Notables and Influencers

Liz Ahn Toupin was one of the country's first Asian American college deans. Her career at Tufts spanned a tumultuous period of societal, educational and institutional upheaval.

Former deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

Borough president of the New York City borough of Manhattan who formerly served as a member of the New York City Council and as director of the Office of Federal Relations in the Dinkins administration, among her other positions in a long career of public service

Author of Gender Trouble, one of the most important works of philosophy and gender theory of the postmodern era

Artist, performer, and AIDS activist whose work helped create the first effective drug protocols to combat the syndrome

Photograph © Walter Kurtz

Principal design director for Xbox who is implementing a radical vision for Microsoft

Photograph © Chloe Aftel

Leader in the development of sustainable business models, brands, and social movements

AI Now Institute Art Fellow whose biotechnology art project, Lovesick, envisions love spread like a virus.

Feminist writer whose work was a lightning rod for the debate on pornography and censorship in the United States

Photo: John Cavanaugh

First United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues and former executive director of Global Rights

Leading American philanthropist and fierce advocate for research into the causes and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease

2019 TED Fellow and organizing director of Change.org and Coworker.org, transforming the way workers in today’s economy organize.

Cardiologist and advocate for women’s health, heart disease prevention, and diversity in healthcare.

Executive director of The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation, a philanthropy dedicated to improving the lives of patients and their families through nurse-led innovation, and a member of the board of directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose work fuses social justice activism with virtual reality technology

Trailblazing attorney who has spent a career working to highlight issues of gender bias in the legal profession.

Pilot who learned to fly during her freshman year at Bennington, graduated early to become a WASP in World War II, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2010

Founder of Voices UnBroken, a nonprofit dedicated to giving vulnerable young people opportunity for creative self-expression.

Composer, writer, and director who fashioned a unique style of socially engaged musical theatre

Photograph © Jack Mitchell (New York Times)

Founder and former head of school of the Northwest School who has been recognized as a Changemaker by Global Washington for her current work as executive director of the International Leadership Academy of Ethiopia

Founder of Bibeksheel Nepali, a populist political party​ founded in the wake of Nepal’s 2015 earthquake

A “legal rebel” and one of the architects of the SEC’s Whistleblower Program

Co-Founder and President of Resonant Energy, which brings solar energy to underserved communities. Fulbright scholar who studied biogas in China and recipient of Davis Projects for Peace Grant, with which he developed five urban biogas projects in Kathmandu.

Awarded Princeton-in-Asia fellowship to work on legal reform and energy issues in the fight against climate change with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. She now works for the NYC Compost Project 

Guggenheim fellow and professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at University of Texas at Austin

New Yorker editor, translator, and the public face of the secretive, critically acclaimed Italian author Elena Ferrante

Photograph © Peter Ross (Wall Street Journal)

Fulbright fellow who studies a form of 20th-century Mexican literary journalism, crónica urbana. Ph.D. Candidate in Comparative Literature at The Graduate Center of CUNY.

Won a Fulbright to bring worldwide audiences face-to-face with current Chinese culture-makers

Co-Founder and President of Resonant Energy, which brings solar energy to underserved communities. Fulbright scholar who studied biogas in China and recipient of Davis Projects for Peace Grant, with which he developed five urban biogas projects in Kathmandu.

Bessie award-winning choreographer and dancer who, in 1993, founded his own Burkina Faso-based troupe, Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dances with Western contemporary dance and is a central figure in the contemporary, emergent, experimental dance scene in Africa

Emmy, Tony, and Drama Desk Award-winning choreographer and director of musical theatre, film, and television whose work runs the gamut from performing in West Side Story on Broadway, directing Cindy Lauper and Rolling Stones videos, and choreographing numbers for Saturday Night Live

Lipp Family Director of Dance and senior lecturer in dance at Williams College whose choreographic work has been performed at Dance Theater Workshop, the Judson Memorial Church, Theater 4/Negro Ensemble Company, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, MASS MoCA, and venues in Nicaragua, Brazil, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago

Improvisational performer, choreographer, and Senior Lecturer Emerita of Dance at Middlebury College 

Former performer and associate artistic director of Elizabeth Streb’s Ringside company, known for its athletic, gravity-defying choreography, whose own Bessie award-winning work has been performed at Danspace, Dance Theater Workshop, and other high-profile venues

