October 3, 2015
Joshua Foer (b. 1982) is a freelance journalist living in Connecticut, with a primary focus on hard sciences. He was the 2006 USA Memory Champion, whichwas described in his 2011 book, ‘Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.’ Foer set a new US record in the ‘speed cards’ event by memorizing a deck of 52 cards in 1 minute and 40 seconds. His book describes his journey from participatory journalist to national champion mnemonist, under the tutelage of British Grand Master of Memory, Ed Cooke. Penguin paid a $1.2 million advance for publishing rights, and the film rights were optioned by Columbia Pictures shortly after publication.
Foer was born in Washington, DC to Esther Foer, Director of Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, and Albert Foer, the president of the American Antitrust Institute, an antitrust watchdog. He is the younger brother of former ‘The New Republic’ editor Franklin Foer and novelist Jonathan Safran Foer. Josh has organized several websites and organizations based on his interests. He created the ‘Athanasius Kircher Society,’ which had only one session, featuring savant Kim Peek and proto-astronaut Joseph Kittinger. He is the co-founder of the ‘Atlas Obscura,’ an online compendium of ‘The World’s Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica.’ He is also a co-organizer of ‘Sukkah City’ a Kosher architectural design competition, and Sefaria, a non-profit dedicated to building digital experiences and infrastructure for Jewish texts.
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September 22, 2013
Clive Thompson (b. 1968) is a Canadian freelance journalist, blogger and science and technology writer. Thompson graduated from the University of Toronto with majors in political science and English. He previously worked for ‘Canada’s Report on Business’ magazine and ‘Shift’ magazine, then became a freelance contributor for ‘The New York Times Magazine,’ ‘The Washington Post, and several other publications. He writes about digital technologies and their social and cultural impact
He started his science and technology blog, ‘Collision Detection,’ in 2002. Thompson lives in Brooklyn with his wife Emily Nussbaum who is the TV critic for ‘The New Yorker.’
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July 24, 2013
Kevin Kelly (b. 1952) is the founding executive editor of ‘Wired’ magazine, and a former editor/publisher of the ‘Whole Earth Catalog.’ He has also been a writer, photographer, conservationist, and student of Asian and digital culture. Kelly was born in Pennsylvania and graduated from Westfield High School in New Jersey in 1970. He dropped out of University of Rhode Island after only one year. He currently lives in Pacifica, California, a small coastal town just south of San Francisco. He is a devout Christian. He is married and has three children; Tywen, Ting, and Kaileen.
Among Kelly’s personal involvements is a campaign to make a full inventory of all living species on earth, an effort also known as the Linnaean enterprise. The goal is to make an attempt at an ‘all species’ web-based catalog in one generation (25 years). He is also sequencing his genome and co-organizes the Bay Area Quantified Self Meetup Group (a lifelogging organization).
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May 31, 2013
Kathryn Schulz is an American journalist and author, and the book critic for ‘New York’ magazine. She also wrote ‘The Wrong Stuff,’ a blog on ‘Slate,’ and contributes to the ‘Freakonomics blog’ at ‘The New York Times.’ Schulz began her career in journalism writing for the now-defunct ‘Feed Magazine,’ one of the earliest online magazines. From 2001 to 2006, she was the editor of the online environmental magazine ‘Grist.’ Before that, she was a reporter and editor for ‘The Santiago Times,’ of Santiago, Chile, where she covered environmental, labor, and human rights issues. She was a 2004 recipient of the Pew Fellowship in International Journalism (now the International Reporting Project), and has reported from throughout Central and South America, Japan and the Middle East. Schulz is a graduate of Brown University. Schulz was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and currently resides in New York state.
Reviewing her 2010 book ‘Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error,’ Dwight Garner wrote ‘Ms. Schulz’s book is a funny and philosophical meditation on why error is mostly a humane, courageous and extremely desirable human trait. She flies high in the intellectual skies, leaving beautiful sunlit contrails.’ Daniel Gilbert described her as ‘a warm, witty and welcome presence who confides in her readers rather than lecturing them. It doesn’t hurt that she combines lucid prose with perfect comic timing….’
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May 20, 2013
Michael Moss was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2010, and was a finalist for the prize in 2006 and 1999. He is also the recipient of a Loeb Award and an Overseas Press Club citation. Before coming to ‘The New Times,’ he was a reporter for ‘The Wall Street Journal,’ ‘New York Newsday,’ and ‘The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.’ He has been an adjunct professor at the Columbia School of Journalism and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons.
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March 18, 2013
Paul Krassner (b. 1932) is an American author, journalist, stand-up comedian, and the founder, editor and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ‘The Realist,’ first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey’s ‘Merry Pranksters’ and a founding member of the Yippies (Youth International Party).
