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  • Stan Woodard is an artist living and working in Atlanta, GA. He works primarily with found materials to create installations and objects. Multimedia regularly figures into his installation work and he produces stand-alone multimedia, video, audio, and interactive digital works as well. Taking an archeological approach to found materials he often comments on the histories of places and objects. Woodard is a recipient of the KBFUS (King Baudouin Fellowship US) award. Woodard has been exhibited in Atlanta, New York, Hong Kong and regionally.
  • Penelope Prime has 30 years of experience studying and working within Chinese culture and the dynamic Chinese economy. After majoring in Chinese studies and studying Mandarin as an undergraduate, she earned a PhD in economics at the University of Michigan. She was one of the first US graduate students to do dissertation research in China after the two countries normalized relations in the late 1970s. In 2001, Prime launched the China Research Center. She is also on the Research Board of the India, China, America Institute, is one of members of the US based Secretariat of the West China Development Studies Consortium and she serves as a board member for the Georgia China Alliance. She serves on the editorial boards of China Economic Review and The Indian Journal of Economics and Business.
  • Ken Jennings was born in 1974 just outside Seattle, Washington, but grew up overseas. His family spent fifteen years in Korea and Singapore, where his father worked as an attorney. His only lifeline to American pop culture during those years was TV on the Armed Forces Network, where he watched *Jeopardy!* religiously after school every afternoon. He moved back to the States to attend the University of Washington for a year, and after putting school on hold for a two-year Mormon mission in Madrid, Spain, transferred to Brigham Young University in 1996. At BYU, he double-majored in English and computer science, and graduated in 2000. Ken was working as a software engineer for a Salt Lake City health care staffing company in 2004 when he got the phone call telling him that his contestant audition had been successful and he would appear on a June game of *Jeopardy!* Much to his surprise, Ken's *Jeopardy!* appearance extended beyond a single game in June: he took advantage of a recent rule change allowing Jeopardy! champs to appear on the show indefinitely, and spent the next six months hogging America's TV screens. Before losing on the November 30 show because he didn't know enough trivia about H&R Block, Ken won 74 games and $2.52 million, both American game show records. Following his Jeopardy! streak, Ken's product endorsements have included FedEx, Microsoft Encarta, Allstate, Cingular, and even his onetime nemesis H&R Block. He speaks about the importance of learning at college campuses and corporate events, and has co-invented two trivia games: the *Can You Beat Ken?* board game from University Games, and *Quizzology*, a CD trivia game from Major Games. Ken's 2006 book *Brainiac*, about his bizarre *Jeopardy!* adventures and about the phenomenon of trivia in American culture, was a national bestseller. His latest book is *Ken Jennings's Trivia Almanac*.
  • Glenn Richardson was born in Douglas County, Georgia, where he graduated from Douglas County High School in 1978. In 1981, Glenn earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Georgia State University and was a member of Georgia State University's first law school class earning his Juris Doctor in 1984. In 1985, Glenn joined the firm of Vinson & Osborne in Dallas, GA and made partner two years later. Now known as Talley, Richardson & Cable, Glenn continues to practice with the same firm. In 1989, he was appointed to serve as County Attorney for Paulding County and served in that position for 16 years. In 1996, Glenn became the first Republican from Paulding County elected to the Georgia House of Representatives since Reconstruction. In 2003, Governor Sonny Perdue hand-picked Glenn to serve as the Administration Floor Leader in the House and in November 2003, the Republican Caucus chose Glenn to serve as Minority Leader. He was elected to his seventh consecutive term in 2008 to represent House District 19. As a result of his role in securing Republican control of the House for the first time since Reconstruction, in 2005 Glenn was chosen by his colleagues to serve as the first Republican Speaker of the House in over 130 years. In 2009, he was unanimously elected to serve a third term as Speaker. Throughout his service to the state of Georgia, his colleagues, the media and many private organizations have recognized his commitment and dedication. The Republican Party of Georgia named him the 2003 Legislator of the Year. He was the recipient of the 2003 American Cancer Society Capitol Dome Award. The March of Dimes recognized him for providing extraordinary leadership in passing legislation to reduce the number of premature births in Georgia. Insider Advantage's* James Magazine* named him the 2005 Man of the Year. He was also the recipient of the prestigious 2005 Wayne Shackelford Award from the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and the James A. Coffman Award by the Medical Association of Georgia.
  • Khaled Hosseini is a novelist and physician from Afghanistan. He is currently living in the United States, where he is a citizen. Hosseini earned a Medical Degree from the University of California San Diego's School of Medicine in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Hosseini was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004. While in medical practice, he began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, which was published in 2003 and has become an international best seller. In 2006 he was named a goodwill envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. Hosseini has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan through The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The concept for The Khaled Hosseini Foundation was inspired by a trip to Afghanistan Khaled made in 2007 with the UNHCR.
  • Prior to joining the Pepperdine School of Law, Professor Larson was the Russell Professor of History and held the Talmadge Chair in Law at the University of Georgia. He received the 1998 Pulitzer Prize in history. Professor Larson specializes in law, science and technology, and health care law. The author of seven books and over sixty published articles, Professor Larson writes mostly about issues of science, medicine, and law from an historical perspective. His books are *A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800 (2007), The Creation-Evolution Debate: Historical Perspectives (2007), Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theor (2004), Evolution's Workshop: God and Science in the Galapagos Islands (2001), Sex, Race, and Science Eugenics in the Deep South (1995), Trial and Error: The American Controversy Over Creation and Evolution (1985, 1989, 2003 rev. ed.)* and the Pulitzer Prize-winning *Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion (1997)*. His articles have appeared in such varied journals as *Nature, Scientific American, Atlantic Monthly, Michigan Law Review, The Nation, Time, Wall Street Journal, Virginia Law Review, Christianity Today, Christian Century, Journal of the History of Medicine and British Journal for the History of Science*.
  • Rob Sheffield is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine. In addition to writing music reviews and profile stories, Sheffield also writes the Pop Life column in the Mixed Media section of the magazine. His work has also been featured in The Village Voice and Spin . A native of Boston, Sheffield attended Yale and the University of Virginia, and is six foot five. His first book, Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time , was released by Random House in January 2007. It received starred reviews in Publisher's Weekly and Library Journal
  • From 2001 to 2008 she was executive director of the non-profit she founded: Sustainable South Bronx - where she pioneered green-collar job training and placement systems in one of the most environmentally and economically challenged parts of the US. She is now president of her own economic consulting firm, a co-host on Sundance Channel's *The Green*, and host of a new special public radio series called, *The Promised Land*.