Marcia Bjornerud  is a structural geologist whose research focuses on the physics of earthquakes and mountain building. Bjornerud is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Oslo, Norway and University of Otago, New Zealand. A contributing writer to The New Yorker, Wired, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, she is also the author of several books for popular audiences — Reading the Rocks: The Autobiography of the Earth (Basic Books, 2008); Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World (Princeton University Press, 2020) and Geopedia: A Brief Compendium of Geologic Curiosities (Princeton University Press, 2022). 

A.K. Burns (American, b. 1975) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator based in New York, born on the coast of Northern California in 1975. Using video, installation, sculpture, drawing, and collaboration, Burns explores systems of value and the body as a contentious domain wherein socio-political issues are negotiated. Burns has exhibited internationally including at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; MMK Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, Germany; FRONT International: The Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art in Cleveland, OH; The Harvard Art Museums in Cambridge, MA; and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art. Burns was a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters 2021 Art Purchase Program, and a 2018 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Interdisciplinary Art. 

Natalie Diaz is the author of Postcolonial Love Poem (Graywolf Press, 2020), winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, and When My Brother Was an Aztec (Copper Canyon Press, 2012), winner of an American Book Award. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a USA fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Diaz is the Maxine and Jonathan Marshall Chair in Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Arizona State University. 

Venus Williams With 7 Grand Slam titles, 5 Wimbledon championships and 4 Olympic gold medals, tennis champion Venus Williams is arguably one of the most accomplished and inspiring women in the history of sports. Beginning her rise to the top at the age of 14, Venus quickly took the world of tennis by storm, rising to the top-ranked position, breaking countless records, and winning numerous championships.