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John Lester joined Linden Lab (the creators of Second Life) in 2005, bringing experience in online community development as well as a background in the fields of healthcare and education. Previously, John was the Information Systems Director for the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he pioneered the use of the web in 1993 to create online communities supporting patients dealing with neurological disorders. As a research associate in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, he also created online collaborative education environments for professors and students to advance the case-based teaching method in medical education. John leads Linden Lab's customer market development in education and healthcare. He acts as a strategist and evangelist for people using Second Life in teaching, academic and healthcare research, medical education, simulation, and scientific visualization. He also acts as Linden Lab's Boston Operations Director, having founded Linden Lab's Boston-area office and helping it grow successfully. John lives in Boston and is commonly referred to by his avatar's name in Second Life - "Pathfinder Linden."

John Underkoffler was born in Pennsylvania on June 30, 1967. He received his B.S. in media arts and sciences in 1988, followed by an M.S. in 1991 and a PhD in 1999 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). While completing his doctoral work at MIT, Underkoffler invented the I/O bulb, which lead to the development of the Luminous Room. Underkoffler saw the I/O bulb as a multi-purpose invention that would allow any architectural space to be used as a surface to display visual information. Underkoffler is best known for his invention of the gestural interface system called G-Speak, also developed during his doctoral studies. This is an interactive system were data is lifted off from the computer screen and transferred into real space. A similar interface system was developed for the film *Minority Report*, starring Tom Cruise, on which Underkoffler served as a technical advisor and the system, was used by Cruise in the film. G-Speak soon began to draw interest from such groups as Raytheon, who specializes in the use of technology in homeland security and defense for communication and intelligence systems. His work on Minority Report has lead to his involvement films like *The Hulk*, *Aeon Flux*, *The Island *and *Click*. In addition to his company G-Speak, LLC, Underkoffler also founded Imatex in 1990, co-founded Matter Group in 1999, and founded Treadle & Loam in 2000. Underkoffler has also published several articles on his work and participates in speaking engagements throughout the United States. His work can be seen in the permanent collection of the New York Science Museum and at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry.

Harvey was born in Cleveland, Ohio on November 16, 1941. Harvey's first publication was in 1946, a letter published in a children's column in the Cleveland Press. At Taylor Elementary School in Cleveland Heights, Harvey was appointed head of the school crossing guards, giving him authority over about 20 5th and 6th grade students. After three years at Roosevelt Junior High, Harvey entered Cleveland Heights High School, where he participated in a small research project measuring the levels of various nitrogenous compounds in the blood directed by Dr. Ethel Laughlin, a chemistry teacher. During the summers of 1958, '59, and '60 Harvey worked at Western Reserve (now Case Western Reserve) Medical School with Dr. Robert Eckel studying potassium transport in red blood cells. This led to his first scientific publication in 1960, and he has been studying red blood cells ever since. (And in 1982 he was elected to the Cleveland Heights High School Alumni Hall of Fame, an honor he shares with his two younger brothers Leonard and Richard). Harvey entered Kenyon College in 1959 and graduated three years later, summa cum laude and with Highest Honors in chemistry and mathematics. During the summer of 1960 he worked at Stanford in the chemistry laboratory of Dr. Carl Djerassi, a Kenyon alumnus and "discoverer of the birth control pill." Harvey was awarded an honorary D. Sc. degree from Kenyon in 1982 and since 1989 has served as a member of the Kenyon College Board of Trustees. Harvey received his PhD degree in genetics with Dr. Norton Zinder from the Rockefeller University in 1966; his thesis focused on a genetic and biochemical analysis of the three genes in the RNA bacteriophage f2. Then followed two years of postdoctoral research at the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology with Dr. Sydney Brenner and Dr. Francis Crick. He joined the faculty of the MIT Department of Biology in 1968. Harvey was promoted to professor in 1976, and in 1983 was appointed member of the new Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. His one "real" sabbatical was in 1977- 78 as a Guggenheim Fellow at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London with Dr. Robin Weiss. Harvey was on the Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He was on the Board of Reviewing Editors of Science and was Editor of Molecular and Cellular Biology from 1981 to 1987 Harvey has been on the editorial boards of a number of other journals, including the Journal of Cell Biology, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Nucleic Acids Research. He has served on advisory panels for the NIH, NSF, and American Cancer Society, and on the advisory boards of several institutions, including the Biozentrum of the University of Basle, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg (ZMBH), the Life Sciences Institute of the University of Michigan, and the PEW Scholars Program in Biomedical Sciences; he chaired the advisory boards of the Division of Basic Sciences of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute. Currently he is a member of the advisory board of the California Institute of Technology Division of Biology.

Whitehead Institute Director David C. Page has conducted fundamental studies of mammalian sex chromosomes and their roles in germ cell development, with special attention to the function, structure, and evolution of the Y chromosome. His laboratory recently completed the sequencing of the human Y chromosome in conjunction with the Washington University Genome Sequencing Center. Page is Director of the Whitehead Institute, professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1992, he founded the Whitehead Task Force on Genetics and Public Policy. He is also editor of *Current Opinion in Genetics and Development *and associate editor of *the Annual Review of Human Genetics and Genomics*. Page trained in the laboratory of David Botstein, at MIT, while earning an M.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Medical School and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program.

Mr. Stephen Connors is director of the Analysis Group for Regional Energy Alternatives (AGREA) at MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE). In July 2001, Mr. Connors became the coordinator of the Alliance for Global Sustainability's (AGS) Near-Term Pathway to a Sustainable Energy Future integrated research, education and outreach program. In this role Mr. Connors builds upon his expertise in integrated assessment research to develop and promote LFEE and AGS activities focused on how different technology and policy options affect long-term energy sector economic and environmental performance. In addition to these duties, Mr. Connors is also the MIT based co-director of the CMI Centre for Energy Security, along with Dr. William Nuttall at Cambridge University's Judge Business School.

Bilal is currently engaged in an entrepreneurial venture (GEO2 Technologies), after having spent time in strategic management consulting at The Boston Consulting Group. GEO2 is an advanced materials company, commercializing novel substrate technologies for filtration and other uses. He is one of the co-founder and am presently the VP of Product Development. Prior to BCG, Bilal received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Professor Mario Molina. His research focused on atmospheric chemistry, particularly the microphysics of the tropospheric inorganic aerosols, the fate of soot in urban environments, heterogeneous nucleation of particulates, cloud condensation properties of organics and soot, and thermodynamics of nanometer-sized organic and inorganic particles.

Barry Carr is currently Vice President of Alternative Transportation for Homeland Energy Resources Development and has been involved in the alternative fuel vehicle industry since 1989. He provides training, sales, marketing, public relations and representation for the natural gas powered Honda Civic GX. In the past, Barry has provided prototyping, engineering support, project management and field testing for several vehicle manufacturers, as well as state and federal agencies. Barry is a graduate of Clarkson Universitys Mechanical/Industrial Engineering Program, and lives in upstate New York with his family. Barry is also the Coordinator of Clean Communities of Central New York, part of the U.S. DOE Clean Cities Program.

Ed Burke is the chairman of the board of a gasoline and diesel delivery company based in Chelsea, MA. He started at his older brother Dennis company back in the 1960s when the company had only a handful of employees.