Paul bunje

CO-FOUNDER, Conservation X Labs

Paul Bunje is the co-founder and COO/CSO of Conservation X Labs. Paul was formerly the Chief Scientist at the XPRIZE Foundation, where he led the impact strategy across grand challenge domains at XPRIZE, spanning civil society, environment, energy, health, and exploration. Dr. Bunje is a global thought leader in bringing innovation to solve environmental grand challenges. Paul was formerly the founding Executive Director of the UCLA Center for Climate Change Solutions, the Managing Director of the Los Angeles Regional Collaborative for Climate Action and Sustainability, and served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Oceans. The American Association for the Advancement of Science selected Paul as one of 40 individuals that exemplify the thousands of AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellows who are dedicated to applying science to serve society. Paul is trained in biology, with a B.S. from the University of Southern California and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

alex dehgan

CO-FOUNDER, Conservation X Labs

Alex Dehgan is the CEO and co-founder of Conservation X Labs.  Dr. Dehgan recently served as the Chief Scientist at USAID, with rank of Assistant Administrator, and co-founded the Global Development Lab.  He is also the Chanler Innovator at Duke University and served as Duke’s inaugural David Rubenstein Fellow. Prior to USAID, Alex worked in multiple positions within the Office of the Secretary, and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at the Dept. of State, where he used science & conservation as a diplomatic tool for engagement with countries in the Islamic world, including Iran. As head of the Wildlife Conservation Society Afghanistan Program, Alex helped create Afghanistan’s first national park. Dr. Dehgan holds a Ph.D and M.Sc. from The University of Chicago’s Committee on Evolutionary Biology, where he focused on understanding and predicting extinction in animals with complex behaviors. Alex also holds a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings, and a B.S. from Duke University.

He is the author of The Snow Leopard Project and Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation (The Hatchett Group, 2019).

Ali Hartman

Chief Sustainability Officer, KKR

Ali Hartman (New York) joined KKR in 2011 to support the firm’s growing work on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues and stakeholder engagement across its investment portfolio. Over the course of five years, she helped to build the ESG platform to encompass a range of asset classes and focus areas. In 2016, Ms. Hartman was named the Head of Global Citizenship for KKR. In this role, she oversees the firm’s approach to strategic philanthropy, community impact and employee engagement. Previously, Ms. Hartman worked at Coca-Cola in the public affairs department, where she oversaw a range of social and environmental issues in North America and Europe. Prior to this role, she studied worker rights at the International Labor Organization (ILO) in Paris and completed fieldwork in child labor issues at the Working Boys Center in Quito, Ecuador.

Ms. Hartman holds a B.A. from Columbia College at Columbia University and completed her M.A. in International Affairs at L’Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po). Ms. Hartman is involved in a number of philanthropic activities. Most notably, she serves on the Board of Directors for Hour Children Inc., the Board of Directors for Conservation X Labs, the Advisory Board for The Gund Institute at the University of Vermont, and the Advisory Board for Duke University’s CASE i3: Initiative on Impact Investing. Ms. Hartman is also a long-time volunteer with Camp Fatima of New Jersey and a chapter leader for Moms Demand Action.

Don Karl

Perkins Coie

Don Karl, a partner with the law firm Perkins Coie LLP, has practiced business law for more than 35 years, acting as a general business advisor to private and public companies, entrepreneurs, and institutional investors, across a wide range of industries, including entertainment, media, and technology. Karl is especially interested in how businesses adapt, evolve, and collaborate in an era of rapid technological change and innovation and believes the lessons derived from the private sector are applicable to the public sector. Karl is a trustee of the Hollywood Canteen Foundation (a private foundation supporting organizations that provide goods and services to veterans and their families) and a member of the board of directors of Spirit of America (a 501(c)(3) organization providing goods and services to non-combatants in conflict areas). He has camped, hiked, climbed, and trekked around the world, traveling to every continent except Antarctica. He received a BS in physics from the University of Michigan and a masters in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School.

