TEDxBoston

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Alexander Wissner-Gross

  Dr. Alexander D. Wissner-Gross is a physicist, computer scientist, entrepreneur, and investor working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and the physical world. He is Founder and Chief Scientist of Physical Superintelligence (PSI), and has backed and advised more than 40 technology companies, both directly and through 021T and Reified. He co-hosts "Moonshots," one of the most-watched technology podcasts in the world, and writes "The Innermost Loop," a daily newsletter reaching nearly 100,000 readers. He is the author of Solve Everything and a contributing author of the New York Times Science Bestseller "This Idea Must Die" and the Amazon #1 New Release "What to Think About Machines That Think." His TED talks have been viewed over 2 million times in 27 languages. He has received 128 major distinctions, authored 24 publications, and been granted 26 patents. In 2003, he became the last person in MIT history to earn a triple major (Physics, Electrical Science and Engineering, and Mathematics), graduating first in his class from the MIT School of Engineering with a Marshall Scholarship. In 2007, he completed his Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard, where his research on neuromorphic computing, machine learning, and programmable matter received the Hertz Doctoral Thesis Prize.

• Alham Saadat

  Alham Saadat is a purpose-driven leader whose career has spanned biomedical research, ethics, public policy, and nonprofit governance. Much of her work has focused on the core question: how do we ensure that innovation serves everyone. A refugee from Afghanistan, she brings to her work a firsthand understanding of what access to education and institutions can unlock. She has built her career at the intersection of innovation, public service, and governance, translating between sectors that don't always speak the same language and helping institutions navigate complex challenges with both rigor and purpose. Her work is grounded in the belief that the next 250 years of American innovation will be defined not just by what we invent — but by who we invite to the table, and who benefits when we get it right.

• Amy Korté

  Amy Korte is an architect and President of Arrowstreet, where she leads the firm's multidisciplinary practice delivering complex projects across public and private markets, from aviation and transportation to mixed use, residential, commercial, and hospitality environments. Her work focuses on aligning design excellence, operational performance, and long term value by anticipating shifts in technology, climate, and social change to help shape the future of cities and communities. Arrowstreet integrates architecture, interiors, planning, sustainability, and experiential design to create places that perform at every scale, from infrastructure and buildings to the human experience. Through EDG, Arrowstreet's nonprofit design arm, the firm extends its impact through pro bono and community based work, reinforcing its belief that design is a catalyst for equity, engagement, and lasting social value. Amy is driven by work that bridges ambition and responsibility, creating projects that perform today while remaining adaptable for the future.

• Andrew Lau

  Andrew Lau is Co-Founder and CEO of Jellyfish, the leading intelligence platform for AI-Integrated engineering that helps more than 1,000 companies including DraftKings, Box and Blue Yonder leverage AI to transform how they build software. By combining the industry’s deepest engineering dataset with context-rich intelligence, Jellyfish helps R&D organizations understand what’s driving impact, adopt proven industry best practices, and make smarter decisions across AI adoption, planning, delivery, and engineering performance. Andrew lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife and two children. He holds a degree in Computer Science from MIT.

• Andrew McAfee

  Andrew McAfee is a scientist at MIT, cofounder of the generative AI company Workhelix, and the inaugural visiting fellow in the Technology and Society group at Google. His work investigates how digital technologies are changing the world, and what kinds of companies are best able to lead this change rather than being disrupted by it. His most recent book is "The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset that Drives Extraordinary Results." His previous books include "More from Less" and, with Erik Brynjolfsson, the New York Times bestselling "The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies." He and Brynjolfsson are only people named to both the Thinkers50 list of the world’s top management thinkers and the Politico 50 group of people transforming American politics.

• Balachundhar Subramaniam

  Dr. Balachundhar Subramaniam — known as Dr. Bala — is a Professor of Anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School and holder of the Ellison C. "Jeep" Pierce Endowed Chair of Anesthesia at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He is the founder and Director of the Sadhguru Center for a Conscious Planet (SCCP) — a research center at the intersection of contemplative science and brain health. His research spans perioperative brain health, the neuroscience of meditation, and the prevention of cognitive decline. His recent work, published in the journal Mindfulness, mapped for the first time exactly when the brain shifts during meditation — brainwave changes beginning within two to three minutes, peaking at seven. The findings were featured in the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Bala has led meditation sessions for 800 anesthesiologists at the Canadian Anesthesiologists' Society annual meeting, recorded a TEDx talk, and continues to build the scientific case that seven minutes a day — free, guided, accessible to anyone — can measurably change the brain.

