Ira is currently host/executive producer of Science Friday. He anchors the news/talk show each Friday, bringing radio and Internet listeners worldwide a lively, informative discussion on all things science. His most recent book,Present at the Future, includes some of his on-air interviews with famous scientists.

Lawrence is a world-renowned cosmologist who is Director of the Origins Institute and Co-Director of the Cosmology Initiative at Arizona State University. He is author of several books, including the best-selling The Physics of Star Trek.

Ms. Smart is interested in gerontology and U.S. senior demographics. She is currently a board member of the Beuhler Center on Aging at Northwestern University and previously served on the board of the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, an organization which creates, protects, and promotes more than 1,800 miles of public hiking trails. She currently is on the board of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago and the National Forest Foundation (NFF), which is the only conservation organization solely focused on addressing the challenges that face America's National Forests and Grasslands. In 2002 she was a founding board member of Alstrom Syndrome International. Mary is a board member of the Smart Family Foundation and has been with the Science Friday Initiative Board since 2004.

Rich is an independent consultant, with expertise in Information Technology and Radio and Television Production. Most recently he has worked on Federal Government contracts to provide Web and database support to the National Weather Service’s Environmental Modeling Center. Prior to that, for nearly twenty years, he worked at the Voice of America as Webmaster and Producer of Live Sporting Events coverage. He was the first long-term Director of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, also serving as its Producer. Following that he became Producer of Live Events for NPR. While in the U. S. Air Force he was one of a four member staff of the flagship TV station of the American Forces Thailand Network in Korat, Thailand.

Marilyn Hoyt is active speaking, writing, and teaching nationally and internationally. A national trainer for the Foundation Center, she also advises foundations and consults to Young Audiences, the national arts in education organization, and its affiliates. Recent articles include work for include work for Informal Learning Review, ASTC Dimensions, Indian National Council of Science Museums Propagationist, India’s Sanctuary Magazine, and the AAM Exhibitionist. She chairs the board of NewKnowledge, is Co-Chairing the Program Committee of Fund Raising Day in New York and serves as an Advisory Committee member for Chicago’s National Public Housing Museum and Columbia University’s Masters in Fund Raising program. Marilyn worked as a cultural grantmaker in the 70’s and 80’s, as a fund raising consultant with JC Geever in the 90’s, and was a 20 year founding staff member of the New York Hall of Science, serving as head of advancement, COO and CEO.

Best known for her roles on The Wonder Years and The West Wing, Danica is also a New York Times bestselling author, internationally-recognized mathematician, and advocate for math education. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in Mathematics, Danica has been honored in Britain’s esteemed Journal of Physics and the New York Times for her work in mathematics, most notably for her role as co-author of a ground-breaking mathematical physics theorem which bears her name (The Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem). She is the author of Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail, Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss, and Hot X: Algebra Exposed.

Paul Raeburn is a journalist and blogger, and the author of three books, including Acquainted with the Night, a memoir. His new book, Do Fathers Matter?, will be published by Simon & Schuster for Father’s Day, 2013. He writes regularly for Discover magazine, and he is a media critic for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker. He has been science editor at the Associated Press and Business Week.