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Joan Blades Is a co-founder and board member of MoveOn.org. which has an online membership of over 3 million. On Mother's Day 2006 she co-founded MomsRising.org with Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner to tap the power of online grassroots organizing for mothers and families in the U.S.A. She is also the co-author of *The Motherhood Manifesto*, a member of the Reuniting America advisory board, a software entrepreneur, nature lover, former attorney/mediator, author of *Mediate Your Divorce*, artist, Sunday soccer player and mother.

John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Professor Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. He has published four books: Conventional Deterrence (1983), which won the Edgar S. Furniss, Jr., Book Award; Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (1988); The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), which won the Joseph Lepgold Book Prize; and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (with Stephen M. Walt, 2007), which made the New York Times best seller list and has been translated into seventeen different languages. He has also written many articles that have appeared in academic journals like International Security, and popular magazines like the London Review of Books. Furthermore he has written a number of op-ed pieces for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times dealing with topics like Bosnia, nuclear proliferation, American policy towards India, the failure of Arab-Israeli peace efforts, and the folly of invading Iraq. Finally, Professor Mearsheimer has won a number of teaching awards. He received the Clark Award for Distinguished Teaching when he was a graduate student at Cornell in 1977, and he won the Quantrell Award for Distinguished Teaching at the University of Chicago in 1985. In addition, he was selected as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for the 1993-1994 academic year. In that capacity, he gave a series of talks at eight colleges and universities. In 2003, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Peter Girguis grew up in Los Angeles and has been entranced by the oceans since youth. Girguis' research focuses on microbial physiology and the role that autotrophic microbes play in deep ocean carbon and nitrogen cycling. His research also focuses on developing new sensors for use in the deep oceans, and he is currently developing several new instruments for use at hydrothermal vents. Girguis received his BSc from the UCLA and his PhD from UC Santa Barbara. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and is currently an assistant professor in Harvard University's Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology.

Bill George is Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, where he is teaching leadership and leadership development along with several executive education programs. He is the author of a new best-selling leadership book, *Finding Your True North: A Personal Guide*. His previous two books, *True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership* and *Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value*, were also best-sellers. Mr. George is the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as President and Chief Operating Officer, and was elected Chief Executive Officer in 1991, serving in that capacity through 2001. Under his leadership, Medtronic's market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion, averaging 35% a year. Mr. George currently serves as a director of ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs, as well as Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, World Economic Forum USA, and Guthrie Theater. Mr. George received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, and his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar. He has received a honorary PhD from Georgia Tech and a honorary Doctorate of Business Administration from Bryant University. Mr. George was named Executive-of-the-Year by the Academy of Management (2001) and Director-of-the-Year by NACD (2001-02). In 2002 George was selected as one of "The 25 Most Influential Business People of the Last 25 Years" by *PBS Nightly News*.

Diana Henderson's areas of research and interest include gender studies, Shakespeare, early modern culture, modernism, and world drama. Her publications include the books *Alternative Shakespeares 3*, *Collaborations with the Past: Reshaping Shakespeare Across Time and Media*, *A Concise Companion to Shakespeare on Screen*, and *Passion Made Public: Elizabethan Lyric*. She is also an active participant in MIT's working partnership with the Royal Shakespeare Company.