• Brian Bergstein

  Brian Bergstein is a senior editor in Globe Opinion and the former editor of the Globe Ideas section. He previously was executive editor of MIT Technology Review, where he helped lead the overall editorial coverage. The publication was twice nominated for the National Magazine Award in general excellence during his tenure. He also oversaw big editorial packages such as 10 Breakthrough Technologies, 35 Innovators Under 35, and 50 Smartest Companies. In 2017 he conceived and edited a special issue on artificial intelligence. In 2017 and 2018 he served as the founding editor of neo.life, later called proto.life, a biotechnology publication begun by one of the founders of Wired. In 2019 he edited the anthology book “Neo.Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species.” Bergstein began his reporting career with internships at the Herald-Leader of Lexington, Ky., and the Jerusalem bureau of Reuters in 1994. After graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, he became a reporter for The Associated Press in Chicago and Springfield, Ill. He went on to several other roles at the AP, including national news editor, Silicon Valley correspondent, telecom beat writer, national technology correspondent, and technology and media editor. He was a 2004-05 Knight Fellow in Science and Technology Journalism at MIT.

• David Shapiro

  David Shapiro serves as the 14th President and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Boston, one of the largest private social service providers in Massachusetts, offering programs to improve community health, build bright futures, end hunger, and advance intergenerational belonging and community. He joined the YMCA on October 17, 2022. Prior to this role, Shapiro was CEO of MENTOR and before that, its Massachusetts Affiliate, Mass Mentoring Partnership, helping to lead the mentoring movement for over 20 years and driving relationship-centered solutions through cross-sector collaboration. He has held leadership positions with the U.S. Golf Association Foundation and the American Red Cross of Massachusetts Bay and serves on multiple nonprofit boards. Shapiro’s work has been recognized by organizations including the Social Impact Exchange, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and the Barr Foundation. He and his family reside in Boston, where he is a husband, father, mentor, and youth coach.

• Demond Martin

  Investor and philanthropist, Demond Martin is Co-Founder and CEO of WellWithAll, an innovative health and wellness company that pours 20% of its profits into health equity. Prior to becoming CEO of WellWithAll Demond was a senior partner at Adage Capital Management where he invested in the consumer sector for 21 years. Demond joined Adage after graduating from Harvard Business School and received his undergraduate degree in accounting from UNC Charlotte. He subsequently worked as the assistant to President Clinton’s White House Chief of Staff, Erskine Bowles. Demond and his wife Kia through their family foundation focus on erasing gaps created by racial and social injustice in the areas of education and healthcare. Demond serves on a number of non-profit boards including as a trustee at the Berklee College of Music, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Grammy Global Venture Board, and the Obama Foundation.

• Dennis Whyte

  A recognized leader in fusion research, Professor Whyte’s research in the magnetic confinement of plasmas sets us on an innovative and faster path to producing fusion energy. He has published over 380 articles on a wide range of fusion science and technology. He is one of the leaders of the SPARC project, a collaboration between Commonwealth Fusion Systems, which he co-founded, and MIT to design and build a high-field fusion device to demonstrate net energy production at commercial scale for the first time. Many of the technology approaches underpinning the high-field approach to fusion energy, including SPARC, were formed over the last decade in his MIT fusion design class: utilizing magnets from high-temperature superconductors, RF heating, demountable magnets for modular assembly and maintenance, and liquid immersion blankets for robust energy removal. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, has served on committees for the National Academies and Royal Society, and has won the Fusion Power Associates Leadership Award and the 2013 Nuclear Fusion Prize. He previously served as Department Head of Nuclear Science and Engineering and Director of the Plasma Science & Fusion Center, both at MIT.

• Emily Capodilupo

  Emily Capodilupo is the Senior Vice President of Research, Algorithms, and Data at WHOOP and the architect of the scientific and AI platform that powers personalized health insights for millions of members worldwide. A recognized leader in wearable technology, digital health, and artificial intelligence, she leads the multidisciplinary teams advancing groundbreaking research, clinical innovation, and machine learning systems that are shaping the future of human performance and personalized medicine.

