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Speaker Biographies
Steven B. Sample became USC's 10th president in March 1991. A tenured professor in the Viterbi School of Engineering, Sample regularly reaches undergraduates, including a much sought-after course entitled "The Art and Adventure of Leadership." He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and holds patents on digital appliance controls that have been licensed to practically every major manufacturer of appliance controls and microwave ovens in the world. Sample's book, The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, a Los Angeles Times best-seller, was chosen by the Toronto Globe and Mail as one of the Top 10 Business Books of 2001 and has been translated into five languages. Prior to coming to USC, Sample served as President of the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1982 to 1991. Dr. Leshner has been Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the journal Science since December 2001. AAAS (triple A-S) was founded in 1848 and is the world's largest, multi-disciplinary scientific and engineering society. Prior to coming to AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) from 1994-2001. One of the scientific institutes of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, NIDA supports over 85% of the world's research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction. Before becoming Director of NIDA, Dr. Leshner had been the Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. He went to NIMH from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he held a variety of senior positions, focusing on basic research in the biological, behavioral and social sciences, science policy and science education. Dr. Leshner went to NSF after 10 years at Bucknell University, where he was Professor of Psychology. He has also held long-term appointments at the Postgraduate Medical School in Budapest, Hungary; at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center; and as a Fulbright Scholar at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. Dr. Leshner's research has focused on the biological bases of behavior. He is the author of a major textbook on the relationship between hormones and behavior, and numerous book chapters and papers in professional journals. He also has published extensively in the areas of science and technology policy, science education, and public engagement with science. Dr. Leshner received an undergraduate degree in psychology from Franklin and Marshall College, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiological psychology from Rutgers University. He also holds honorary Doctor of Science degrees from Franklin and Marshall College and the Pavlov Medical University in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dr. Leshner is an elected fellow of AAAS, the National Academy of Public Administration, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and many other professional societies, is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, and has received numerous awards from both professional and lay groups. John Seely Brown is currently a visiting scholar at USC and prior to that he was the Chief Scientist of Xerox Corporation and the director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, knowledge management, complex adaptive systems, ethnographic studies of the workscape and nano technology. He was a cofounder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). His personal research interests include the management of radical innovation, digital culture, service oriented architecture, ubiquitous computing and organizational and individual learning. John, or as he is often called—JSB— is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence and of AAAS and a Trustee of Brown University and the MacArthur Foundation. He serves on numerous public boards (Amazon, Corning, Varian Medical Systems and Polycom) and private boards of directors. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and was awarded the Harvard Business Review's 1991 McKinsey Award for his article, "Research that Reinvents the Corporation" and again in 2002 for his article “Your Next IT Strategy. In 2004 he was inducted in the Industry Hall of Fame. With Paul Duguid he co-authored the acclaimed book The Social Life of Information (HBS Press, 2000) that has been translated into 9 languages with a second addition in April 2002, and with John Hagel he has just finished a book The Only Sustainable Edge which is about new forms of collaborative innovation. It also provides a novel framework for understanding what is really happening in off-shoring in India and China and how each are inventing powerful news ways to innovate, learn and accelerate capability building. JSB received a BA from Brown University in 1962 in mathematics and physics and a PhD from University of Michigan in 1970 in computer and communication sciences. In May of 2000 Brown University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science Degree. It was followed by an Honorary Doctor of Science in Economics conferred by the London Business School in July 2001. And in May of 2004 he received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Claremont Graduate School. This year he received an honorary doctorate from University of Michigan and delivered their commencement speech. He is an avid reader, traveler and motorcyclist. Part scientist, part artist and part strategist, JSB’s views are unique and distinguished by a broad view of the human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress. www.johnseelybrown.com Dr. Deshpande is an influential technology entrepreneur