Marc Sandalow is a senior faculty member at the University of California’s Washington Program where he teaches about politics and the media. He is the author of three books, including “Madam Speaker,’’ a biography of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He has worked as a journalist for four decades, including 21 years at the San Francisco Chronicle, the last 10 as the paper’s Washington Bureau Chief. He is currently a political analyst for KCBS-radio, Hearst Television, and writes a regular column for the San Francisco Examiner.

Edwin Fu, Founder and CEO of Placements.io

placements.io

linkedin.com/in/edwinfu

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Amb. Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first 6 months of the Administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dr. Robert Pearl serves as a clinical professor of plastic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine and is on the faculty of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses on strategy and leadership, and lectures on information technology and health care policy.

He was the CEO of The Permanente Medical Group (Kaiser Permanente), the nation’s largest medical group for 18 years. In this role he led 12,000 physicians, 43,000 staff and was responsible for the nationally recognized medical care of over 5 million Kaiser Permanente members on the west and east coasts.

Dr. Pearl’s new book, ChatGPT, MD: How AI-Empowered Patients & Doctors Can Take Back Control of American Medicine will be published April 9, 2024.

Leading astronomer Andrew Fraknoi joins us once more on Grey Matter with Michael Krasny to talk about the upcoming April 8, 2024 eclipse. Your questions on it and on eclipses in general will be welcome as we discover where and how best to view the April 8th eclipse and consider ongoing misunderstandings and misconceptions about eclipses and their history. Join us with your questions!

Former UC Berkeley chancellor and Columbia professor Nicholas Dirks joins us to discuss freedom of speech and hate speech and Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia on university campuses along with a range of other issues including scientific cooperation with China; university donors and university ties to corporations; student loan forgiveness and increasing calls for free colleges and universities. Live and interactive. Join us with your questions and comments!

YouTube liaison and tech analyst and podcaster Rene Ritchie, who covered Apple products for twelve years, joins us for a wide ranging conversation which will include any questions you may have about becoming a YouTube creator as we find out all about YouTube's 2023 launch and new ways to monetize. You may also want to ask Rene questions about other areas we intend to cover, including video technology, encryption and Internet security, as well as Apple products and AI. Much to learn from Rene! Join us and join in!

Jane Wales is Vice President of the Aspen Institute and Executive Director of its Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation (PSI). The program works to inform and maximize the impact of social actors from the charitable and private sectors so that they can help solve societal problems and steward shared resources together. In so doing, these actors help build social capital and advance citizen agency, contributing to our society’s capacity to adapt, solve and self- govern. PSI enhances the efficacy of these changemakers and matchmakes among them through its leadership seminars for emerging non-profit leaders and social entrepreneurs, its consensus-building convenings of foundation CEOs and individual donors, its issue-specific philanthropy conferences and its work to advance transparency, including policies for making “open” the data generated by and gathered on the nonprofit sector. PSI’s thought leadership has focused on the nexus of civic engagement, citizen agency and democracy. A senior manager, Jane also leads a 12-program consortium of Aspen Institute programs that work to strengthen American democracy.

Joey is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Allbirds. He has long been passionate about making things from renewable resources. Prior to Allbirds, he spent six years at biotechnology firm, Terravia (formerly Solazyme, Inc.), leading its renewable chemical business, developing and selling high-performance algae-based chemicals into various industries such as CPG, personal care, and industrials.

Nolan Williams, MD, is an Associate Professor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. He has a broad background in clinical neuroscience and is triple board-certified in general neurology, general psychiatry, and behavioral neurology & neuropsychiatry. Themes of his work include examining the use of spaced learning theory in the application of neurostimulation techniques, development and mechanistic understanding of rapid-acting antidepressants, and identifying objective biomarkers that predict neuromodulation responses in treatment-resistant neuropsychiatric conditions. His work resulted in an FDA clearance for the world's first non-invasive, rapid-acting neuromodulation approach for treatment-resistant depression. He has published papers in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Medicine, Nature Mental Health, Brain, American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Kristina Dahl is principal climate scientist for the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. In her role, she provides scientific direction, strategic thinking, and technical and analytical expertise for the climate team as well as across UCS campaigns and programs. Dr. Dahl is also responsible for designing, executing, and communicating scientific analyses to make climate change more tangible to the general public, and to policymakers. Her research focuses on the impact of climate change, particularly sea level rise and extreme heat, on people and places. Much of her work involves spatial analyses and products, reflecting her lifelong passion for maps.