Photograph © Lois Greenfield

Winner of the Guggenheim and Doris Duke Artist Awards for her innovative dance performance and choreography

Renowned choreographer of works performed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the New York City Ballet

First Lady of the United States and a pioneering advocate for addiction treatment

Dancer, choreographer, and founder of Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, who is dedicated to including diverse communities as participants and audiences, developing teaching techniques to engage dancers of all levels and people of all ages and abilities

Leader in the field of explorative methods of dance-making whose career spans creating original roles for the Trisha Brown Dance Company in the 1980s to recent collaborative, durational performance installations that have been staged in the United States and Europe

Choreographer and award-winning filmmaker whose works have been shown nationally and internationally

Choreographer and visual artist whose recent show at The Chocolate Factory, Someone Once Called Me a Sound Man (2013), was named a Best of 2013 by Artforum magazine

Curator, producer, poet, choreographer, and performance artist whose works #negrophobia (nominated for a 2016 Bessie Award) and Séancers have toured throughout Europe, appearing in major festivals. Recipient of a NYFA fellowship.

Photograph © Umi Akiyoshi

Dancer who has performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, choreographed for her own company and independently, taught at universities and arts centers, and written reviews, features, and essays on dance for a variety of publications

Choreographer and MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient with commissions from many prestigious institutions

Director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and founder of the Next Wave Festival, which gave artists like Merce Cunningham and Twyla Tharp audiences long before they became American icons

Choreographer, performer, teacher, and recipient of the national Jacob K. Javits Fellowship in Dance, having trained and performed under the direction of American Ballet Theater principal ballerina Karena Brock Carlyle

Former principal dancer for the Bill T. Jones / Arnie Zane Dance Company and Bessie award winner

Photograph © Philip Habib

Former principal dancer and current artistic director of the Limón Dance Company​

Photograph © Martha Swope

Bessie and Alpert award-winning dance-maker, improvisational performer, and collaborative artist who developed an approach to real-time editing, “attentionography,” and performance she calls Tuning Scores

Co-artistic director of Bridgman | Packer Dance and 2008 Guggenheim Award winner

Former Chair of Dance at Bard College and choreographer and dancer at the Judson Dance Theatre

Member of Trisha Brown Dance Company in the 1970s, choreographer, former editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine, and author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer

Choreographer whose work has been seen at venues including Danspace Project, REDCAT, and The Getty Center and who has danced in the companies of Trisha Brown, Terry Creach, and Stephanie Skura

Bessie award-winning dancer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company

Guggenheim, Bessie, and Alpert Award-winning choreographer and dancer

2017 Guggenheim Fellow and creator of dances, video installations, and performance for The Kitchen, the Whitney Museum, and others. Recipient of a NYFA fellowship.

Member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, performing a vast repertory, originating several roles, and appearing in several of Cunningham’s works for camera including Charles Atlas’s film Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime in Dance

A former principal dancer at Twyla Tharp Dance, choreographer, and Guggenheim winner

Dancer and choreographer who worked with Andy De Groat, Bill T. Jones, David Gordon, and Wendy Perron and whose own choreography was presented at the Dance Theater Workshop and the 14th Street Dance Center in Manhattan

Bessie and Guggenheim award-winning dancer, choreographer, and videographer, and the artistic director of Cathy Weis Projects

Photograph © Richard Termine

New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow in Choreography and Bessie Award winning Performer for Sustained Achievement known for her longstanding work with some of the leading names in modern and contemporary dance, whose choreography has been staged at venues including Center for Performance Research, Dance Theater Workshop, La Ma Ma, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Museum of Arts and Design, and New York Live Arts

Actress, poet, and writer best known for her role as “Lady Aberlin” on the children’s television classic Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and more recently in movies including Dogma, Jersey Girl, and Red State

Award-winning actor who has appeared in some of Hollywood’s most iconic films, including Catch-22, Glengarry Glen Ross, Grosse Pointe Blank, Argo, and Little Miss Sunshine (for which he won a Golden Globe and an Oscar)

Chairman and CEO of Village Roadshow Pictures who produced The Matrix trilogy and other blockbusters