and visionary whose companies and ideas often reshape entire industries. Led by Dr. Deshpande's vision and direction, Sycamore has helped create a fundamental paradigm shift in the role and architecture of the optical network -- transforming a once static optical infrastructure into an intelligent and dynamic network foundation for the delivery of new services. Sycamore's equipment is currently carrying voice and data traffic in the networks of the world's largest service providers. Dr. Deshpande is also widely respected for his contributions to education and the greater community. Numerous business and industry publications in both the US and his native India have recognized Dr. Deshpande with awards. Dr. Deshpande is frequently invited to deliver keynote addresses at business, technology, education, and government conferences. Dr. Deshpande serves as a member of the MIT Corporation, and his generous donations have made possible MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. The Deshpande Center was created to serve as a catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurship by supporting research and collaboration among entrepreneurs, young companies, and MIT students, alumni, and faculty. Prior to co-founding Sycamore Networks, Dr. Deshpande was founder and chairman of Cascade Communications Corp. Between 1991 and 1997, Cascade grew from a one-person startup to a company with $500 million in revenue and 900 employees. In June of 1997, Cascade was acquired by Ascend Communications for $3.7 billion. Prior to Cascade, Dr. Deshpande co-founded Coral Network Corporation in 1988. Previously, he served in various management positions for Codex Corporation, a subsidiary of Motorola. Before joining Codex, Dr. Deshpande taught at Queens University in Kingston, Canada. Dr. Deshpande holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, an M.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and a Ph.D. in Data Communications from Queens University in Canada. Peter Donovan Peter J. Donovan, Ph.D., is professor of developmental and cell biology and of biological chemistry at the University of California, Irvine, and co-director of its Stem Cell Program. Dr. Donovan’s laboratory pioneered the development of pluripotent stem cells from primordial germ cells in mice and, with Dr. John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University, developed the same cell type from human germ cells. His research interests center around the mechanisms regulating developmental potency in germ cells and stem cells. His laboratory was one of the first to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study human embryonic stem (ES) cells, and he serves on one of only two NIH study sections that reviews proposed studies on human ES cells. He serves on the editorial boards of Stem Cells and Stem Cell Reviews, and is a member of the steering committee of The Hinxton Group, an international group of scientists, lawyers, and ethicists who consider the implications of international collaboration in stem cell research. Dr. Donovan also serves on the Advisory Board of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. Judith Jackson Fossett Judith Jackson Fossett is an Associate Professor of English and American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where she also directs the Program in African-American Studies. Educated at Princeton and Harvard, Professor Fossett’s scholarly work focuses on the literature, history and culture of slavery in the New World since the 18th century. Her first book is Illuminated Darkness: Slavery and its Shadows in 19th-century America (forthcoming, University of North Carolina Press). She co-edited Race Consciousness: African-American Studies for the New Century (NYU Press). She is currently at work on Structures of Slavery: The Antebellum Plantation in the New World, a cultural history of the afterlife of the antebellum plantation. Having published numerous essays and reviews, she has been the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson and Mellon Foundations, and the Humanities Research Institute (University of California-Irvine), and the Huntington Research Library. John Harlow John Harlow has been the West Coast Correspondent for The Sunday Times of London, the best-selling broadsheet newspaper in Europe, since 2000. Prior to that he was on the London staff of The Daily Telegraph, where he was a business writer, and The New York Journal of Commerce, where he contributed to in-depth investigations into global trade corruption. As a foreign correspondent he has got into trouble in Uganda, Vietnam and Israel. He was educated in Brooklyn and at Balliol College, Oxford.
Donald B. Kohn, M.D. is Professor of Pediatrics, and Molecular Microbiology & Immunology in the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He is the Head of the Division of Research Immunology/Bone Marrow Transplantation and Director of the Gene, Immune and Stem Cell Therapy in the Saban Research Institute of Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Kohn’s research program performs basic, pre-clinical and clinical studies of gene therapy using hematopoietic cells for genetic diseases and AIDS, and his team was the first to perform a trial of gene therapy using umbilical cord blood cells from newborns with adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency. He was the recipient of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatrics AIDS Foundation Scholar Award (1995-2000), a Distinguished Clinical Scientist Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (2000-2007) and was President of the American Society of Gene Therapy (2003-2004).
