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Chaisson's major interests are currently twofold: his scientific research addresses an interdisciplinary, thermodynamic study of physical, biological, and cultural phenomena, seeking to understand the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, life, and society, thus devising a unifying cosmic-evolutionary worldview of the Universe and our sense of place within it writ large. His educational work engages experienced teachers and computer animators to create better methods, technological aids, and novel curricula to enthuse teachers and instruct students in all aspects of natural science.

Andrea Mitchell, the veteran NBC Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent, is also the host of MSNBC'S "Andrea Mitchell Reports," an hour of political news and interviews with top news makers that airs each day at 1pm ET on MSNBC. Mitchell covered the entire 2008 presidential campaign, from the kickoff in February 2007, broadcasting live from every major primary and caucus state and all the candidate debates for NBC News and MSNBC programs, including Today, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Hardball, Morning Joe and Meet the Press. She also covered Barack Obama's trip to Iraq, the Middle East and Europe during the presidential campaign. Mitchell currently covers foreign policy, intelligence and national security issues, including the diplomacy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for all NBC News properties. As a featured political correspondent in 2004, Mitchell was a regular panelist on MSNBCs Hardball and was the first reporter to break the story that Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry had chosen Sen. John Edwards as his vice presidential running mate. In September 2005, Mitchell authored Talking Back, a memoir about her experiences as one of the first women to cover five presidents, congress and foreign policy. That year, Mitchell also received the prestigious Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2004, the Radio-Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) honored Mitchell with the Leonard Zeidenberg Award for her contribution to the protection of First Amendment Freedoms.

Nancy Kranich served as President of the American Library Association in 2000-2001, focusing on the role of libraries in democracies. A tireless champion of the public's information rights, Nancy has led the library community's efforts to promote civic engagement, open access, and free expression. Prior to her presidency, she spearheaded ALA's telecommunications advocacy, formed the Coalition on Government Information, and established the James Madison Awards honoring champions of the public's right to know. Since leading ALA, Nancy has continued to promote democratic participation, launching ALA's civic engagement membership initiative, moderating public forums, participating in Kettering's US/Russia dialogue, and teaching about civic engagement. In 2004, she moved to State College, PA where she now chairs of one of the oldest National Issues Forum groups in the country.

As Director of Libraries, Ann J. Wolpert is responsible for the MIT Libraries and MIT Press. The MIT Libraries consist of five major collections, a number of smaller branch libraries in specialized subject areas, a fee-for-services group, and the Institute Archives. The Institute Archives and Special Collections preserve the historical records of MIT and the personal papers of many faculty members. The MIT Press publishes about 200 new books and more than 40 journals each year in fields related to or reliant upon science and technology. The Press is widely recognized for its innovative graphic design and electronic publishing initiatives. Ms. Wolpert's Institute responsibilities include membership on the Committee on Copyright and Patents, the Council on Educational Technology, the Deans' Committee, and the Academic Council. She chairs the Management Board of the MIT Press and the Board of Directors of Technology Review, Inc.

Eli Pariser is Executive Director of MoveOn.org Political Action and interim Executive Director of MoveOn.org Civic Action. Eli joined MoveOn in 2001, and directed MoveOn's campaign against the Iraq war, tripling MoveOn's member base in the process, which now includes over 3.3 million members. Eli was one of the co-creators of the Bush in 30 Seconds ad contest, and as Executive Director of MoveOn PAC raised over $30 million from over 350,000 small donors to run ads, develop a powerful field program, and support progressive candidates from John Kerry on down. Eli graduated summa cum laude in 2000 with a B.A. in Political Science from Simon's Rock College. He lives in Portland, Maine.

Fred Spier is Senior Lecturer in Big History. As of 1994, he has organized the annual big history course at the University of Amsterdam, while since 2003 he has also taught the annual big history university lecture series at the Eindhoven University of Technology. First trained as a biochemist with research experience in plant genetic engineering and the synthesis of oligonucleotides, Spier subsequently became a cultural anthropologist and social historian. In this quality he performed a ten year study on religion, politics and ecology in Peru, which led to the publication of two books. Developing an overarching explanatory paradigm for Big History. In his article "How Big History Works: Energy flows and the rise and demise of complexity" (published in 2005 by the journal *Social Evolution & History*), the outline of an historical theory of everything is proposed, which should help to explain history at all levels as well as guide further research. An elaborated version of this argument will be presented in his upcoming book tentatively titled *Big History and the Future*.

Lynn Rothschild is responsible for the overall management of Investigation 6 - Planetary Pioneers, and participates in efforts to identify new model organisms, performing the initial tests for UV and desiccation resistance, and mechanisms of resistance. She will also be involved in various EPO activities and co-organizing the Stanford Astrobiology and Space Exploration course.

Astronomer Jill Tarter is Director of the Institute's Center for SETI Research, and also holder of the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI. She is one of the few researchers to have devoted her career to hunting for signs of sentient beings elsewhere, and there are few aspects of this field that have not been affected by her work. Jill was the lead for Project Phoenix, a decade-long SETI scrutiny of about 750 nearby star systems, using telescopes in Australia, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. While no clearly extraterrestrial signal was found, this was the most comprehensive targeted search for artificially generated cosmic signals ever undertaken. Now Jill heads up the Institute's efforts to build and operate the Allen Telescope Array, a massive new instrument that will eventually comprise 350 antennas, each 6 meters in diameter. This telescope will be able to enormously increase the speed, and the spectral search range, of the Institute's hunt for signals. Indeed, being as much of an icon of SETI as Jill is, perhaps it is not surprising that the Jodie Foster character in the movie *Contact* is largely based on this real-life researcher.

Daniel C. Dennett, the author of *Breaking the Spell (Viking, 2006), Freedom Evolves (Viking Penguin, 2003) and Darwin's Dangerous Idea (Simon &Schuster, 1995)*, is a university professor and Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University. He was born in Boston in 1942 and received his BA in philosophy from Harvard in 1963. He then went to Oxford to work with Gilbert Ryle, under whose supervision he completed the D.Phil. in philosophy in 1965. He taught at U.C. Irvine from 1965 to 1971, when he moved to Tufts, where he has taught ever since, aside from periods visiting at Harvard, Pittsburgh, Oxford, and the cole Normale Suprieure in Paris. His first book, *Content and Consciousness*, appeared in 1969, followed by *Brainstorms (1978), Elbow Room (1984), The Intentional Stance (1987), Consciousness Explained (1991), Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995), Kinds of Minds (1996), and Brainchildren: A Collection of Essays 1984-1996 (MIT Press and Penguin, 1998). Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness*, was published in 2005 by MIT Press. He co-edited *The Mind's I* with Douglas Hofstadter in 1981. He is the author of over three hundred scholarly articles on various aspects on the mind, published in journals ranging from Artificial Intelligence and Behavioral and Brain Sciences to Poetics Today and the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. He gave the John Locke Lectures at Oxford in 1983, the Gavin David Young Lectures at Adelaide, Australia, in 1985, and the Tanner Lecture at Michigan in 1986, among many others. He has received two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in Behavioral Science. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987. He was the co-founder (in 1985) and co-director of the Curricular Software Studio at Tufts, and has helped to design museum exhibits on computers for the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Science in Boston, and the Computer Museum in Boston.