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Louis Ferrante is a former Mafia associate and heist expert who served eight years in prison after refusing to incriminate his fellow Gambino family members. His last book, Mob Rules (HarperCollins), was an international bestseller, and his Discovery Channel Series, Inside the Gangsters Code, earned him a Grierson Award nomination for Presenter of the Year.

Daniel Sokatch has served as the CEO of the New Israel Fund since 2009. During the past decade of extraordinary challenges, NIF has risen to new heights as the great defender of justice, democracy and equality in Israel.

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Born in 1935 in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, near Lyon, Pépin always found the kitchen to be a place of both comfort and excitement. He helped in his parents’ restaurant, Le Pélican, and, at age 13, began an apprenticeship at the Grand Hôtel de L’Europe. He subsequently worked in Paris, ultimately serving as personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle.

After moving to the United States in 1959, Pépin first worked at Le Pavillon, an historic French restaurant in New York City. From 1960 to 1970, he was director of research and new development for Howard Johnson’s and developed recipes for the restaurant chain. At the same time, he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Columbia University.

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Helen M. Blau, Ph.D. is the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor and Director of the Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University. Dr. Blau was born in London and is a dual citizen of the United States and Great Britain. She earned a B.A. from the University of York, England and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the Departments of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Division of Medical Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco, she joined the faculty at Stanford.

Dr. Blau is world-renowned for her early work on nuclear reprogramming and demonstration of the plasticity of cell fate using cell fusion. Her lab has embraced multidisciplinary approaches to characterize the potent muscle stem cell (MuSC) population that is poised to repair muscle throughout life. Blau’s innovation has led to 20 patents, garnered an NIH MERIT Award, an NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, an NIH EUREKA Grant for Exceptionally Innovative Research, and generous funding from the Li Ka Shing Foundation and the Milky Way Foundation. A major emphasis of her work is to promote healthspan through rejuvenation of muscle stem cells and tissues. A hallmark of her work is the development of interdisciplinary technologies that enable novel fundamental insights.

Howard Schatz has received international acclaim for his work and is one of the most sought-after photographers working today.  Over 30 years, 23 books have been published of his work. His most recent books, Pairs, was just published. His book, Kink, was focused on San Francisco’s annual Folsom Street Fair. Pairs and Kink  follow on the heels of a magnificent 2-volume retrospective: Schatz Images: 25 Years. Others include:  Caught in the Act: Actors Acting;  AT THE FIGHTS: Inside the World of Professional Boxing; NudeBodyNude;  and three landmark books of underwater imagery: H20, Pool Light and WaterDance. He has won virtually every award in photography and has had over 100 museum and gallery exhibitions worldwide.

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Over the past 45+ years, Dr. Ken Dychtwald has emerged as North America’s foremost visionary and original thinker regarding the lifestyle, marketing, health care, economic and workforce implications of the age wave.

Ken is a psychologist, gerontologist, and best-selling author of 19 books on aging-related issues, including Bodymind; Age Wave: The Challenges and Opportunities of an Aging Society; Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old; Healthy Aging; Gideon’s Dream: A Tale of New Beginnings; A New Purpose: Redefining Money, Family, Work, Retirement, and Success; What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life’s Third Age; and Sages of Aging: A Guide for Changemakers. His memoir was updated and re-released in September 2023 as Radical Curiosity: My Life on the Age Wave. He was the executive producer and host of the highly rated/acclaimed PBS documentary, The Boomer Century: 1946–2046 which aired over 2,000 times on PBS stations nationwide as well as the public television special, Life’s Third Age. Sages of Aging is Ken’s latest national public television program featuring profound conversations with twelve of the leading pathfinders in the fields of aging.

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Jason Snell is the founder and editor of Six Colors, a website about Apple and related technologies. He’s also the founder of The Incomparable, a pop-culture podcast network, a columnist at Macworld, the author of Take Control of Photos, and the host of numerous podcasts. He was the lead editor for Macworld for more than a decade. During his time there, he covered every major Apple product release, including every version of OS X, the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, and much more.

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Cuong Do joined BioVie as President & Chief Executive Officer in May 2021, having been a long-time board member, to lead the integration of the recently acquired neurology assets and the newly combined portfolio.

Prior to BioVie, he was President of the Samsung Global Strategy Group, where he helped set the strategic direction of Samsung Group’s diverse business portfolio. Prior to Samsung, he was the Chief Strategy Officer for Merck, Tyco Electronics, and Lenovo. He was also a former senior partner at McKinsey & Company, where he spent 17 years and helped build the healthcare, high tech and corporate finance practices. Cuong often straddles the worlds of healthcare and high tech and has helped companies grow by pursuing new opportunities through internal development, acquisitions, corporate venturing, and partnerships.