Dr. Robert Lawrence Kuhn is an international investment banker and corporate strategist with extensive activities and relationships in China. A public intellectual with a doctorate in brain research, he is author or editor of over 25 books, a scientist and scholar, television producer and host, media commentator, private investor, and philanthropist. Dr. Kuhn is Senior Advisor, Investment Banking at Citigroup, where he works with major Chinese companies in their capital markets and merger and acquisition (M&A) activities and with multinational corporations on their China strategies. From 1991 until 2001, Dr. Kuhn was president and co-owner of The Geneva Companies, a leading M&A firm representing privately owned, middle-market companies (prior to Geneva’s sale to Citigroup). During the term of his leadership, Geneva initiated and closed over 1,400 M&A transactions. Dr. Kuhn specializes in M&A; corporate strategy, structure and restructure; international ventures; capital markets optimization; and the integration of corporate and financial strategies. Since 1989, when he was invited by Dr. Song Jian, Chairman of the State Science and Technology Commission and State Councilor in the administration of former General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, Dr. Kuhn has been an advisor to the Chinese government, particularly in economic policy, mergers and acquisitions, science and technology, and media and international communications. He has worked with the State Science and Technology Commission; Ministry of Science and Technology; Chinese Academy of Engineering; State Council Information Office; State Administration of Radio, Film and Television; China Central Television (CCTV); Ministry of Culture; State Economic and Trade Commission; State Restructuring Commission; State Property Bureau; State Council Research Office; and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Dr. Kuhn advises the Chinese government on M&A policy, restructuring China’s media industries, understanding and improving China’s international image, and cross-cultural exchanges. He is a frequent commentator on China's economic and social policies in the domestic and international media. Between February and August 2005, Dr. Kuhn toured 19 provinces and 32 cities in China meeting senior leaders in government and business, and lecturing on “China’s Image in World” and on the “Scientific Development Perspective,” which epitomizes President Hu Jintao’s overarching policy to seek sets of integrated solutions to complex arrays of economic, social and environmental problems. (He is said to be one of the first foreigners to lecture about President Hu’s Scientific Development Perspective.) Dr. Kuhn contributes often to the international and American media, speaking and writing about China and the philosophies and policies of its new leadership under President Hu. Dr. Kuhn is the author of The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin, a high-profile, 720 page biography of China’s long-time senior leader—based on special access and exclusive interviews—that Random House published worldwide in 2005 (English, Korean, Japanese, and later German). The Chinese edition was the number one bestselling book in China in 2005 with sales of over one million and substantial publicity across the country. Dr. Kuhn has been featured on the front page of numerous Chinese newspapers and magazines. His book is recognized as the first time that a biography of a living Chinese leader has been published on the Chinese mainland, and stories of its unusual success in China have run in international press, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Dr. Kuhn is the author or editor of more than 25 books, including the seven-volume (5,500 page) Dow Jones-Irwin Library of Investment Banking; Investment Banking: The Art and Science of High-Stakes Dealmaking; Handbook for Creative and Innovative Managers; Frontiers in Creative and Innovative Management; Generating Creativity and Innovation in Large Bureaucracies; DealMaker: All the Negotiating Skills and Secrets You Need; Closer to Truth: Challenging Current Belief; To Flourish Among Giants: Creative Management for Mid-Sized Firms; and Made in China: Voices from the New Revolution. Three of his books have been translated into Chinese, including the first investment banking book published in China. His article “Science as Democratizer,” featured in American Scientist magazine argued how the scientific way of thinking can influence global society. Dr. Kuhn is Chairman of The Kuhn Foundation, which disseminates new knowledge in science, support cultural endeavors, and promote good relations between America and China. Projects include the public television (PBS) series Closer To Truth: Science, Meaning, and the Future, which Dr. Kuhn created, produces and hosts to present leading scientists and scholars exploring the meaning of leading-edge knowledge -- see www.pbs.org/closertotruth and www.closertotruth.com. Closer To Truth explores the latest scientific research, philosophical thinking, and expressions of human creativity. The Kuhn Foundation produced the award-winning film “Khachaturian,” on the life of the Armenian-Soviet composer, which won the Best Documentary award at the 2003 Hollywood Film Festival. Dr. Kuhn was the creator and executive producer of the 90-minute PBS primetime special In Search of China, called the “Pick of the Week” by The Washington Post. Dr. Kuhn holds an A.B. in human biology from Johns Hopkins University (1964, Phi Beta Kappa); a Ph.D. in anatomy / brain research from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA, 1968); and an M.S. in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management (Sloan Fellow, 1980). He was adjunct full professor of business and financial strategy at New York University. He is Senior Fellow at the IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin; a trustee of Claremont Graduate University; and serves on the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Dr. Kuhn is vice chairman of the new Beijing Institute for Frontier Science.
