In an ever-changing societal landscape, these author speakers share personal stories, insightful reporting, and imaginative narratives to illuminate our world.
Ta-Nehisi Coates #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Between the World and Me and The Water Dancer
Dr. Thomas Fisher Emergency room physician and author of The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER
Leila Mottley Award–winning author of Oprah’s Book Club selection Nightcrawling and former Youth Poet Laureate of Oakland
Robert Baer Portrayed by George Clooney in the Academy Award-winning film Syriana, expert on American intelligence and the War on Terror
Moustafa Bayoumi Journalist and author of How Does it Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America
Dr. Uché Blackstock Founder and CEO of Advancing Health Equity, Emergency Physician, and author Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine (Jan. 2024)
Katherine Boo Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and National Book Award-winning author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers
Richard A. Clarke America’s first czar of cybersecurity and counter-terrorism, and author of The Fifth Domain.
Steve Coll Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, New Yorker staff writer, and author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S
Dr. Jennifer L. Eberhardt Award-winning social psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on unconscious bias
June Eric-Udorie Feminist activist, Editor of Can We All Be Feminists? and DEI Programme Manager for Flexa
Dr. Sheri Fink Pulitzer Prize-winning medical journalist and author of Five Days at Memorial, M.D. and Ph.D. from Stanford
Mohsin Hamid Bestselling author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West
Dr. Michele Harper Emergency room physician and author of the New York Times-bestselling The Beauty in Breaking
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi National Book Award-winning historian and New York Times-bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist
Daisy Khan Women's advocate, media commentator, and Executive Director of the Women's Islamic Initiative
Phil Klay U.S. Marine Corps veteran and author of Redeployment, winner of 2014 National Book Award for Fiction
Robert Kolker Award-winning journalist and instant #1 New York Times-bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road
Jason De León Anthropologist, professor, and author of The Land of Open Graves and Soldiers and Kings
Steve Lopez Author of The Soloist: A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
Amanda Lucidon Obama White House photographer, award-winning filmmaker, and New York Times-bestselling author
Sarah McBride Delaware State Senator, LGBTQ activist, and National Press Secretary for the Human Rights Campaign
Bethany McLean Vanity Fair contributing editor and co-author of All the Devils are Here and the national bestseller The Smartest Guys in the Room
Jenny Nordberg Award-winning investigative reporter, foreign correspondent, and author of The Underground Girls of Kabul
Eli Pariser Board President of MoveOn.org, Cofounder of Upworthy, and author of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You
Shaka Senghor Author of Letters to the Sons of Society and Writing My Wrongs and leading voice on criminal justice reform
Dr. Dana Suskind Pediatric physician and author of Thirty Million Words: Building a Child's Brain and Parent Nation
Victoria Sweet Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, prize-winning historian, and author of God's Hotel and Slow Medicine
Bina Venkataraman Author of The Optimist's Telescope, columnist at The Washington Post, and a fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center
Zachary R. Wood Former President of Uncomfortable Learning at Williams College, author of Uncensored, and free speech advocate
Lawrence Wright Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Looming Tower and staff writer for The New Yorker
C Pam Zhang Debut novelist of How Much of These Hills is Gold and National Book Foundation 2020 5 Under 35 Honoree