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Evan Thomas was made Editor at Large of *Newsweek* in September of 2006. He is the magazine's lead writer on major news stories and the author of many longer features, including *Newsweek*'s special behind-the-scenes issues on presidential elections, and more than a hundred cover stories. Thomas was pivotal in spearheading *Newsweek*'s award-winning coverage on the war on terror from the Washington, D.C. bureau. His reporting and writing on the terror events of September 11 and the Iraq War contributed to *Newsweek*'s being honored with the most prestigious awards in the magazine industry-the National Magazine Award for General Excellence for 2002 and 2004. Since 1992, Thomas has been a regular weekly panelist on the syndicated public affairs talk show, *Inside Washington*. He has appeared on numerous television shows as a commentator, including: NBC's *Meet the Press*, *TODAY*, CBS's *Face the Nation*, ABC's *Nightline*, *Good Morning America*, CNN's *Larry King Live*, PBS's *Charlie Rose*, and *The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer*. Thomas is also the author of six books, all published by Simon & Schuster: *Sea of Thunder*, about the war in the Pacific (2006), a *New York Times* bestseller; *John Paul Jones*, a biography of the American revolutionary (2003), a *New York Times* bestseller; *Robert Kennedy: His Life* (2000); *The Very Best Men: The Early Years of the CIA* (1995); *The Man to See: The Life of Edward Bennett Williams* (1991); and *The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made* (with Walter Isaacson, 1986). In 2003-04, Thomas was a visiting professor at Princeton. In 2004-05, he was a visiting professor at Harvard, and in 2006-2007, he was a visiting professor at Harvard and Princeton. In the fall of 2007 he will begin a five-year term at Princeton as Ferris Professor of Journalism. He is a fellow of the Society of American Historians and a former trustee of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression. He is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Virginia Law School. He lives with his wife and two children in Washington, D.C.

Roberta Schaefer, the founding Executive Director of The Research Bureau, was elected President and CEO in 2008. Under her direction, the Bureau has grown from a one-person office preparing studies on municipal issues to a five-person regional center of information and expertise in all areas of public policy in Central Massachusetts. In the 24 years of its existence, Dr. Schaefer has researched, authored and edited more than 150 reports and organized over 140 public forums on issues of concern to the Greater Worcester region. These programs and reports reach a broad audience throughout the region. She is often called upon to testify before local, regional and state committees, and has been the featured speaker for public service organizations and business events. Since 2000, Dr. Schaefer has overseen The Research Bureau's citizen-informed government performance measurement program funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which has received local, state, and national recognition for its citizen engagement and collaboration with government leading to measurable improvements in government performance. Dr. Schaefer holds a B.A. from Queens College of the City University of New York and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. Dr. Schaefer served as a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1996 to 2007 and served as Vice-chair from 1998 to 2001. She is also a director of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce, and a corporator of Bay State Savings Bank, Greater Worcester Community Foundation, and the Worcester Art Museum. With her husband, David Schaefer, Professor of Political Science at Holy Cross College, she has co-edited two books (Sir Henry Taylor's *The Statesman* and *The Future of Cities*) and authored many articles in professional journals.

Nancy Burnham graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1987 with a PhD in physics. Her dissertation concerned the surface analysis of photovoltaic materials. As a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the Naval Research Laboratory, she became interested in scanning probe microscopy, in particular its application to detecting materials properties at the nanoscale. After three years as a von Humboldt Fellow in Germany at Forschungszentrum Juelich, she spent another 6 years in Europe, principally at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, all the while pursuing the mechanical properties of nanostructures and instrumentation for nanomechanics. She became an associate professor of physics at WPI in January of 2000. Her international experience also includes sejours at the University of Bordeaux, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (an exchange school with WPI). Invited, tutorial, or plenary speaker at approximately 40 conferences, author or co-author of roughly 60 publications with an h-index of 23, she is as well active in professional societies as, e.g., Secretary of the Nanometer Structures Committee of the IUVSTA and Treasurer of the Nanoscience and Technology Division of the AVS. She was the recipient of the 2001 Nanotechnology Recognition Award from the latter organization and was a 2002 Institute of Physics of Ireland Lecturer.

James P. Dunn is the executive director of the Foundation for Advancing Science and Technology (FASTec) which is sponsoring the development of the Electric Aircraft. He is also the president of Advanced Technology Products, Inc., of Westborough, Massachusetts which is building the fuel-cell powered aircraft. Dunn also serves as the Chief Technical Officer for the Center for Technology Commercialization at NASA's New England Regional Technology Transfer Center. He is a widely known electrical engineer who is credited with inventing the laptop computer. He has more than 25 years of experience in a variety of high technology ventures with companies from startups to Fortune 100 companies like IBM and Exxon.

Felix D. Arroyo was a city councilor (at-large) in Boston, Massachusetts, United States from January 2003 - January 2008. Arroyo also served as Vice President and President of the Boston School Committee.

Paul Fussell is a cultural and literary historian, and professor emeritus of English literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of books on eighteenth century English literature, the world wars, and social class, among others.

Lisa Jardine CBE is Centenary Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and an Honorary Fellow of King's College, Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge, and holds honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews, Sheffield Hallam University and the Open University. She is a Trustee of the V&A Museum, a member of the Council of the Royal Institution, and sits on the Library Committee of the Royal Society. In April 2008 she took up the post of Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Professor Jardine writes and reviews for all the major UK national newspapers and magazines and for *the Washington Post*, and has presented and appears regularly on arts, history and current affairs programs for TV and radio. She is a regular writer and presenter of *A Point of View*, on BBC Radio 4: a book of the first two series of her talks was published by Preface Publishing in March 2008 and a second *Another Point of View* will appear in 2009. Lisa Jardine has published over fifty scholarly articles in refereed journals and books, and seventeen full-length books, both for an academic and for a general readership, a number of them in co-authorship with others. She is the author of a number of best-selling general books, including *Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance*, *Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution*, and biographies of Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Her most recent book on Anglo-Dutch reciprocal influence in the seventeenth century, entitled *Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory*, was published by HarperCollins in April 2008.

Tom Perrotta is the author of six works of fiction including *Bad Haircut*, *The Wishbones*, *Election*, and the New York Times bestsellers *Joe College*, *Little Children*, and most recently, *The Abstinence Teacher*. In 1999, *Election* was made into an acclaimed feature film directed by Alexander Payne and starring Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick. In 2006, Perrotta was nominated for an Academy Award for the screenplay for the movie version of *Little Children*, which was directed by Todd Field and starred Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly. He lives with his family outside Boston.