• Eric Rosenthal

  Eric S. Rosenthal, MD, is Director of Digital and Intelligent Health for the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. His clinical and research work focuses on improving care for people with conditions of the brain, spine, and nervous system. His work spans digital biomarkers, collaborative data science, and monitoring-informed clinical trials that use EEG, multimodal patient data, and artificial intelligence to understand patients more fully, personalize treatment, accelerate discovery, and make care more present, trustworthy, and human.

• Jerren Chang

  Jerren Chang is the President & CEO of Partners In Democracy, a MA-based nonprofit empowering people with the knowledge, capacities, and relationships for civic life and renovating our democratic institutions and infrastructure to be responsive, inclusive, and effective. He is the co-founder of GenUnity, which supports the civic learning and leadership development of hundreds of everyday residents in Massachusetts communities and is now a core pillar of PID’s holistic democracy renovation strategy. He serves on the boards of the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance and Democracy House. Jerren’s journey to the pro-democracy movement was shaped by his time serving in the Chicago Mayor’s Office as an economic development policy staffer and working as a consultant at McKinsey & Company advising public and social sector leaders. He holds an MPP and MBA from Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School and is a graduate of Duke University.

• John Werner

  John Werner is a successful serial entrepreneur, investor in technology startups and mentor. He has created a career out of bringing ideas, networks and people together to generate powerful results. John is a Managing Partner / Director and member of the investment committee at Link Ventures. Link Ventures raised $230 million in their LV4 fund and are working with early stage entrepreneurs to support their great ideas. Link Ventures is a Venture Capital firm established in 2006 that invests in disruptive consumer internet technology companies that leverage consumer data to help them differentiate, scale, and become profitable. Link Ventures is a different type of VC. Before joining Link Ventures, John’s deep curiosity and penchant for problem-solving led him to a diverse set of roles spanning many fields and interests. Previously, John was a VP at Meta, a Y Combinator augmented reality startup based in Silicon Valley. John’s also served as the Head of Innovation and New Ventures at the MIT's Camera Culture Group, and the Managing Director of Emerging Worlds SIG, where he led the launch of collaborative innovation centers in Mumbai, Nashik, and Hyderabad. John also channels his passion and curiosity into cultivating platforms for thought and exchange. John is the Founder & CEO of Ideas in Action which produces Imagination in Action, which takes place at MIT, Google & Stanford and the World Economic Forum. Ideas in Action Inc., is a non-profit that creates and produces TEDxBoston, whose talks have accumulated hundreds of millions of YouTube views. John also is the co-founder of TEDxMIT with Daniela Rus. John was also a founding member of Citizen Schools with Eric Schwarz and Ned Rimer, an advisor for Liquid.AI, Brelyon, Sublime Systems, Verijet, Bloomertech, PhotoButler, Vestigo Ventures and Founders Forum (Boston), a MIT Connection Science Senior Fellow, a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and a graduate of Hamilton College. In his free time, John is a passionate photographer and an accomplished triathlete. John and his family live in Brookline, MA.

• Jon Chesto

  Jon Chesto covers the leaders who shape Boston’s business community. He has been reporting on business and politics in New England for the past two decades. Before joining the Globe, he was managing editor at the Boston Business Journal. Prior to that role, he was the business editor at The Patriot Ledger in Quincy. His weekly Ledger column, “Mass. Market,” won several national awards with the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. A graduate of Wesleyan University and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, he has also worked as a business reporter at the Boston Herald and as a political reporter with Ottaway Newspapers.

• Joseph Aoun

  Joseph E. Aoun is the President of Northeastern University and the author of "Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence."

• Lindsey Butler

  Dr. Lindsey Butler, PhD, MSc is an environmental epidemiologist and climate leader specializing in the intersection of climate change and human health. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Boston Green Ribbon Commission, a non-profit that convenes Boston's most influential institutions to accelerate the city's climate action. She has held multiple climate focused roles in the public and private sector. She led Climate and Health Resilience at Blue Cross Blue Shield MA, who committed to carbon neutral and zero waste by 2030 and developed their first ever environmental justice community grant program under her leadership. She was the Deputy Chief of Policy for the City of Boston during the passage of the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance 2.0 (BERDO). She holds a PhD and Masters of Science in environmental health from the Boston University School of Public Health and an undergraduate degree in environmental science from Simmons University. She also serves on the faculty of the School for the Environment at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Butler is an environmental optimist, dedicated to harnessing the power of the private sector to advance climate action and protect human health and views sustainability programs as a strategic business advantage, not a cost center. With a passion for science communication, she is currently penning a series of children’s books on solutions to the climate crisis.