Ray Kurzweil is an inventor, entrepreneur, author, and futurist. Called “the restless genius” by the Wall Street Journal and “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes, Kurzweil’s ideas on the future have been touted by his many fans, ranging from Bill Gates to Bill Clinton. MIT’s Marvin Minsky writes that “with his brilliant descriptions of the coming connections of computers with immortality, Kurzweil clearly takes his place as a leading futurist of our time.” George Gilder writes that “Kurzweil’s ideas make all other roads to the computer future look like goat paths in Patagonia.” Sun Microsystems Chief Scientist Bill Joy, whose own discussions of the promise and peril of technology have attracted worldwide attention, writes in his now famous Wired magazine cover story that “I can date the onset of my unease to the day I met Ray Kurzweil, the deservedly famous inventor of the first reading machine for the blind and many other amazing things.” Stevie Wonder writes “Ray’s technology and ideas have truly been among the sunshines of my life. Kurzweil’s writings are a wonderful riff on the next century from a keen seer, a great inventor, and a good friend.” Kurzweil’s most recent national best-selling book, The Age of Spiritual Machines (Viking), has received widespread acclaim. It has achieved the #1 status on Amazon.com in the categories of both science and artificial intelligence and has been published in nine languages. The New York Times writes, “Kurzweil’s latest book ranges widely over such juicy topics as entropy, chaos, the big bang, quantum theory, DNA computers, quantum computers, Godel’s theorem, neural nets, genetic algorithms, nanoengineering, the Turing test, brain scanning, the slowness of neurons, chess playing programs, the Internet – the whole world of information technology past, present, and future. Kurzweil’s writings are for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next.” Wired magazine writes, “Ray Kurzweil has a knack for spotting the next new thing. He has been charging into the future for nearly 40 years. He’s best known for guerrilla assaults on conventional wisdom.” John Casti of Nature describes Kurzweil’s latest book as a “mind expanding account of the rise of intelligent machines. . .nothing less than a blueprint for how to shove Homo sapiens off centre-stage in evolution’s endless play. . .If you buy into Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns – and all empirical evidence currently available supports it completely -- then the replacement of humans by machines as the primary intellectual force on Earth is indeed imminent.” Ray Kurzweil is widely regarded as one of the leading inventors of our time. Time magazine writes, “Kurzweil’s eclectic career and propensity of combining science with practical – often humanitarian – applications have inspired comparisons with Thomas Edison.” Kurzweil was the principal developer of the first omni-font optical character recognition (OCR), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first CCD flat-bed scanner, the first text-to-speech synthesizer, the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments, and the first commercially marketed, large-vocabulary speech recognition. These technologies continue today as market leaders in their respective industries, industries that Ray Kurzweil pioneered. Kurzweil has successfully founded and developed nine companies in OCR, music synthesis, speech recognition, reading technology, virtual reality, financial investment, medical simulation, and cybernetic art. Kurzweil’s web site, KurzweilAI.net, is a leading resource on artificial intelligence, with more than 100,000 readers. Ray Kurzweil received the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT Prize, the nation’s largest award in invention and innovation, and was inducted in 2002 into the National Inventor Hall of Fame. He also received the 1999 National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest honor in technology, from President Clinton in a White House ceremony. He has also received scores of other national and international awards, including the 1994 Dickson Prize (Carnegie Mellon University’s top science prize), Engineer of the Year from Design News, Inventor of the Year from MIT, and the Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. He has received twelve honorary doctorates and honors from three U.S. Presidents. He has received seven national and international film awards. Kurzweil is a widely sought speaker and has given keynote presentations at many leading venues, including the Microsoft CEO Summit, the World Economic Forum, Pop!Tech, PC Expo, Business Week, The Council on Foreign Relations, SIGGRAPH, Cowen, TED, ICASSP, the American Psychiatric Association, Agenda, and many others. His presentations to diverse audiences combine wit and keen insight into contemporary issues of