Dr. Emile Bruneau

Dr. Emile Bruneau is Director of the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bruneau received his BA in Human Biology from Stanford University, his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Michigan, and completed his postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at MIT. Inspired by his time traveling, living, and working in regions beset by group conflict, his research aims to use the tools of science to understand and transcend the forces in the human brain that drive hostility between ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Angela Guzman

Angela is a designer and entrepreneur based out of Silicon Valley. Over the last decade, she has worked for Google, Airbnb, and Apple where she has managed, led, and directly contributed to design teams that focus on user experience, interaction, and visual design. Angela is best known for designing the original Apple emojis. Today, she is the co-founder and CEO of Tijiko, her startup. When not designing, Angela loves to write about design matters, share her experience in the industry, and mentor budding designers.

César de la Fuente

César de la Fuente, Ph.D. is a Presidential Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is leading the Machine Biology Group to develop computer-made tools and medicines that will replenish our current antibiotic arsenal. Professor de la Fuente seeks to expand nature’s repertoire to build novel synthetic molecular tools and devise therapies that nature has not previously discovered. He has been recognized by MIT Technology Review in 2019 as one of the world’s top innovators for “digitizing evolution to make better antibiotics”. In 2019, de la Fuente was selected as the inaugural recipient of the Langer Prize.

Liana Finck

Liana Finck is an illustrator and regular contributor to The New Yorker. Her books include two graphic novels—Passing for Human and A Bintel Brief—and a collection of cartoons, Excuse Me. She is a recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. She publishes autobiographical cartoons regularly on her Instagram feed.

Marline Francois-Madden

Marline Francois-Madden is an award-winning therapist who specializes in working with adolescent girls and millennial women. Her best-selling book, The State of Black Girls, aims to create safe spaces for Black girls. She is a sought-after expert in mental health, trauma, self-care, and girls’ leadership. She was named by the White House as a Nominated Change- maker at the State of the Women summit during the Obama administration.

Billy Rosa

Billy Rosa is a speaker, author, and nurse practitioner specializing in palliative care and global health. He completed his palliative care fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and is currently a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Future of Nursing Scholar and PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. Billy has been named one of ‘America’s Most Amazing Nurses’ by Prevention magazine and The Doctors TV show and a Rising Star by Modern Healthcare magazine. He is the editor of three textbooks and dozens of publications in scientific journals and public forums.

Sonja Dümpelmann

Sonja Dümpelmann is an award-winning landscape historian and Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. Trees in cities and our relationship to them are the focus of her most recent book Seeing Trees: A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin (Yale Univ. Press, 2019). She is interested in studying relation- ships between subjects such as architecture and landscape; those in power and those subjected to that power; and social and political processes, scientific and technological accomplishments, and landscape transformation.

Thandiwe Abdullah

Thandiwe Abdullah is the Co-Founder of the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard and an organizer with the LA chapter of Black Lives Matter. At only 15, she has worked to conceptualize and launch the ‘Black Lives Matter in Schools’ campaign which was later adopted by the National Education Association. Thandiwe has also been named as one of TIME’s most influential teens, has collaborated with Yara Shahidi and Angela Davis on a documentary theater performance and has fostered significant global conversation in her writings for Bustle and Refinery29.

P. Michael Boone

P. Michael Boone (“P”) is a self-taught barber, entrepreneur, and advocate for underprivileged youth in his community. He founded the Haute Barbershop and the Junior Barber Academy, a youth-based program introducing the art of barbering to children. He also founded the P. Michael Boone Foundation, which is centered on bettering the lives of Philadelphia’s youth and families. Through his foundation, he has provided workshops, seminars, and free haircuts for the homeless. He has developed partnerships with Sneaker Villa, YMCA, Salvation Army, and the Philadelphia Police. P is also an author, writing and publishing his first book, Fred’s First Haircut.

Brandon Copeland

Brandon Copeland is an entrepreneur and a professional athlete. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Management and Entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. With his wife, Taylor, he operates two real estate companies and a nonprofit organization called Beyond the Basics Inc. Entering his eighth season in the National Football League, he has played for the Baltimore Ravens, the Tennessee Titans, the Detroit Lions, and is currently the starting linebacker for the New York Jets. He is Professor at the University of Pennsylvania of a course on financial literacy which he calls “Life 101”.