• Mark Inkster

  Mark Inkster brings to ALI global experience in the technology and consumer internet industries. Mark led the launch of Yahoo!’s web sites outside of the United States. He later moved to Shanghai to lead a large e-commerce company in China, eBay Eachnet. Mark subsequently led technology businesses in Asia across multiple industries, invested in and incubated high-growth startups, and served on boards in China, India, Indonesia and Singapore. While recognizing the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, Mark shifted his focus to climate technology and joined the founding team of Beam, Asia’s leading micromobility company. He also co-founded Asia Sustainability Angels, a Singapore based investment network.

• Marla Frederick

  Marla Frederick is a leading ethnographer and scholar focused on the African American religious experience. She became the eighteenth Dean of Harvard Divinity School on January 1, 2024. Frederick employs an interdisciplinary approach to examining the ways religion, race, and politics impact our everyday lives. Her influential scholarship is principally focused on the study of religion and media, religion and social activism in the U.S. South, and the sustainability of Black institutions in a “post-racial” world. From 2019 to 2023, Frederick served as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Religion and Culture at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology. She served on the Harvard faculty from 2003 to 2019, including as an assistant professor in the Department of African and African American Studies, with a joint appointment on the Committee on the Study of Religion. In 2008, she was named the Morris Kahn Associate Professor and then as a tenured professor in 2010. In addition to her faculty appointments at Harvard, Frederick served in a variety of leadership roles, including as interim chair of the Committee on the Study of Religion, a member of the provost’s academic leadership forum, and as director of graduate studies and chair of the admissions committee for the Department of African and African American Studies. She is the author or co-author of four books, including Colored Television: American Religion Gone Global and Between Sundays: Black Women and Everyday Struggles of Faith. As general editor, she is currently curating, alongside five co-editors, an encyclopedia of the histories of historically Black colleges and universities. She has taught courses on the anthropology of religion; religion, gender, and race; the African American experience; and American evangelicalism. Frederick was the 2008-09 Joy Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. In 2016, she received a Harvard College Professor Distinguished Teaching Award. She also served as president of the American Academy of Religion in 2021 and has been president of the Association of Black Anthropologists.

• Matt Quinn

  Matt Quinn is the Chief Technology Officer at CarGurus (Nasdaq: CARG), the largest online automotive marketplace in North America, where he oversees the company's engineering organization. Since joining in January 2022, he has focused on scaling the team and guiding the evolution of CarGurus' technology platform as the company builds out its end-to-end automotive transaction capabilities—and, more recently, leading the organization's adoption of AI to improve the buying and selling experience for both shoppers and dealers. Matt brings more than 30 years of experience in consumer web and software companies, with a track record of scaling technology organizations while building strong teams and culture. He spent the first decade of his career as a startup software engineer, playing a lead role in building the largest online healthcare provider network in the US and a first-in-class multi-channel customer support product. He went on to lead large development teams at Vistaprint, Amazon, and Audible. He pioneered Vistaprint's promotional products business and its digital services offerings, was a key leader on Amazon's Fire Phone team, and as site lead for Audible's Boston office led the teams that launched Audible on Alexa, Fire TV, and Kindle. Prior to CarGurus, he served as Vice President of Engineering at the small-business referral network Alignable. In 2023, Matt was named CTO of the Year by the Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) and joined the MassTLC Board in June 2026. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, and a Master of Science in Management from Emmanuel College in Boston.

• Nancy Oriol

  Dr. Nancy Oriol is Faculty Associate Dean for Community Engagement in Medical Education at Harvard Medical School and a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist. A pioneer of community-based care, she co-created the Family Van, a mobile clinic model that builds trust, saves lives, and has inspired programs nationwide. She also founded HMS MEDscience, a high school biology program using immersive medical simulation to ignite interest in science and medicine. An inventor and educator, her work spans the operating room, the classroom, and the streets of Boston’s most vulnerable communities.