technology and its impact on society. His lectures often include appearances by “Ramona,” his “virtual female alter ego,” and other engaging demonstrations of cutting-edge technologies that Kurzweil and his teams have developed. Kurzweil has written five books and hundreds of articles. In recent years, there have been hundreds of articles each year by or about Ray Kurzweil in leading publications, including most major national magazines. His first book, The Age of Intelligent Machines (MIT Press), was named Best Computer Science Book of 1990. This book, written in the late 1980s, has been acclaimed for its remarkably accurate predictions about the 1990s and early 2000 years. His book Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever (Rodale Books), coauthored with Terry Grossman, M.D., describes the science behind radical life extension. His new book, The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking), was published in September 2005.
Chris Matthews hosts "Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Monday through Friday, 7-8 p.m. (ET) on MSNBC. Matthews is also the host of "The Chris Matthews Show," a syndicated weekly news program produced by NBC News and distributed by NBC Universal Television Distribution. Mr. Matthews is a regular commentator on NBC's "Today” show. A television news anchor with remarkable depth of experience, Matthews has distinguished himself as a broadcast journalist, newspaper bureau chief, Presidential speechwriter, and best-selling author. Matthews covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in South Africa and the Good Friday Peace Talks in Northern Ireland. In 1997 and 1998, his digging in the National Archives produced a series of San Francisco Examiner scoops on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988, including the five-week recount of 2000. In 2005 Matthews covered the funeral of Pope John Paul II. “Hardball with Chris Matthews” premiered on MSNBC on November 8, 1999 following a successful launch on CNBC in 1997. In March 2004, he received the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. He has also been awarded The John F. Kennedy Service Award from the Ancient Order of Hibernians and The Abraham Lincoln Award from the Union League of Philadelphia. Matthews worked for 15 years as a print journalist, 13 of them as Washington Bureau Chief for The San Francisco Examiner (1987 - 2000), and two years as a national columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle, which was syndicated to 200 newspapers by United Media. Prior to that, Matthews spent 15 years in politics and government, working in the White House for four years under President Jimmy Carter as a Presidential speechwriter and on the President’s Reorganization Project, in the U.S. Senate for five years on the staffs of Senator Frank Moss (Utah) and Senator Edmund Muskie (Maine), and as the top aide to Speaker of the House Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, Jr. for six years. Matthews is the author of four best-selling books, including American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions (2002), a New York Times best seller. His first book, Hardball (1988) is required reading in many college-level political science courses. Kennedy & Nixon (1996) was named by The Readers Digest "Today's Best Non-fiction" and served as the basis of a documentary on the History Channel. Now, Let me Tell What I Really Think (2001) was another New York Times best-seller. A graduate of Holy Cross College, Mr. Matthews did graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matthews also worked for two years as a trade development advisor with the U.S. Peace Corps in the southern African nation of Swaziland. Matthews was a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Institute of Politics. He holds 14 honorary Ph.D.s. Matthews is married to Kathleen Matthews, award-winning news anchor for the ABC affiliate WJLA in Washington, D.C. They have three children: Michael, Thomas and Caroline. Rosie Mestel is deputy editor of the Los Angeles Times health section. She obtained a BSc from London University in 1981, then a PhD in genetics from UC Davis in 1987 before switching to a career in science journalism in 1991. A former west coast correspondent for New Scientist and contributing editor for Health Magazine, she has also freelanced for magazines such as Discover, Science and Natural History. In 1998, she joined the staff of the Los Angeles Times, first as a writer for the health section, then as a biomedical and science writer, before becoming a deputy editor of the health section in December. She has written on a wide array of biomedical subjects including human genetics, developmental biology, stem cells, microbiology and food science. One of the world's preeminent scholars of hydrocarbon chemistry, Professor George Olah received