John Brown has been 10th Astronomer Royal for Scotland since 1995. Until 2010 he was 10th Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow University and is now Professor Emeritus and Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow working on comet-sun impact physics. Brown is also Honorary Professor at Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities. He has published around 300 research papers on solar flares, stellar winds, comet-sun impacts and inverse problems, and has held research fellowships in 17 institutions worldwide. In 2012 he won the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal for his solar research. As Astronomer Royal for Scotland, he gives frequent talks to a diverse range of audiences, often using conjuring to demonstrate phenomena, winning him a U.K. Institute of Physics Outreach Prize. He has wide interests in the arts and is currently learning alto sax. For more info, visit: www.johncbrown.org.
 

Daniel Chamovitz grew up in Aliquippa, PA, and studied at both Columbia University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received his Ph.D. in genetics. From 1993 to 1996 Chamovitz carried out postdoctoral research at Yale University before accepting a faculty position at Tel Aviv University, where he recently served as Chair of the Department of Plant Sciences. In 2002, Chamovitz was a visiting scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He is currently the Director of the Manna Center for Plant Biosciences at Tel Aviv University.

Early in his scientific career, Chamovitz was the first to clone a gene involved in the biosynthesis of beta-carotene. Later, he discovered the COP9 Signalosome protein complex that was proposed then to be a master regulator of plant development, and eventually Chamovitz’s lab was the first to show that the COP9 Signalosome is also essential for development of animals and is likely involved in a number of human diseases, including cancer. Currently, Chamovitz is developing and leading the new Program in Food Security and Safety at Tel Aviv University, and does pro bono consultation for governmental agencies on issues concerning Food Security.

Daniel Chamovitz has published numerous peer reviewed original research articles and is on the editorial boards of several scientific journals. He is also member of the Faculty of 1000, Biology. Chamovitz has been interviewed in newspapers and magazines around the world, such as The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Ha’aretz (the daily paper of Israel), and MacLean’s, and also on the BBC, NPR, and Australian Public Radio, to name a few, and has appeared on television news shows in Israel. He has given popular talks at venues such as the California Academy of Sciences, Harvard Arboretum, and Seattle Town Hall.

When not overseeing the research in his lab, Chamovitz is passionate about teaching, and especially in developing a modern undergraduate curriculum for plant sciences. He has been awarded outstanding lecturer at Tel Aviv University several times. He also volunteers as a teacher in a local junior high school, engages high school students about science careers, and lectures to groups about the role of Plant Biology in feeding a growing world. He has also been known to show up at obscure bars and clubs with a guitar in hand. Chamovitz lives in Hod Hasharon with his wife, three kids, dog and cat. He blogs about cool plants on The Daily Plant. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
 

Dr. Frank Close, OBE, is Professor of Physics at Oxford University and Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He was formerly Head of the Theoretical Physics Division at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Head of Communications and Public Education at CERN. His research investigates the quark and gluon structure of nuclear particles, on which he has published over 200 papers in the peer-reviewed literature. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and of the British Institute of Physics, and won the latter society’s Kelvin Medal in 1996 for his outstanding contributions to the public understanding of physics. Close is the author of many books including Antimatter (2009), Neutrino (2010) — short-listed for the Galileo Prize in 2013 — Nothing (2009), the best-selling Lucifer’s Legacy (2000), and most recently, The Infinity Puzzle, the story of the quest to discover the Higgs Boson. He is currently researching the life and work of scientist Bruno Pontecorvo, who disappeared into the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War in 1950. In addition to being a remarkable scientist, Pontecorvo may also have been a spy — the second deadliest in history, according to one U.S. government enquiry. That story will be told in A Life of Two Halves, to appear in 2014.
 

Ed Larson is a historian of science and scientific exploration. Recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in history and numerous other awards, Larson is author or co-author of fifteen books, including An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science; Evolution’s Workshop: God and Science in the Galapagos Islands; and Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. Larson’s articles have appeared in journals and publications such as Nature, Atlantic Monthly, Time, Scientific American, and American History. A popular public lecturer, Larson has taught at the University of Georgia, Pepperdine University, and Stanford Law School, and has appeared on the History Channel, PBS’s Nova and American Experience, C-SPAN, BBC, and The Daily Show. His course on the history of evolution theory is available from The Great Courses. Larson has traveled extensively on all seven continents and led educational tours throughout the Americas.
 

Alan Winfield is Professor of Electronic Engineering and Director of the Science Communication Unit at the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, U.K., and Visiting Professor at the University of York. He received his Ph.D. in Digital Communications from the University of Hull in 1984, then co-founded and led APD Communications Ltd., until taking up appointment at UWE, Bristol in 1991. Winfield co-founded the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and his current research is focused on the engineering and scientific applications of Swarm Intelligence. He is passionate about communicating research and ideas in science, engineering, and technology, and was awarded a Senior Media Fellowship in 2009. Winfield led the U.K.-wide public engagement project Walking with Robots, which was awarded the 2010 Royal Academy of Engineering Rooke medal for public promotion of engineering. His book, Robotics: A Very Short Introduction, was published by Oxford University Press in September 2012, and he blogs about robots, open science, and related topics at http://alanwinfield.blogspot.com/.