• Neil Thompson

  Neil Thompson is the Director of the FutureTech research project, where his group studies the economic and technical foundations of progress in computing, and is cross-appointed at MIT’s Computer Science and AI Lab and MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy. Previously, Neil was an Assistant Professor of Innovation and Strategy at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he co-directed the Experimental Innovation Lab (X-Lab), and a Visiting Professor at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard. He has advised businesses and government on the future of Moore’s Law, has been on National Academies panels on transformational technologies and scientific reliability, and is part of the Council on Competitiveness’ National Commission on Innovation & Competitiveness Frontiers. He has a PhD in Business and Public Policy from Berkeley, where he also did Masters degrees in Computer Science and Statistics. He also has a masters in Economics from the London School of Economics, and undergraduate degrees in Physics and International Development. Prior to academia, He worked at organizations such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Bain and Company, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Canadian Parliament.

• Ofer Levy

  Dr. Ofer Levy was born to and raised by the artist Benjamin Levy and music composer Hannah Levy in New York City, where he graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. After graduating from Yale College (B.S., Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry), Dr. Levy entered the Medical Scientist (MD/PhD) Training Program at New York University School of Medicine. There he earned his PhD under the mentorship of Drs. Peter Elsbach and Jerrold Weiss, characterizing neutrophil-derived antimicrobial proteins and peptides. Inspired by his wife Sharon’s example, he chose Pediatrics and completed both residency and fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is currently Professor at Harvard Medical School as well as principal investigator, staff physician in Infectious Diseases and the Director of the Precisions Vaccine Program in the Department of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital. The Precision Vaccines Program is an academic program that fosters international collaboration between academia, government, and industry for development of vaccine formulations optimized to protect vulnerable populations. Dr. Levy’s laboratory is focused on modeling vaccine-induced human immune responses in vitro using a variety of platforms including three-dimensional microphysiologic systems as well as global molecular (“OMIC”) approaches to accelerate and de-risk development of vaccines optimized for populations with distinct immune responses, including those at the extremes of age who suffer the most infections. He currently leads or co-leads multiple NIH/NIAID-supported studies, including (a) Adjuvant Discovery and Development Program contracts, leveraging high throughput screening to discover, characterize, and formulate novel small molecule adjuvants to enhance vaccine responses of vulnerable populations such as infants and older adults and (b) systems biology projects via the Human Immunology Project Consortium and the Immune Development in Early Life (IDEAL) program to define biomarkers of vaccine responsiveness, respiratory infection and asthma. Funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the PVP is also leveraging systems biology to study vaccine safety. Dr. Levy pursues discovery and development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, influenza, HIV, RSV and pertussis as well as an opioid vaccine against fentanyl overdose. Dr. Levy serves on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) and participated in the Emergency Use Authorization and approval of COVID vaccines. He has given three TEDx talks and has often appeared in major media including BBC, CNN, FoxNews, Nature, NBC Nightly News, National Geographic, The New York Times, Scientific American, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife Dr. Sharon Levy.

• Otkrist Gupta

  Otkrist Gupta is currently Vice President of Data Science at Lendbuzz, focussing on deep learning with applications in finance and computer vision. He completed his Ph.D. at MIT Media Lab from camera culture group. His research is focused on inventing new algorithms for deep learning for health screening and diagnosis, hidden geometry detection, exploiting techniques from optimization, linear algebra and compressive sensing. He also works on designing algorithms for futuristic 3D projective displays. Before joining MIT Media Lab Otkrist worked in Google Now team where he built voice actions such as take a picture and what's on my Chromecast and worked on voice response quality from Google Now. He also worked at LinkedIn where he developed services such as Smart ToDo, Ultra fast auto-complete, Notifications and CheckIn platform. He completed his bachelors from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) in Computer Science with emphasis on algorithms and linear algebra. After graduating from IITD, he worked for one year in field of High Frequency Trading at Tower Research Capital.

• Rohit Prasad

  Rohit Prasad is senior vice president and head scientist for Artificial General Intelligence at Amazon. In this role, Prasad leads a team that is advancing the company’s generative AI technologies – including Amazon’s new state-of-the-art foundation models, Nova. Most recently, Prasad served as senior vice president and head scientist for Amazon Alexa, leading a multi-disciplinary team focused on advancing generalizable AI, combining the best of human-like intelligence with machine learning to accelerate the future of ambient intelligence – where the underlying AI seamlessly blends into your environment, connects heterogeneous services and devices, and adapts on your behalf to provide greater utility. His team’s product, engineering, and scientific advances have driven the adoption of Alexa by millions of customers worldwide, and made it easy for anyone to develop skills for Alexa or integrate Alexa into their device or app.

