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Michael Tlusty is the New England Aquarium's Director of Research. His research interests include Aquaculture, and the integration of new technological advanced into current production scenarios, analysis of disease looking at changes in host susceptibility as a result of changes in the environment, the production of fish for the pet trade, and leveraging large companies to improve the ecological footprint of seafood production. His research projects have included studying the influence of increased temperature on the onset of shell disease in American lobsters; rearing marine ornamental fish with extended larval periods; ecological and economic sustainability of freshwater ornamental fisheries, and advisory services to improve environmental friendliness of aquacultured produced seafood products.

researcher, Whitehead Institute

Regeneration of tissues and organs is one of the great unsolved mysteries of biology. Whitehead Member Peter W. Reddien works to shed light on that mystery through research on the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea, a flatworm with regenerative powers that have captured the imagination of biologists for more than a century. Reddien is working to create a body of knowledge and research tools that will establish the planarian as a model organism with which to study the molecular genetics of regeneration. He and co-workers recently developed methods for high-throughput RNA interference (RNAi), which employs customized RNAs to silence production of proteins from a given gene. Exploiting these methods, Reddien then led the first large-scale study of gene function in planaria, discovering multiple genes needed for regeneration. Reddien joined Whitehead Institute in 2005. He obtained his PhD in biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed his undergraduate studies in molecular biology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Eloise Barron is the director of Georgia Dept Of Education.

Alicia Erian is the author of a short story collection, *The Brutal Language of Love*. Her work has appeared in Playboy, Zoetrope, Nerve, The Iowa Review, and other publications. *Towelhead* is her first novel.

Brown started his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his younger brother during high school and college. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers University in 1955, he spent six months living in rural India where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959 Brown joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service as an international agricultural analyst. Brown earned masters degrees in agricultural economics from the University of Maryland and in public administration from Harvard. Brown has authored or coauthored more than 50 books. One of the world's most widely published authors, his books have appeared in some 40 languages. Among his earlier books are *Man, Land and Food, World Without Borders, and Building a Sustainable Society*. His 1995 book *Who Will Feed China? * challenged the official view of Chinas food prospect, spawning hundreds of conferences and seminars. In November 2001, he published *Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth*, which was hailed by E.O. Wilson as an instant classic. His most recent book is *World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse*. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including 23 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, the 1987 United Nations' Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "exceptional contributions to solving global environmental problems." More recently, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Italy, the Borgstrm Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and Forestry, and appointed an honorary professor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.