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Professor Wolbers received a B.S. degree in biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego, in 1971. He also received an M.F.A. degree from the same institution in painting in 1977. In 1984, he earned an M.S. degree in art conservation from WUDPAC. His research interests include work in developing cleaning systems for fine art materials, as well as microscopically applied techniques for the characterization of paint binding materials. Professor Wolbers has collaborated on research projects with The Getty Conservation Institute, Columbia University, and ICCROM in Rome. He has conducted workshops on his cleaning methods in Australia, England, Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Italy and various locations throughout the United States. In winter, 1991, he was featured on *Infinite Voyage*, and presented an interactive satellite lecture from the University of Pittsburgh campus. In 2000 he published *Cleaning Paintings: Aqueous Methods* (London), and has co-authored a chapter in *Furniture Conservation* (2003).

Christopher Hutton is a baritone with the Boston Lyric Opera. He recently performed the title role in Gianni Schicchi with Lyric Opera Theater at Arizona State University, and Marullo in Verdis Rigoletto with the Arizona Opera.

Timothy Long, of Muscogee Creek and Choctaw Native American descent, grew up playing many instruments in his native Oklahoma. He studied piano and violin at Oklahoma City University and completed graduate studies in piano performance and literature at the Eastman School of Music. He is a faculty member of the Aspen Music Festival and School and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Mr. Long is in his first season on the New York City Opera conducting staff and will be conducting Britten's *The Turn of the Screw *at the Stony Brook Opera. He will also be making his mainstage conducting debuts at Boston Lyric Opera in Rachel Portman's *The Little Prince* and at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis conducting performances of Rigoletto and Gounod's* Romeo and Juliette*. Mr. Long served as assistant conductor to Robert Spano at the Brooklyn Philharmonic for three years and has conducted three tours for Boston Lyric Opera-Opera New England as well as performances at The Juilliard School, Yale Opera, Stony Brook Opera, the Stony Brook Contemporary Chamber Players, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Brooklyn Philharmonic in a performance broadcast on WNYC.

Ann Parsons most recent book, *The Proteus Effect; Stem Cells and Their Promise for Medicine*, was a finalist for the *L.A. Times* Book Prize in the science/technology category. She is the coauthor of *Decoding Darkness; The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease*, as well as *Menopause*. From 1990 to 1998, she taught science writing in Boston Universitys graduate program in science journalism. Her articles have appeared in *The San Diego Union-Tribune*, *The New York Times*, *The Boston Globe*, *The Boston Herald*, *Harvard Health Letter*, *McCall's, Boston Review*, the journal *Cell*, and many other publications. A member of the National Association of Science Writers, she headed its New England chapter from 1995 to 1999. She currently resides in South Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

Paul Lerou, MD, is Instructor in Pediatrics (HMS) and Newborn Medicine (BWH) at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His research interests include derivation of human pluripotent stem cells and pre-implanation embryonic development. Specifically, he is interested in studying the maintenance of genomic stability in human pluripotent stem cells. His lab is developing both live and fixed cell imaging techniques to study mitotic progression. They are also collaborating with Andrea Ballabeni, post-doctoral fellow in Marc Kirschener's lab, to perform biomolecular analysis of the pluripotent stem cell cycle.

Dr. Laurence Dahron earned a master's degree in cell biology from the University of Rennes (France), and a PhD from the University of Poitiers (France). As a post-doctoral fellow, she studied chronic myelogenous leukemia in Dr. Calabrettas lab, at Jefferson University, Philadelphia (USA). In 2001, Dr. Dahron joined Dr. George Daleys lab at the Whitehead Institute, MIT, Boston, a pioneer in Human embryonic stem cell research. There, she studied the molecular mechanisms of human embryonic stem cell self-renewal. In 2006, Dr. Dahron moved to the Center for Regenerative Medicine and Technology at Massachusetts General Hospital to launch a hESC core facility. In July 2008, Dr. Dahron was appointed director of the new Harvard Stem Cell Institute iPS (induced pluripotent stem) core facility. She works with the leaders in the field (George Daley, Kevin Eggan, Konrad Hochedlinger and Chad Cowan) to establish new disease-specific lines for distribution to the International Scientific Community.

