Carl T. Bergstrom is a Professor of Biology at the University of Washington and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, best known for co-creating the wildly popular 'Calling Bullshit' course and book with Jevin West. A theoretical evolutionary biologist by training, Bergstrom pivoted from studying how information flows through genomes to exposing how misinformation flows through society - developing the Eigenfactor journal-ranking system, writing textbooks on evolution, and most recently launching a free 18-lesson AI literacy course already adopted at 130 universities. Part scientist, part data detective, part corvid photographer, he is one of the most prominent voices arguing that skepticism is a civic virtue in a data-saturated world.
Dr. Katelyn Jetelina is an epidemiologist, data scientist, and one of America's most influential science communicators. She founded Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) in March 2020 as a few sentences to update her UT Health students about COVID-19 - and somehow that turned into a 365,000-subscriber newsletter reaching people in 133 countries with over 500 million total views. Named a TIME100 Most Influential Person in Health, she translates complex public health science into actionable insights twice a week, covering everything from vaccines and bird flu to gun violence and federal health policy. She holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, consults with the CDC, and serves as an adjunct professor at Yale School of Public Health - all while raising two daughters and having visited 50+ countries.
Dr. Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical astrophysicist, science communicator, and author who holds the inaugural Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. Known online as @AstroKatie with over 400,000 Twitter/X followers, she studies the fundamental questions of how the universe will end - dark matter, vacuum decay, primordial black holes - and makes it all thrillingly accessible. Her 2020 book 'The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)' was a New York Times Notable Book. She publishes 'The Last Star' newsletter, co-hosted a podcast with John Green, is an instrument-rated pilot, and was name-dropped by Hozier in a Grammy-winning album.