Photograph © Michael Lewis

The original Broadway Dolly in Hello, Dolly! and matchless actress, singer, dancer, and comedian with a thousand-watt smile

Artist, performer, and AIDS activist whose work helped create the first effective drug protocols to combat the syndrome

Photograph © Walter Kurtz

Ubiquitous stage and screen star who has appeared in everything from the cult classic Diner to the critically acclaimed Sopranos and now stars in the popular CBS drama Madam Secretary

Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor known best for his role as Tyrion Lannister on the hit series Game of Thrones

Screenwriter and television producer best known as the co-creator of the television series Huge

Stage, film, and television actor and director who is best known for his role in the Emmy award-winning Netflix series Orange Is the New Black

President of King Size Productions whose Hollywood producing credits include The Shawshank Redemption

Associate artistic director of The Public Theatre in New York City, former founder and producer of The Underwood Theatre, which supported new work from emerging playwrights, and former literary manager and resident dramaturg at the New York Theatre Workshop

Playwright and member of award-winning Youngblood writers group. Resident writer at the Flea Theater. Recipient of Seattle Repertory Theatre’s emerging playwright commission.

Curator, producer, poet, choreographer, and performance artist whose works #negrophobia (nominated for a 2016 Bessie Award) and Séancers have toured throughout Europe, appearing in major festivals. Recipient of a NYFA fellowship.

Photograph © Umi Akiyoshi

Founder of the Cleveland Public Theatre and winner of the 2012 Robert Bergman Prize

Longtime arts advocate and co-founder of The Chocolate Factory, an award-winning incubator of experimental performance in Queens, New York

Photograph © Cassi Alexandra

Actress best known for her longtime roles on The Wonder Years and The Bold and the Beautiful

Theatre instructor at Providence College in Providence, RI. As a playwright, has workshopped at Horizon Theatre Company and The Playwrights' Center. His play ZAMBONI received an Honorable Mention in the American Playwright Foundation’s 2017 Relentless Awards.

Leading figure in American theatre, former artistic director of Berkeley Repertory Theatre, and winner of a Tony award for outstanding regional theatre

Film director, producer, actor, acting teacher, and founder of New York’s Water Theatre Company who has overseen more than 20 stage and film productions

Choreographer of the original Broadway Hair and countless stage and film productions

The screenwriting genius behind the adaption of the bestselling Twilight saga and the hit shows Dexter and Jessica Jones

Photograph © Smallz & Raskind (Getty Images)

Founder and director of the Theatre of Witness, whose performance projects have given voice to prisoners and their families, survivors and perpetrators of abuse and violence, refugees, immigrants, elders, and those who have lived through war

Founding member of the Compass Players along with Alan Alda and Alan Arkin ’55 in the 1960s, and actress best known for her roles in Goodfellas and The Sopranos

Composer, writer, and director who fashioned a unique style of socially engaged musical theatre

Photograph © Jack Mitchell (New York Times)

Emmy Award-winning actress known for playing strong characters in shows such as Two and a Half Men and in her one-woman play, Ann, based on Texas governor Ann Richards

Actor, director, and screenwriter currently starring in the HBO series The Leftovers

Photograph © Smallz & Raskind (Getty Images)

Awarded Princeton-in-Asia fellowship to work on legal reform and energy issues in the fight against climate change with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Beijing. She now works for the NYC Compost Project 

Award-winning journalist, United Nations communications consultant, and author of The Oyster War 

Photograph © Patrick O'Connor

Leader in the development of sustainable business models, brands, and social movements

Named an “exceptional young scientist” for his work on the effect of climate change on invasive plant species

Environmental artist and Guggenheim winner whose work combines art, ecology, landscaping, and infrastructure

Journalist and bestselling author who has raised the American consciousness of how food gets to our plates

Professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst and senior investigator at Harvard Forest who studies plants’ response to climate change, invasive species, and other ecological threats

Professor of ecology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and director of the award-winning North Carolina Botanical Garden

Actress, poet, and writer best known for her role as “Lady Aberlin” on the children’s television classic Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood and more recently in movies including Dogma, Jersey Girl, and Red State

Former Editor-in-Chief of Ladies' Home Journal and current Senior Vice President of AARP 

Award-winning journalist, United Nations communications consultant, and author of The Oyster War 

Photograph © Patrick O'Connor

Author of Gender Trouble, one of the most important works of philosophy and gender theory of the postmodern era

Author of Off the Road: My Years with Cassady, Kerouac, and Ginsberg, and model for Camille in Kerouac’s Beat classic

Artist, performer, and AIDS activist whose work helped create the first effective drug protocols to combat the syndrome

Photograph © Walter Kurtz

Winner of the Man Booker Prize and National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award.