• Rosa Rios

  Rosie Rios was designated as the chair for the United States Semiquincentennial Commission in July 2022, following her prior appointment by Congress as one of the Commission’s 16 private citizens. From 2009 to 2016, Rios served as the 43rd Treasurer of the United States and just completed her term as a Visiting Scholar at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. She is most recently known for initiating and leading the efforts to place a portrait of a woman on the front of U.S. currency for the first time in over a century. Upon her resignation in 2016, she received the Hamilton Award, the highest honor bestowed in the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Rosie was the longest serving Senate-confirmed Treasury official beginning with her time on the Treasury/Federal Reserve Transition Team in November 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. Rios is a graduate of Harvard University and was selected as the first Latina in Harvard’s 384-year history to have a portrait commissioned in her honor. She currently serves on the board of American Family Insurance, Fidelity Charitable Trust, the Schlesinger Council at Harvard, the Advisory Committee for Artemis Real Estate Partners and was previously a Trustee with the Alameda County Employees Retirement Association (ACERA). Her personal passion includes EMPOWERMENT 2020, an initiative that facilitates the physical recognition of historical American women and recently launched Notable Women, a project with some folks at Google’s Creative Lab that uses Augmented Reality to teach kids about historic American women. She remains active in real estate finance and is consulting on several transformational projects in the Bay Area under her “RESCUE” initiative: Real Estate for Socially Conscious Urban Empowerment

• Sarah Whiting

  Sarah M. Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture, joined the GSD as Dean in July 2019. She is a design principal and co-founder of WW Architecture, and served as the Dean of Rice University’s School of Architecture from 2010 to 2019. Whiting has taught at Princeton University, the University of Kentucky, the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the University of Florida, in addition to Rice and Harvard GSD. She frequently lectures throughout the US and abroad, and regularly serves as a critic of architecture and urban design. Prior to founding WW, Whiting worked with the Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Peter Eisenman in New York; and Michael Graves in Princeton, New Jersey. She is an Associate member of the American Institute of Architects. Whiting’s research is broadly interdisciplinary, with the built environment at its core. An expert in architectural theory and urbanism, she has particular interests in architecture’s relationship with politics, economics, and society and how the built environment shapes the nature of public life. Her work has been published in leading journals and collections, and she is the founding editor of Point, a book series aimed at shaping contemporary discussions in architecture and urbanism. Whiting’s writings have been published in journals ranging from ANY to Wired, as well as in collections including Shaping the City, Mies in America, Six Authors in Search of an Architect, and An Architecture for all Senses: the Work of Eileen Gray. She edited Differences, a collection of essays by Ignasi de Solà-Morales and also served as reviews editor for the journal Assemblage from 1996 to 2001. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals LOG, The Plan, and Thresholds. Dean Whiting received her Bachelor of Arts from Yale, her Master of Architecture from Princeton University, and her Doctor of Philosophy in the History and Theory of Architecture from MIT.

• Scott Kirsner

  Currently growing InnoLead, a research and events firm focused on Chief Innovation Officers, Chief Transformation Officers, senior R&D execs, and intrapreneurs at large organizations who are responsible for making change happen. Follow us on Twitter (@innolead) or on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovation-leader I'm also a columnist for MassLive: https://www.masslive.com/staff/scott-kirsner/posts.html And a contributor to WBUR's Morning Edition broadcasts. On Bluesky, I'm @skirsner.bsky.social: https://bsky.app/profile/skirsner.bsky.social Co-founder of The Innovation Trail, a nonprofit that creates new ways to experience Boston's four centuries of breakthroughs. Co-founder and advisor to the Chatham Conference (www.chathamconference.com) and the Convergence Forum (www.convergenceforum.com). Editor of "The Convergence Guide to Life Sciences in New England." Author of "Fans, Friends & Followers," "Innovation Economy," and "Inventing the Movies." Speaker and moderator at events related to innovation, business, technology, and the entertainment industry, including the MIT R&D Conference Conference, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, New York Tech Week, AlwaysOn Venture Summit, CIO Annual Conference, BIO International Convention, Consumer Electronics Show, National Association of Broadcasters Futures Summit, South by Southwest, Churchill Club, and MIT Enterprise Forum. I've been a contributor to publications including the New York Times, Wired, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review online, CIO Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Salon, Variety, Boston Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and the Industry Standard. Specialties: Writing, editing, panel moderating, keynote presentations, on-stage interviews, event hosting, online video & webcasts, agenda development. [Some common mis-spellings of my name: Scott Kirzner, Scott Kirshner, Scot Kirsner, Scott Kershner, Scott Kersner, Scott Kerzner, Scott Kurzner, Scott Kirschner.]

