch is assistant professor at the Technical University of Berlin & the Einstein Center Digital Future, where he heads the Distributed Security Infrastructures group. In his research, he integrates security and privacy aspects of an Internet society.
Jenna Sutela - Multimedia art
Sutela is a Finnish-born, Berlin-based artist. She works with words, sounds, and other living media. Her audiovisual pieces, sculptures, and performances seek to identify and react to precarious social and material moments, often in relation to technology. Sutela's work has been presented at Guggenheim Bilbao, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and Serpentine Galleries.
Maya Sanbar - Film director
Sanbar was born in Lebanon and grew up in the UK. Lebanese-French-Palestinian filmmaker, she is also a director and Producer, making both Feature Films and Documentaries. Sanbar is a graduate of International Law and Diplomacy at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Johannes Vogel - Natural History
Vogel is the Director-General of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin & Professor for Biodiversity and Public Science at the Humboldt University Berlin. He chairs the Leibniz Research Alliance Biodiversity and is Deputy Chair of the German National Bioeconomy Council. In 2016 he was appointed Chair of the European Open Science Policy Platform (OSPP).
Hannes Koch - Behavioral art
Koch is the co-founder and director of Random International, a Berlin-based studio that creates artworks and instillations that focus on behavior, reaction and intuition in relation to natural phenomena and the human formKoch is driven towards cognition and human behavior, and its underlying principles.
Alex Paul "Sandy" Pentland - Computer science
Pentland is an American computer scientist, the Toshiba Professor at MIT, and serial entrepreneur. Pentland directs MIT Connection Science, an MIT-wide initiative, and previously helped create and direct the MIT Media Lab and the Media Lab Asia in India. He serves on the Boards of the UN Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data, the American Bar Association, AT&T, and several of the startup companies he has co-founded.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke - Visual art
Kaabi-Linke is a Tunisian-Ukrainian artist. She studied at the University of Fine Arts in Tunis before receiving a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris. She has been exhibited at the Guggenheim, MoMA, the Venice Biennale, and other museums.
Doris Sommer - Literature
Sommer is Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard.
Tod Machover - Composer
Machover, is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist. He was named Director of Musical Research at IRCAM in 1980.
Mark Risher - User security
Risher is Google’s Director of Product Management for security and privacy. In 2010, he founded the cybersecurity start-up Impermium, which was acquired by Google in 2014. Since then, Risher has worked at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, California.
Sam Durant - Multidisciplinary artist
Durant is an interdisciplinary artist whose works engage a variety of social, political, and cultural issues. He received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and an MFA from California Institute of the Arts. His work has been included in numerous international exhibitions including Documenta 13, the Yokohama Triennial and the Venice Biennial. Durant is based in Berlin and Los Angeles and teaches art at Hochschule fur Bilden Kunst Hamburg and CalArts in Valencia, CA.
Pedro Alonzo - Art curation
Pedro Alonzo is a Boston-based independent curator. He is currently an Adjunct Curator at Dallas Contemporary. Alonzo was formerly an adjunct curator at the ICA Boston and at the Institute of Visual Arts (inova), University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Chef Rodolfo Guzman - Food
Rodolfo Guzmán is a chef, entrepreneur, and owner of Boragó in Santiago, Chile. After a stint as a member of the Andoni Luis Aduriz team at Mugaritz in Spain, Guzmán delved deep into the health sciences in an effort to understand human behavior through food and discover how food can help us lead healthier lives.
![Koo Jeong A - Mixed Media Jeong is a South-Korean born and Paris-based mixed-media and installation artist.Koo studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.[1] She worked as an artist-in-residence in the Augarten Contemporary in 2002.[2]Her work has…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58f910d6b8a79b8b05005a54/1591048776468-F63SHVSOBWBF1SU5TBIY/Koo%2BJeung%2BA.jpg)
Koo Jeong A - Mixed Media
Jeong is a South-Korean born and Paris-based mixed-media and installation artist. She studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and worked as an artist-in-residence in the Augarten Contemporary. Her work has included still and moving images, sound and scent, found objects, the natural environment, and site-specific installation. The New York Times referred to her work as having diverse influences and themes of childhood longing. Art in America called her work "focused", "quiet", and "quirky."
Hito Steyerl - Filmaker
Steyerl is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary. Her principal topics of interest are media, technology, and the global circulation of images. Steyerl holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is currently a professor of New Media Art at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, together with Vera Tollmann and Boaz Levin
Jakob Kudsk Steensen - Multimedia installations
Kudsk Steensen is a Danish artist and art director based in New York City. He is concerned with how imagination, technology and ecology intertwine. In a practice that emphasizes field work and collaboration, Kudsk Steensen develops large-scale video and XR installations that invite viewers into new ecological realities.
Fabrizio Hochschild - International diplomacy
Fabrizio Hochschild, Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Cooperation, UN Executive Office of the Secretary-General
Monica Lewinsky - Collective Trauma
Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American activist, television personality, fashion designer, and former White House intern.