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Laura Esserman, MD, MBA, an internationally recognized breast surgeon, breast oncology specialist, and visionary in personalized medicine, is revolutionizing breast cancer screening and treatment throughout our nation today.

As a Professor of Surgery and Radiology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Director of the UCSF Breast Care Center, Dr. Esserman’s breast cancer work spans a spectrum from basic science to public policy issues and the impact of both on the delivery of clinical care. She is a provocative thought leader calling attention to and finding solutions for over-diagnosis and over-treatment of breast cancer, especially of DCIS.

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Abraham Verghese is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of the NBCC Award finalist My Own Country, the New York Times Notable Book The Tennis Partner, and the aforementioned bestseller Cutting for Stone. Verghese has received five honorary degrees and is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He lives and practices medicine in Stanford, California where he is the Linda R. Meier and Joan F. Lane Provostial Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. www.abrahamverghese.org

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Tenshin Reb Anderson moved to San Francisco in 1967 to study Zen Buddhism with Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, who ordained him as a priest in 1970. Since then, he has continued to practice at the San Francisco Zen Center, where he served as abbot from 1986 to 1995. From that time to the present he has served as a senior dharma teacher. He teaches and leads retreats around the world.

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Melanie Abrams is the author of The Joy of Cannabis: 75 Ways to Amplify Your Life Through the Science and Magic of Cannabis and the novels Playing and Meadowlark. She is a developmental editor and photographer and teaches writing at the University of California, Berkeley.

Larry Smith is a journalist and storytelling evangelist touted by O: The Oprah Magazine as “on a quest to spark creativity in everyone.” He is the founder of the Six-Word Memoir Project and book series, editor of the book The Moment: Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories from 125 Writers and Artists Famous and Obscure, and speaks on storytelling in schools and at companies and conferences.

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Lee Child is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Jack Reacher series and the complete Jack Reacher story collection, No Middle Name. Foreign rights in the Reacher series have sold in one hundred territories. A native of England and a former television director, Lee Child lives in New York City and Wyoming.

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Amichai Magen is the Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. In Israel, he is a Senior Lecturer (US Associate Professor), Head of the MA Program in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies, and Director of the Program on Democratic Resilience and Development (PDRD) at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Reichman University. His research and teaching interests address democracy, the rule of law, liberal orders, risk and political violence.

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Iain McCaig divides his energies between a lifelong love of storytelling, and a passionate belief that everyone in the world can learn to draw.

As of 2021, McCaig has worked for 43 years in the entertainment industry. Many of his creations have become pop-culture icons, like his cover for Jethro Tull’s ‘Broadsword and the Beast’ or his Star Wars designs for Queen Amidala and Darth Maul. He has created art for games, from LucasArts ’The Secret of Monkey Island’ to Respawn’s ’Titanfall’, and for many films, among them ’Terminator 2’, ‘Interview With The Vampire’, ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’, ‘Hook’, ‘Peter Pan’, ‘Charlotte’s Web’, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, ’The Avengers’, ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Avengers: Endgame’, Disney’s live-action ’The Jungle Book’, and the ongoing 'Star Wars' movies, as well as designs for the 'Star Wars: The High Republic’ graphic novels, and ’Star War: Galaxy’s Edge’ theme parks.

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Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The National Council of Teachers of English honored him with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language. His op-ed articles have appeared in a range of newspapers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. His previous books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death and Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State. He lives in the San Francisco area.

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Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist Geraldo Rivera is one of media’s most enduring broadcasters. Rivera joined Fox network in 2001 as a war correspondent following the 9/11 attacks. Most recently, Rivera reported from Charleston, SC on the horrific, racially-motivated massacre in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, and on the riots that followed the death in police custody of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, MD. Deeply engaged in reporting the recent spike in urban violence, Rivera provided live coverage of the funeral of the fallen NYPD officers, Wenjian Liu, Raphel Ramos and Brian Moore. Additionally, Geraldo recently hosted hour-long specials, exposing the cushy life in prison of condemned killer Scott Peterson, the 35th anniversary of the overdose death of Elvis Presley, and on the untimely death of his longtime friend, comedian Joan Rivers. In 2009, Geraldo secured an exclusive interview with Joe Jackson, just after the death of his son Michael. Geraldo had previously interviewed the late Michael Jackson on the evening before his 2005 trial and acquittal for child molestation charges.

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Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University, longest-serving chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy, founding director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative, and current director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) within the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He also heads the Galileo Project, chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, and is former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. Author of eight books and over a thousand scientific papers, Loeb is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. In 2012, Time selected Loeb as one of the twenty-five most influential people in space. He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.