Published his first novel, Less Than Zero, while at Bennington, and went on to critical acclaim for books like American Psycho and The Rules of Attraction

Photograph © Jeff Burton

Essayist, poet, novelist, and recipient of the 2010 Henry David Thoreau Prize

Bestselling author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman, former executive vice president of CNN, and before that a key player in the creation of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and the 1966 Civil Rights Act during the Johnson Administration

Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of the poet Louise Bogan and the painters Jackson Pollock and Esteben Vicente whose writings on literature and art have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Art in America, The Nation, and ARTnews

Deputy curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, former editor of the European edition of TIME magazine, and author of I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World

New Yorker editor, translator, and the public face of the secretive, critically acclaimed Italian author Elena Ferrante

Photograph © Peter Ross (Wall Street Journal)

Practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and author of the critically acclaimed book of short stories, Scary Old Sex

Photograph © Dan Callister

Rare-book dealer who brokered the sale of important archives such as the papers of Norman Mailer and Don DeLillo and the Watergate notebooks of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

Photograph © Mark Mahaney

Introduced the world to Julia Child, James Beard, and Madhur Jaffrey as senior editor and vice president of Alfred A. Knopf

Photograph © Landon Nordeman

Curator, producer, poet, choreographer, and performance artist whose works #negrophobia (nominated for a 2016 Bessie Award) and Séancers have toured throughout Europe, appearing in major festivals. Recipient of a NYFA fellowship.

Photograph © Umi Akiyoshi

Poet, author of That Blue Repair, and chair of the liberal arts department at the Curtis Institute of Music

Writer whose work in many genres have won him spots on bestseller lists, a National Book Critics Award, and a coveted MacArthur “Genius Grant”

Photograph © Fred Benenson

Screenwriter whose many credits include Good Morning, Vietnam, M*A*S*H, and Monk

Scholar, writer, and biographer whose book Margaret Fuller: A New American Life won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize

Executive editor and regular contributor for Wine Spectator magazine

Investigative reporter, writer, and contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and other national outlets

Guggenheim award-winning poet, writer, and author of several New York Times bestsellers, including Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

Journalist and bestselling author who has raised the American consciousness of how food gets to our plates

Award-winning novelist and biographer of Georgia O’Keeffe

Photograph © Christopher Bierlein

Poet and essayist, and winner of the Guggenheim and a Whiting Writers’ Award

Photograph © Matt Valentine

Founder of Voices UnBroken, a nonprofit dedicated to giving vulnerable young people opportunity for creative self-expression.

Reginald Shepherd '88 was an American poet and teacher. His latest publication, The Selected Shepherd: Poems, appeared in 2024.

Founding member of the Compass Players along with Alan Alda and Alan Arkin ’55 in the 1960s, and actress best known for her roles in Goodfellas and The Sopranos

Poet and memoirist. Author of How to Say Babylon, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize in Nonfiction.

Writer for GQ, McSweeney’s, Jezebel, Vulture, and New York Magazine and the television series Sirens and Gracie and Frankie, who was declared one of the “funniest women on Twitter” by The Huffington Post

Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch and one of TIME’s 100 most influential people of 2014

Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

Acclaimed poet, co-founder with Allen Ginsberg of the celebrated Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, recipient of the American Book Award’s Lifetime Achievement and a Guggenheim fellowship, and chancellor of the Academy of American Poets

Former dance editor of The Village Voice whose writings about dance, theatre, and books have appeared in New York’s Metro and the Philadelphia Inquirer

Lead singer of the Grammy-nominated Spin Doctors, best known for their album Pocketful of Kryptonite

Photograph © Paul La Raia

President and CEO of the New York Philharmonic

Photograph © Mathew Imaging

Poet, author of That Blue Repair, and chair of the liberal arts department at the Curtis Institute of Music

Cofounder of Matador Records, the indie record label behind Liz Phair, Sleater-Kinney, and other music icons