the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for groundbreaking work on superacids and his observations of carbocations, a fleeting chemical species long theorized to exist but never confirmed. Olah devised a way to keep the transient carbocations around long enough to study their properties. What he found has revolutionized understanding of organic chemistry, leading to new discoveries, new fields of research and countless applications. Professor Olah researches a wide range of synthetic and mechanistic organic chemistry with emphasis on hydrocarbon chemistry. He is currently investigating electrophilic (protic) solvation superelectrophilic activation, which allows new applications in alkylation, acylation and many other reactions. Olah has made significant research contributions to the practical development of improved lead-free gasoline, cleaner high-octane gas and other promising nonpolluting fuels, as well as many chemical processes now used in pharmaceutical and industrial chemistry. His research has also led to the development of a new kind of fuel cell, called the direct liquid methanol fuel cell, that is a highly efficient and convenient source of electricity. His most recent research centers on the conversion of two greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, into useful fuels and products, investigations driven by his long-standing interest in energy and environmental issues. To find new solutions to these pressing issues, Olah is working to develop new, cleaner and renewable fuels, based on methanol, to replace diminishing oil reserves while reducing levels of greenhouse gases. George Olah
Dr. Martin Pera is a Research Professor at the Monash Institute of Medical Research at Monash University and the Director of Embryonic Stem Cell Research at the Australian Stem Cell Centre. He received the Bachelor of Arts degree in English Language and Literature from the College of William and Mary, and the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Pharmacology from George Washington University. Pera carried out postdoctoral research at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, and was a Research Fellow at the Department of Zoology at Oxford University. His research interests include the cell biology of human pluripotent stem cells, early human development, and germ cell tumours. Pera was among a small number of researchers who pioneered the isolation and characterisation of pluripotent stem cells from human germ cell tumours of the testis, work that provided an important framework for the development of human embryonic stem cells. His laboratory at Monash University was the second in the world to isolate embryonic stem cells from the human blastocyst, and the first to describe their differentiation into somatic cells in vitro. He has provided extensive advice to state, national and international regulatory authorities on the scientific background to human embryonic stem cell research, and is a member of the Steering Group of the International Stem Cell Initiative. Pera’s research group focuses on the extrinsic factors (signals from outside the cell) involved in maintenance of the pluripotent state in human embryonic stem cells, and those factors that drive stem cell commitment into progenitor cells representative of the three embryonic germ layers (the precursors of the primordia that form the tissues of the body). A major hypothesis behind this work is that stem cell cultures represent a community of different cell types, similar to those found in the embryo around the time of implantation into the womb, and that just as communication between different cell populations in the embryo acts to specify cell fate during development, similar conversations control stem cell maintenance and differentiation in vitro. This work has fundamental importance for our understanding of stem cell biology, but it also addresses practical questions that must be solved before human embryonic stem cells can achieve their full potential in research and medicine. Propagation of stem cells on a large scale in a pure form under fully defined conditions, without accumulation of genetic damage in the cell, is essential for production of sufficient numbers of cells for large scale research projects and clinical trials. Understanding how to control the differentiation of stem cells is essential to producing desired types of mature cell in sufficient quantity and in pure form for use in laboratory research or regenerative medicine. Work in the Pera lab addresses both these challenges. Dr. Mangalam Srinivasan sits on the Board of Directors of one of the largest global IT services/software global corporations, Satyam Computers as one of the few women worldwide to hold such a role. She is a Senior Fellow, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University; a former Trustee for the Forsyth Institute; member of the Science