Danielle S. Bassett is the J. Peter Skirkanich Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with affiliations in the Departments of Bioengineering, Physics & Astronomy, Electrical & Systems Engineering, Neurology, and Psychiatry. She is also an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute.

Barbara M. Benedict earned her BA in History and Literature at Harvard University in 1976 and her PhD. in English at UC Berkeley in 1984. She holds the Charles A. Dana Chair of English at Trinity College, CT, where she has taught since 1984.

Lynn Borton is producer and host of Choose to be Curious a radio show on WERA-LP 96.7 FM in Arlington, Virginia. She was recently honored by Arlington Magazine as a 2020 Editor’s Pick for “Best Local Podcast.”

Susan Engel is Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Founding Director of the Program in Teaching at Williams College. She specializes in the development of curiosity, children’s narratives, play, and more generally, teaching and learning.

Ellen K. Feder s the William Fraser McDowell Professor of Philosophy and Social Policy. She works at the intersection of contemporary continental philosophy and feminist and critical race theory, particularly as these relate to matters of social policy.

Pam Grossman is the Dean of the Graduate School of Education and the George and Diane Weiss Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Grossman’s research focuses on the preparation of teachers and other professionals and issues of instructional quality, particularly in English Language Arts.

John L. Jackson Jr. is the Walter H. Annenberg Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Richard Perry University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice and Special Adviser to the Provost on Diversity at Penn.

Kristy Johnson is a PhD candidate in the Affective Computing group at MIT, where she works at the intersection of neuroscience, engineering, and autism. Her research focuses on science and technology to improve the lives of individuals with complex neurodevelopmental differences, especially those with nonverbal autism and intellectual disabilities.

Narendra Keval is a Psychoanalyst, Adult and Adolescent Psychotherapist, and Consultant Clinical Psychologist. He worked as a senior clinician with patients suffering from complex personality disorders in a range of NHS settings and consulted to organizations in both the public and corporate sector on issues of suicidal risk.

Christina León is Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University where she focuses on Latinx, Caribbean, and hemispheric literatures, in addition to critical engagements with feminist theory, queer theory, and performance studies.

Tyson E. Lewis is a professor of art education in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas. His research interests include educational philosophy, critical theory, phenomenological research methods, and aesthetics.

Amy Marvin is an independent scholar located just outside of Philadelphia. She received a PhD in Philosophy from University of Oregon in 2019, where she was a main co-organizer for the first conference on trans philosophy and taught several courses on Trans Studies, Trans Literature, and Trans Philosophy.

Helga Nowotny is professor emerita in the Department of Social Studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) and the President of the European Research Council. Nowotny researches primarily in science and technology studies.

Hilary Schor is professor in the Departments of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California. She studies contemporary fiction, feminist theory, and the widest possible range of Victorian literature, from serial fiction, narrative poetry, art criticism, proto-sociology, and urban history.

Arjun Shankar is an incoming Assistant Professor of Culture and Politics in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research draws from theories in globalization and development, digital and visual ethnography, critical race and postcolonial theory, and curiosity studies, with a focus on poverty alleviation efforts and the help economy in India.

Seeta Sistla is assistant professor of ecosystem ecology at Cal Poly. Sistla’s work—which combines biogeochemistry, microbial ecology, mechanistic modeling, and field studies—focuses on how soils, plants, and microbial communities respond to environmental change and how these changes can feedback to affect larger-scale ecosystem processes.

Heather Anne Swanson is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Aarhus University, where she also co-directs the university’s Centre for Environmental Humanities. For decades, Swanson has been intensely curious about Pacific salmon, especially and intersection of salmon and human worlds in Japan and the United States.

Perry Zurn is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at American University. He researches in political philosophy, gender theory, and applied ethics. Zurn is the author of Curiosity and Power: The Politics of Inquiry (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming) and the co-author of Curious Minds (MIT Press, under contract).