• Serge Didenko

  Serge Vasylechko, who has also published as Serge Didenko Vasylechko, is a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital, where he develops deep learning methods for medical imaging. He advances physics-aware AI for clinical challenges in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and builds educational and community platforms to teach AI development skills. Concurrently, he is a founder and educator in the field of AI entrepreneurship, having co-founded the Sundai Foundation and holding teaching positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and INSEAD. Since October 2019, Vasylechko has been a postdoctoral research fellow in the Quantitative Intelligent Medical Imaging (QUIN) Research Group, which is part of the Computational Radiology Laboratory (CRL) at Boston Children's Hospital. His research focuses on generative modeling and representation learning for quantitative parameter mapping in MRI. He works under the supervision of Sila Kurugol and Onur Afacan, both Associate Professors of Radiology at Harvard Medical School

• Sharon Levy

  Sharon Levy, MD, MPH is a board certified Addiction Medicine specialist and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. She is Chief of the Division of Addiction Medicine at Boston Children's Hospital, past chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Substance Use and Prevention, past-President of the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA) and she serves on the board of directors of the American College of Academic Addiction Medicine (ACAAM). Over the past 20 years she has evaluated and treated thousands of adolescents with substance use disorders, and she has written extensively on the topic. In 2016 she established the nation’s first accredited Pediatric Addiction Medicine Fellowship training program at Boston Children’s Hospital. She has conducted research to develop and test tools for identifying and addressing adolescent substance use disorders in general medical settings, and she has expertise in the integration of substance use treatment services into pediatric primary care.

• Tom Grilk

  Long time corporate lawyer who became chief executive of the Boston Athletic Association and Boston Marathon in 2011, leading the organization through both very good and very challenging times. College at Cornell University; law school at University of Michigan. Married with wife and two children who are all more interesting than I.

• Valerie Mosley

  Valerie Mosley, CEO, Valmo Ventures Former Senior Vice President, Partner and Investment Strategist, Wellington Management Company Valerie Mosley created Valmo Ventures to advise and invest in companies that add value both to investors and society. She has invested in and advises Fundify, The World's Platform Connecting Startups, Investors & Advisors, Quantum Exchange, the first quantum computer in the US, STEAMRole a career networking platform, TEquitable, a confidential platform to address harassment at workplaces, and more. She also serves on the boards of Eaton Vance's Family of Mutual Funds, Dynex (DX, a NYSE mortgage REIT), NY Common Fund's Investment Advisory Committee and Progress Investment Management Company (a privately held Fund of Funds).

• Yvonne Hao

  Yvonne Hao joined Flagship Pioneering in 2025 as Chief Operating Officer and General Partner. In this role she leads key functional pillars that support Flagship and its ecosystem of companies, including HR and Talent, Legal and IP, IT/Digital, Communications, Government and Regulatory Affairs, and Facilities/Real Estate. Yvonne also contributes to strategic initiatives and serves on Flagship’s Resource Allocation Committee. In addition, she works alongside Flagship’s Growth Partners to help steward the firm’s later-stage companies, drawing on her experience in company building, operating, and investing. Yvonne was most recently the Secretary of the Executive Office of Economic Development for the State of Massachusetts. Prior to her role in public service, Yvonne has had more than 25 years of experience as a senior executive, including as Co-founder, Managing Director and Advisor at investment firm Cove Hill Partners and as an Operating Partner at Pillar Ventures. Previously, she was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of PillPack, where she led the company’s sale to Amazon in 2018. She is also a former Operating Partner at Bain Capital, where she held interim CEO and COO roles, served on boards, and worked closely with portfolio companies. Earlier in her career, she held senior leadership roles at Honeywell and McKinsey & Company. Yvonne has been a Board Director of companies such as CarGurus, Flywire, Gentherm, ZipRecruiter, and Bose. She also has been involved in the community, and was the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Beth Israel Lahey Health, and is a Trustee Emeriti of her alma mater, Williams College. She is also a member of the 2019 Henry Crown Fellowship at the Aspen Institute. Yvonne earned a B.A. in economics and Asian studies from Williams College and an M.Phil. in Development/Economics from the University of Cambridge.