Krassner was a child violin prodigy (and was the youngest person ever to play Carnegie Hall, in 1939 at age six). His parents were Jewish, but Krassner is firmly secular, considering religion ‘organized superstition.’
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March 10, 2013
Graham Hancock (b. 1950) is a British writer and journalist specializing in unconventional theories involving ancient civilizations, stone monuments or megaliths, altered states of consciousness, ancient myths and astronomical/astrological data from the past.
One of the main themes running through many of his books is the possible global connection with a ‘mother culture’ from which he believes all ancient historical civilizations sprang. Although his books have sold more than five million copies worldwide and have been translated into twenty-seven languages, his methods and conclusions have found little support among academics, his work being labelled ‘pseudoarchaeology.’
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March 6, 2013
Thomas Frank (b. 1965) is an American author, journalist and columnist for ‘Harper’s Magazine.’ He is a former columnist for the ‘Wall Street Journal,’ authoring ‘The Tilting Yard’ from 2008 to 2010. Frank is a historian of culture and ideas and analyzes trends in American electoral politics and propaganda, advertising, popular culture, mainstream journalism and economics. With his writing, he explores the rhetoric and impact of the ‘Culture Wars’ in American political life, and the relationship between politics and culture in the United States. Frank started his political journey as a College Republican, but has come to be highly critical of conservatism, especially the presidency of George W. Bush. Frank summarized the thesis of his book ‘The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule’ as ‘Bad government is the natural product of rule by those who believe government is bad.’
Frank was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1965. He grew up in a local suburb, Mission Hills, Kansas. Frank graduated from Shawnee Mission East High School. He later attended the University of Kansas. He also attended the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago, where he received a Ph.D. in history in 1994. He lives in Washington, DC with his wife, Wendy, and their children.
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January 28, 2013
Mary Roach is an American author, specializing in popular science. She currently resides in Oakland, California. To date, she has published four books: ‘Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers’ (2003), ‘Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife’ (2005), ‘Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex’ (2008) and ‘Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void’ (2010). Roach was raised in Etna, New Hampshire.
She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Wesleyan University in 1981. After college, Roach moved to San Francisco and spent a few years working as a freelance copy editor. She worked as a columnist, and also worked in public relations for a brief time. Her writing career began while working part-time at the San Francisco Zoological Society, producing press releases on topics such as elephant wart surgery.
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September 12, 2012
Hanna Rosin is an American Journalist. Rosin was born in Israel and grew up in Queens, New York where her father was a taxi driver. She graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1987. She graduated from Stanford University, and is married to ‘Slate’ editor David Plotz; they live in Washington, D.C. with their three children. She is a co-founder of ‘DoubleX,’ a women’s site connected to ‘Slate.’ She is also a writer for ‘The Atlantic.’ A character portrayed by actress Chloë Sevigny in the movie ‘Shattered Glass’ about Rosin’s colleague at ‘The New Republic,’ Stephen Glass, was loosely based on Rosin. Rosin has written a book based on her 2010 Atlantic story, ‘The End of Men.’
In the past she has specialized in writing about religious-political issues, in particular the influence of evangelical Christians on the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. She is the author of ‘God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America,’ published in 2007. Based on a ‘New Yorker’ story, the book follows several young Christians at Patrick Henry College, a new evangelical institution that teaches its students to ‘shape the culture and take back the nation.’ Rosin’s portrayals of the students are part of a larger attempt to chronicle the cultural and political history of the modern Christian right.
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July 30, 2012
Po Bronson (b. 1964) is an American journalist and author who lives in San Francisco. After attending Lakeside School in Seattle, he graduated from Stanford University in 1986 and briefly worked as an assistant bond salesman in San Francisco.
He abandoned finance to pursue writing, publishing short stories and eventually a comedic novel based upon his bond trading experiences. ‘Bombardiers’ was an international best seller in 1995.
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January 24, 2012
James Surowiecki [soor-oh-wik-ee] (b. 1967) is an American journalist. He is a staff writer at ‘The New Yorker,’ where he writes a regular column on business and finance. He was born in Connecticut but grew up in Puerto Rico. He moved back to Connecticut for high school. In 1988 he graduated from the University of North Carolina. He pursued Ph.D. studies in American History on a Mellon Fellowship at Yale University before becoming a financial journalist. He currently lives in Brooklyn and is married to ‘Slate’ culture editor Meghan O’Rourke. He got his start on the Internet when he was hired from graduate school by ‘Motley Fool’ co-founder David Gardner.
In 2002, Surowiecki edited an anthology, ‘Best Business Crime Writing of the Year,’ a collection of articles from different business news sources that chronicle the fall from grace of various CEOs. In 2004, he published ‘The Wisdom of Crowds,’ in which he argued that in some circumstances, large groups exhibit more intelligence than smaller, more elite groups, and that collective intelligence shapes business, economies, societies and nations.
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