Erica Barnell
Four Letters Between You and Cancer
Dr. Erica Barnell, MD/PhD is a physician-scientist, entrepreneur, and nationally recognized leader in gastrointestinal diagnostics, working at the intersection of medicine, molecular biology, and preventive health. She trained at Washington University School of Medicine, where she earned both her MD and PhD, and has spent more than a decade focused on translational research aimed at improving early disease detection and long-term health outcomes. Her career spans discovery science, clinical validation, regulatory strategy, and commercialization, providing a rare, end-to-end perspective on how biomedical innovation reaches patients.
pierre Paul
Good Intentions ≠ Good Inventions: Rethinking How We Design Accessibility
Pierre Paul is a PhD student in Disability Studies, a public entrepreneur, and a founder and CEO. Pierre brings a combination of lived experience, academic rigor, and practical innovation to his approach for accessibility not as a feature or a checklist, but as essential infrastructure for a just society.
John Ahn
Too Small to See, Too Dangerous to Ignore: Micro- and Nanoplastics
John Ahn, PhD, MBA, is an expert in bridging science and business, with a proven track record of launching startups, forging strategic alliances, and advancing research from concept to market across agriculture, biotechnology, chemicals, energy, and materials science. Dr. Ahn serves as a Scientific Advisor to the ALLATRA Global Research Center, contributing to interdisciplinary research on climate, geodynamics, and the environment. As a science communicator, Dr. Ahn is committed to raising awareness of emerging global challenges through documentaries and public presentations.
Alison Huckenpahler
From Symptom to Solution: the Untapped Power of Sleep in Depression
As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Dr. Huckenpahler treats people with depression, focusing on the link between sleep and depression and designs clinical trials that test sleep-based interventions as treatments for depression. Her work asks whether changing sleep—its timing, depth, or stability—can help the brain recover in ways medications alone sometimes cannot. Instead of treating sleep as something that passively reflects mental health, she treats it as something that can actively shape it.
stephen hupp
Boost Critical Thinking with Strange Games
Stephen Hupp, PhD, is the executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the editor of Skeptical Inquirer: The Magazine for Science and Reason. He is also a psychology professor at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His edited books include Investigating Pop Psychology (with Richard Wiseman), Investigating Clinical Psychology (with Jonathan Stea), Science-Based Therapy (with David Tolin), and Pseudoscience in Therapy: A Skeptical Field Guide (with Cara Santa Maria)
Lou Bopp
Lou Bopp is a photographer of presence - and absence.
As the photographer featured in the Oscar®-winning All the Empty Rooms, a seven-year project with Steve Hartman documenting the bedrooms of children lost to school shootings, his work reveals what words cannot - inviting us to sit with memory, absence, and the quiet weight of what remains.
During this interview, Lou will offer a powerful reminder: sometimes the most important stories are the ones shaped by absence - and whether we’re willing to truly see.
KMoney
Kristen Harris also known as KMoney the Poet is an award winning spoken word artist, writer, author, model and public speaker.
KMoney is a trailblazer in the poetry community and passionate about moving rooms, uplifting and educating through her poetry. She will be sharing some of her custom spoken word poetry
Collective Motion
Entertainment, Dance
Collective Motion brings the stage to life through powerful choreography, storytelling, and artistic expression designed to move not just the body, but the mind and spirit
