Awele Makeba is a storyteller, teacher, actor, guest lecturer, and more.

Her bio on the TED 2012 Speakers A-Z list  says she is:

"a truth teller, an artist for social change: She researches, writes and performs hidden African American history, folklore, and personal tales. Her audiences grapple with the meaning of their own lives as they make meaning of past lives."

Kate Messner is an award-winning author whose books for kids have been New York Times Notable, Junior Library Guild, IndieBound, and Bank Street College of Education Best Books selections.

She believes in nature, art, magic, lake monsters, science, and the power of literacy to change the world. She writes books for people who also believe in those things.

Messner's book The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. was the winner of the 2010 E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers.

Abigail Washburn (born November 10, 1979 in Evanston, Illinois, USA) is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer.

She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet.

Washburn was born in Evanston, Illinois and spent her elementary and part of her junior high school years in a suburb of Washington, D.C.. 

Tali Sharot received her Ph.D in psychology and neuroscience from New York University and has a B.A in economics and psychology.

She is a faculty member of the Department of Cognitive, Perceptual, and Brain Sciences at University College London and a Wellcome Trust Fellow. Her scholarly research focuses on how emotion, motivation and social factors influence our expectations, decisions and memories.