Advisory Board at Birla Planetarium; member of the board of women and Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard, a Commissioner on the Cambridge Women’s Commission, and a chartered member of Tie Boston. Professor Srinivasan has been an Advisor to the Dean of Engineering at Tufts, The World Bank, and an advised former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi during 1982-83. She has held faculty and research appointments at UC Berkeley, American, Harvard, Tufts and Northeastern universities, and has been a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the US Energy Department, the National Academy of Sciences, the European Union, Indian Institute of Technology, several Asian apex managerial and technical institutions and the UN among others. She has been on special advisory panels at MIT, Harvard, national and international women’s, non-profit and philanthropic organizations. Dr. Srinivasan is the Founding Director of the Center for Technology Policy and the Center for International Technical Cooperation at the American University. She was one of the first invited women fellows to Harvard as a Distinguished Fellow to the Center for International Affairs, the University’s apex fellowship. She served as an Advisor to Harvard’s Committee on Environment and to the Kennedy School’s Center for International Development. Her teaching and research spans various subject areas including Technology Assessment, Internet and Society, Energy and Development, International Financial Management, Role of Information Resources and Infrastructure Policies in Development, women in development and managing Innovation. The following important international invitations speak to the recognition of Dr. Srinivasan’s knowledge and commitment by diverse expert entities: Dr. Srinivasan has a Doctorate in Technology Assessment, an MBA on a Fulbright, an MA in English Literature (Chaucer and Elizabethan), BA in both Mathematics and Physics, and Advanced Scholar credentials in Astronomy. She holds diplomas in International Law, Economics and International Finance. Dr. Srinivasan is an accomplished performing and visual artist, a gourmet cook, an author, poet and a frequent and sought after speaker and thought leader. She is the recipient of numerous achievements and awards including Woman of the Year, Leadership and Life time Achievement awards. A philosopher and a historian with deep interests in cultural and linguistic heritages, she defies narrow disciplinary boundaries. Her colleagues and students often introduce her as “a one person interdisciplinary team”. Publications Include an edited volume on Technology Assessment and Development, lead articles in edited volumes of UN, AAAS and NRC publications, number of monographs by the UN and articles on management, international finance, development, literary and popular articles in journals, magazines and newspapers. Andrew Viterbi co-founded QUALCOMM Incorporated, a developer and manufacturer of mobile satellite communications and digital wireless telephony. Prior to co-founding QUALCOMM, Andrew co-founded LINKABIT Corporation, a digital communications company. He served as a professor at the UCLA School of Engineering and Applied Science until 1973 and continued teaching on a part-time basis at the University of California, San Diego until 1994, where he is currently a professor emeritus. Prior to that, Andrew was a member of the Communications Research Section of the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was one of the first communication engineers to recognize the potential of digital transmission techniques for space and satellite telecommunication systems. Today all four international standards for digital cellular telephony utilize the Viterbi algorithm for interference suppression, as do most digital satellite communication systems. Andrew received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1957 and his Ph.D. from USC in 1962. He has received honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Canada, Italy, and Israel, and has been otherwise honored in Japan, Germany, Italy, and the United States. He is a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a Marconi Fellow, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has served on the United States President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and was awarded a title by the President of Italy. In 2004 Andrew and Erna Viterbi committed $53 million to USC’s engineering school, which was renamed in their honor. Andrew has served on the USC Board of Trustees since 2000.
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Steven
B. Sample
Alan
Leshner
John Seely Brown
Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande 
Donald B. Kohn, M.D.
Kuhn
Robert Lawrence
Kuhn
Raymond
Kurzweil
Chris Matthews
Rosie Mestel 
George Olah,
Martin
Pera
Dr. Mangalam Srinivasan
Andrew Viterbi