The 2018 Science Pioneers
Sangeeta Bhatia - Bioengineering
Bhatia is one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35. Bhatia's research investigates applications of micro- and nano-technology for tissue repair and regeneration.
Andy Conrad - Biotech
Conrad is a geneticist, and CEO of Verily, a life sciences division of Alphabet Inc. He oversees more than 350 scientists working on a wide spectrum of healthcare-related projects. Conrad co-founded the National Genetics Institute and also founded the California Health and Longevity Institute (CHLI).
Joseph Cook - Climate Action
A glacial microbiologist, an explorer of the microscopic “frozen rainforest” on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, Cook has worked on the UK National Environmental Research Council’s ‘Black and Bloom’ project, at the University of Sheffield to measure and model biological darkening of ice.
Adam Gazzaley - Neuroscience & Media
Neuroscientist, author, photographer, entrepreneur and inventor, Gazzaley is the founder and executive director of Neuroscape and Professor of Neurology, Physiology, and Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco.
Marc Kirschner - Systems Biology
Kirschner is a cell biologist and biochemist and the founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School.
Priyamvada Natarajan - Physicist
Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Yale University. She is a theoretical astrophysicist interested in cosmology, gravitational lensing and black hole physics.
Steven Pinker - Cognitive Psychology
Pinker is a cognitive psychologist, linguist, and popular science author. He is Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University, and is known for his advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
Gwynne Shotwell - Space Exploration
Shotwell is President and COO at SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corporation)
THE 2018 ART & DESIGN PIONEERS
Questlove - Music
Ahmir Khalib Thompson is a percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, music journalist, record producer, and occasional actor. He is best known as the drummer and joint frontman (with Black Thought) for the Grammy Award-winning band The Roots.
Charles Fadel - Learning
Fadel is a global education thought leader and futurist, author and inventor, and Founder and chairman of the Center for Curriculum Redesign.
Gabriel Kahane - Music & Theater
Kahane is a composer and singer-songwriter living in New York City.
Mathieu Lehanneur - Design
Lehanneur combines design, science, art and technology as poetic- communicative components to achieve maximum welfare for human beings.
Enrique Olvera - Food
Olvera, Chef of Pujol (Mexico City), ranked 25th among the World's 50 Best Restaurants, and was listed as the 5th best restaurant in Latin America.
Tavares Strachan - Contemporary Art
Strachan is a contemporary, conceptual artist whose multi-media installations investigate science, technology, mythology, history, and exploration.
Andrew Witt - Upcycling Architecture & Design
Witt is an Assistant Professor in Practice in Architecture at the GSD, teaching and researching in the relationship of geometry to perception, construction, automation and culture. He is also co-founder, of Certain Measures.
The 2017 Science Pioneers
Cady Coleman Space. Cady is former NASA astronaut, and the first flutist to play in space.
Jim Collins Bioengineering. Jim pioneered a new field of synthetic biology by combining science and engineering to construct biological circuits that can program organisms like we program computers.
Temple Grandin Human Potential. Temple is a professor at Colorado State University, and world-renowned autism spokesperson.
Danny Hillis Artificial Intelligence. Danny is professor of parallel computing, inventor of mass innovations, and visionary of The Clock of the Long Now.
Susan Hockfield Biology. Susan is Emeritus President of MIT and pioneer of monoclonal antibody technology and convergence.
Robert Langer Bioengineering. Bob is the most cited engineer in history, a professor at MIT and a pioneer of drug delivery.
Cato Laurencin Medicine. Cato is a scientist, surgeon, and first member of science, engineering and medicine academies across the developing world and USA.
Hans Christian Öttinger Physics. Hans Christian is a professor at ETH Zurich and author of a new thermodynamic approach to quantum field theory.
Dan Schrag Environment. Dan is professor at Harvard University, pioneer of climate research, and leader of efforts to mitigate climate change.
THE 2017 ART & DESIGN PIONEERS
Doug Aitken Art. Doug is an artist based in LA, internationally renowned for his works of memory, narrative, and fast-paced urban life.
Lynn Chang Music. Lynn is a renowned violinist and educator.
Ulrik Juul Christensen. Education. Ulrik is founder of the new generation of adaptive learning programs used by millions of students, physicians and other professionals.
Bjarke Ingels. Architecture. Bjarke is a Danish architect renowned for his humane urban designs.
Joi Ito. Design. Joi is the director of the MIT Media Lab and pioneering the exploration of indigenous culture toward the design of future society resilience.
Sam Kass Food. Sam is a food entrepreneur and the former chef of the Obama White House.
David Michalek. Art. David is an artist who takes the concept and techniques of portraiture as the starting points for the creation of his works.
Nathan Myhrvold Food. Nathan formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures and the principal author of Modernist Cuisine.
Lisa Wong Music. Lisa a musician and pioneer of arts in medicine.
Jeffrey Schnapp. Transporation. Jeffrey is a pioneer of the digital humanities and founding CEO of Piaggio Fast Forward.
Wendy Whelan Dance. Wendy is a world renowned dancer from the New York City ballet.