Norman Cousins attended Columbia University. His journalistic career began in 1934, when he joined the staff of the *New York Evening Post*. The following year he moved to *Current History*, which first employed him as a book critic, subsequently as managing editor. *Current History* had its offices in the same building as the *Saturday Review of Literature*, and Cousins became friendly with members of its staff, notably Amy Loveman, Henry Seidel Canby, Christopher Morley, William Rose Benet, Harrison Smith, and editor George Stevens. In 1940 Cousins became the *Saturday Review*'s executive editor, and two years later, after Stevens's resignation, he took over the editorship and presidency.

Gyorgy Kepes, an influential designer, photographer, painter, educator, writer and aesthetic theorist, died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts at age 95. Mr. Kepes was best known as the founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, an organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology dedicated to creative collaboration between artists and scientists. Established in 1967, the center was the culmination of Mr. Kepes's long-held view that traditional art forms could no longer adequately speak to the problems of the modern world, a world too much conditioned, he believed, by chaos and alienation. It was a decade when many artists became intrigued by the possibilities of cross-fertilization between art and technology -- most famously Robert Rauschenberg and his Experiments in Art and Technology, or E.A.T.

Shearing was born in 1919 in the Battersea area of London. Congenitally blind, he was the youngest of nine children. His father delivered coal and his mother cleaned trains at night after caring for the children during the day. His only formal musical education consisted of four years of study at the Linden Lodge School for the Blind. While his talent won him a number of university scholarships, he was forced to refuse them in favor of a more financially productive pursuit playing piano in a neighborhood pub for the handsome salary of $5 a week! Shearing joined an all-blind band in the 1930's. At that time he developed a friendship with the noted jazz critic and author, Leonard Feather. Through this contact, he made his first appearance on BBC radio. In 1947, Mr. Shearing moved to America, where he spent two years establishing his fame on this side of the Atlantic. The Shearing Sound commanded national attention when, in 1949, he gathered a quintet to record *September in the Rain* for MGM. The record was an overnight success and sold 900,000 copies. His U.S. reputation was permanently established when he was booked into Birdland, the legendary jazz spot in New York. Since then, he has become one of the country's most popular performing and recording artist. In 1982 and 1983 he won Grammy Awards with recordings he made with Mel Torme. Mr. Shearing was the subject of an hour-long television documentary entitled The Shearing Touch presented on the Southbank Show with Melvyn Bragg on ITV in the UK. Three presidents have invited Mr. Shearing to play at the White House.. Ford, Carter and Reagan. He performed at the Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. He is a member of the Friars Club and the Lotos Club in New York and the Bohemian Club in San Francisco. His awards and honors are many. In May 1975, he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from Westminster College in Salt Lake City. In May of 1994, Hamilton College in upstate New York awarded him another honorary doctorate in music. DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana presented him with an honorary doctorate of music on June 1, 2002. He received the prestigious Horatio Alger Award for Distinguished Americans in 1978 and a community recreational facility in Battersea, south London, was named the George Shearing Centre in his honor. In May of 1993, he was presented with the British equivalent of the Grammy, the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement. In June of 1996, Mr. Shearing was included in the Queen's Birthday Honors List and on November 26, 1996 he was invested by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his service to music and Anglo-US relations. He was presented the first American Music Award by the National Arts Club, New York City, in March of 1998. Mr. Shearing's biography, *Lullaby of Birdland*, published by Continuum, was released February 2005. In conjunction with the autobiography release Concord Records released a composite of Shearing recordings in a 2-CD set entitled *Lullabies of Birdland.: A Musical Autobiography* which was immediately followed up with *Hopeless Romantics* with Michael Feinstein. Concord then released the collectors set Mel Torme & George Shearing *The Concord Years*. Mr. Shearing's popularity continues to rise.