Singer-songwriter and YouTube sensation whose “Song a Day” project has made him a media darling

The performing powerhouse behind Sylvan Esso and the folk trio Mountain Man

Executive director of The Rita and Alex Hillman Foundation, a philanthropy dedicated to improving the lives of patients and their families through nurse-led innovation, and a member of the board of directors of the Brooklyn Academy of Music

Jazz vocalist, improviser, composer, and originator of Embodied VoiceWork, a vocal improvisation method of music therapy which she teaches at The Experimental Theater Wing at New York University

Tony award-winning orchestrator for some of Broadway’s most innovative musicals, including Assassins and Next to Normal, and for films including The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tangled, and Chicago

Composer, writer, and director who fashioned a unique style of socially engaged musical theatre

Photograph © Jack Mitchell (New York Times)

Experimental composer and influential music theorist

Photograph © Rick McGinnis

Grammy-winning American composer hailed by The New Yorker as “one of the most successful woman composers of all time”

Opera singer who performed principal roles in many of the world’s leading opera houses, award-winning novelist, and producer and director of critically acclaimed theatrical productions

Former president of the New England Pediatric Society, fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and winner of the 2001 Franklin Rogers Award for her contributions to pediatric causes by the New Hampshire Pediatric Society

Staff software engineer at Raptive, where he is utilizing AI to build tools to help online creators grow their businesses to the next level. While a student at Bennington College, he won two Vermont Hackathons, developing apps to take on issues of student engagement and food access.

Evan Pugh Professor Emeritus and former chair of the department of biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State University and past president of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Chief of the Integrative Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

Principal design director for Xbox who is implementing a radical vision for Microsoft

Photograph © Chloe Aftel

AI Now Institute Art Fellow whose biotechnology art project, Lovesick, envisions love spread like a virus.

Named an “exceptional young scientist” for his work on the effect of climate change on invasive plant species

Developer at Boston-based market intelligence platform Crayon and scholar whose work focuses on behavior adoption— modeling the emergence of opinions with groups of people.

Physicist on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atom bomb, and later a committed Maoist

Carlos Mendez-Dorantes, PhD is a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on addressing the contribution of repetitive DNA elements—the genomic dark matter—to cancer biology and therapeutic responses. He obtained his PhD from City of Hope. 

Cardiologist and advocate for women’s health, heart disease prevention, and diversity in healthcare.

Computational biologist, artist, and programmer dubbed a “digital rock star” by The New Yorker. CEO and Founder of General Health Inc.

Director of the IDEAS Lab at UCLA and winner of a NASA competition to design habitation on Mars

Associate vice chancellor for technology management and corporate relations at UC Davis, with a background in Fortune-500, publicly traded, entrepreneurial, and startup companies

Pilot who learned to fly during her freshman year at Bennington, graduated early to become a WASP in World War II, and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 2010

Deputy director and principal research scientist at American Institutes for Research who has worked at the intersection of public health, prevention, and education

Composer, programmer, and host of the PBS web series Idea Channel

Photograph © Carolyn Cole

Neurobiologist named one of America’s “Innovative New Scientists” by the National Institute of Mental Health

CEO of Bocoup, a company that creates open tools and workflows used in the global marketplace

Liz Ahn Toupin was one of the country's first Asian American college deans. Her career at Tufts spanned a tumultuous period of societal, educational and institutional upheaval.

Founder of Protravel International and Travel Weekly Lifetime Achievement Award recipient

TECxTimesSquare board member and expert on “improvised careers”—nonlinear, multi-modal paths that help people succeed in the global borderless workplace—whose own résumé ranges from session musician to IBM executive

Author of Gender Trouble, one of the most important works of philosophy and gender theory of the postmodern era

Feminist writer whose work was a lightning rod for the debate on pornography and censorship in the United States

Photo: John Cavanaugh

Bestselling author of Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman, former executive vice president of CNN, and before that a key player in the creation of the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and the 1966 Civil Rights Act during the Johnson Administration

Practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and author of the critically acclaimed book of short stories, Scary Old Sex

Photograph © Dan Callister

Listed among the Best CEOs of the 2016 All-America Executive Team

First United Nations Independent Expert on Minority Issues and former executive director of Global Rights

Executive editor and regular contributor for Wine Spectator magazine

President of Marlboro College and a central figure in the Clinton White House in the 1990s

Trailblazing attorney who has spent a career working to highlight issues of gender bias in the legal profession.

Public health activist tackling reproductive health issues in Tanzania and Mozambique for leading NGOs

Founder of Voices UnBroken, a nonprofit dedicated to giving vulnerable young people opportunity for creative self-expression.

President of First Beverage Financial and leading investment banker who has honed his expertise in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, restructurings, and strategic partnerships in top positions at Peter J. Solomon & Company, Lazard, and Goldman Sachs

Founder of the Lab School, a groundbreaking program for children with learning disabilities, and a leading expert in special education

Founder and former head of school of the Northwest School who has been recognized as a Changemaker by Global Washington for her current work as executive director of the International Leadership Academy of Ethiopia

Founder of Bibeksheel Nepali, a populist political party​ founded in the wake of Nepal’s 2015 earthquake

Photographer for Newsweek, Reuters, and, for eight years, at the White House as the President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton’s official documentary photographer

Founder of the award-winning firm Alter Studio architects, and Wm. S. Marvin Hall of Fame for Design Excellence inductee. Leading educator and critic, and associate director of the Center of American Architecture and Design at the University of Texas at Austin

Executive director of Prospect New Orleans and former deputy director of curatorial programming at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Senior Curator, Medieval Art and The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

1958-2017

Executive director of The Bronx Museum of the Arts and co-commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale

Photograph © Heuichul Kim

Founder and artistic director of Prospect New Orleans, senior curator at the New Museum in New York from 1995 to 2006, and an independent curator whose work has brought to the spotlight some of the most inventive contemporary artists of the 1990s and 2000s

Artist whose paintings, drawings, and altered x-rays engage with American and European abstraction

Photograph © Paula Gillen

Artist whose politically charged works are in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and others

Photograph © Constance Kheel

Textile designer and artist who is assistant designer at Mara Hoffman, who has developed textiles for Pierre Frey, Liberty of London, and other brands

Award-winning architect whose firm, Desai Chia Architecture, was rated among the top 100 design firms by House Beautiful

AI Now Institute Art Fellow whose biotechnology art project, Lovesick, envisions love spread like a virus.

Principal designer for renowned architectural firm Michael Graves & Associates whose whimsical designs for fantasy pianos were published as a book, The Art of the Piano, in 2000

Dean of the School of Architecture and Design at the New York Institute of Technology, member of the prestigious College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the Rome Prize in Architecture

Executive vice president and chairman of the Americas division of Sotheby’s, an international art auction house, and former president of Christie’s Los Angeles

Pioneer of color field painting and one of the most influential artists of the past half-century

Photographer named one of the Best and Brightest by Esquire in 2003, whose work is in the collection of MoMA and has appeared in exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao

Photograph © Bernd Arnold

Associate Director of The Museum of Modern Art and curator of countless groundbreaking shows

Photograph © Peter Ross

Multimedia artist who creates sculpture, installation, performance, and video art that engages questions of race and gender, and director of the Rhinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art

Environmental artist and Guggenheim winner whose work combines art, ecology, landscaping, and infrastructure

Museum director who has held top positions at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, the Katonah Museum of Art, the American Federation of Arts, and, currently, at the Mystic Arts Center

Boundary-pushing contemporary photographer and critically acclaimed memoirist

Founder of one of the top U.S. art galleries, top-flight contemporary artists from Jasper Johns to Nan Goldin

Architect, urban design champion, and executive director of the citizen’s group, Municipal Art Society of New York City

Jonah Gabriel is the Founder and Creative Director of Real Good, an award-winning creative studio that creates digital and social content for brands such as Amazon, Cash App, Paramount, and BMW.

Abstract painter whose work held a prominent position in the 52nd Venice Biennale exhibition

Director of the IDEAS Lab at UCLA and winner of a NASA competition to design habitation on Mars

Poet, art critic, former senior editor at Art in America, and recipient of the Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government

Willy Wonka-esque creator of sculptural installations

Photograph © Arrested Motion

Bessie and Guggenheim award-winning dancer, choreographer, and videographer, and the artistic director of Cathy Weis Projects

Photograph © Richard Termine