Thane Kreiner

Miller Center, Santa Clara University

Thane Kreiner, PhD, is Executive Director of Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Howard & Alida Charney University Professor at Santa Clara University. Miller Center accelerates entrepreneurship to end global poverty and protect the planet; more than 1000 social enterprises have participated in its GSBI® accelerator programs and collectively improved, transformed, or saved the lives of over 380 million people living in poverty. Before joining Santa Clara University in 2010, Thane was Founder, President, and CEO of Second Genome and Presage Biosciences, Inc. and President and CEO of iPierian, later acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb. Thane spent 14 years at Affymetrix, Inc., the DNA chip industry pioneer. Thane earned his PhD in Neurosciences and his MBA from Stanford University and his BS in Chemistry from the University of Texas, Austin. His memoir on science and spirituality Composition of Life was recently published. Thane is an avid SCUBA diver, swimmer, yoga practitioner, and gardener.

Raymond McCauley

Singularity University

Raymond McCauley is a scientist, engineer, and entrepreneur working at the forefront of biotechnology. Raymond explores how applying technology to life -- biology, genetics, medicine, agriculture, manufacturing -- is affecting every one of us. He uses storytelling and down-to-earth examples to show how quickly these changes are happening, right now, and where it may head tomorrow. His work and profile have been featured in Wired, Forbes, Time, CNBC, Science, and Nature.

Raymond is: Founding Faculty and Chair of Digital Biology at Singularity University; Co-founder and Chief Architect for BioCurious; part of the team that developed next-generation DNA sequencing at Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), with past positions at Ingenuity Systems, Genomera, NASA, and other organizations. Raymond creates, advises, and develops biotech-related startups.

Jahan Moslehi

Founder, Bridge33 Capital

Jahan Moslehi is a Managing Principal and Co-Founder of Bridge33 Capital. Bridge33 is a vertically-integrated commercial real estate firm focused on value-add investments. Bridge33’s current portfolio is comprised of 3.2 million square feet of retail and office properties across 16 states. Prior to Bridge33, Mr. Moslehi worked at Morgan Stanley in New York and London for nine years. In his most recent role at Morgan Stanley, he was a Vice President responsible for marketing and distribution of Commercial Mortgage-Backed Securities (CMBS), as well as developing a business plan for trading distressed and small-balance commercial real estate loans. From 2006-2008, Mr. Moslehi was responsible for developing the firm’s securitization business in the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to that, he held various roles within the CMBS and Fixed Income Management groups at Morgan Stanley. Mr. Moslehi holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago.

ZAVEN ARZOUMANIAN

RESEARCH ASTROPHYSICIST, GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER - NASA

Zaven received his undergraduate degree in Physics at McGill University, and his PhD at Princeton University; he then worked for several years as a post-doctoral research associate in the Astronomy Department at Cornell University.

In 2011–2012, Zaven served as interim Head of Astronomy at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Using radio and X-ray telescopes, his research focuses primarily on neutron stars, especially the rapidly spinning stellar lighthouses known as "pulsars," which offer unique insights into how gravity works, among many other uses.

Zaven is the Science Lead, and Deputy Principal Investigator, for NASA's NICER mission, an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station that he helped conceive, propose for, design, develop, and continues to operate, leading its 80-member-strong Science Team and serving over 1,000 astronomers around the world. He has developed technologies for X-ray astronomy and other applications, resulting in four co-inventor patents, one of which was named NASA's 2019 Government Invention of the Year — its farthest-reaching application is likely to be a novel approach to medical CT imaging through a collaboration with Massachussetts General Hospital. With NICER’s technology-demonstration component, called SEXTANT, Zaven participated in the first-ever demonstration of autonomous, real-time spacecraft navigation using pulsar signals. Finally, Zaven was a founding member of the NANOGrav collaboration, established in 2007 as a long-term project to observe low-frequency gravitational waves from distant black holes using radio-pulsar timing signals, culminating in their first successful detection in 2023.

Zaven co-founded, and is past president of, the non-profit organization Wild Me, devoted to protecting endangered wildlife and now part of CXL — an outgrowth of a NASA technology-transfer success story.

TANYA BERGER-WOLF

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

Dr. Tanya Berger-Wolf is a Professor of Computer Science Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University (OSU), where she is also the Director of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. Recently she has been awarded US National Science Foundation grant to establish a new field of study: Imageomics. As a computational ecologist, her research is at the unique intersection of computer science, AI, wildlife biology, and social sciences.

Berger-Wolf is a member of the US National Academies Board on Life Sciences, CNRS International Scientific Advisory Board, Artificial Intelligence for Science, Science for Artificial Intelligence (AISSA) Centre, and the Advisory Boards of Conservation X Labs and the Ocean Vision AI (OVAI) project. She served on the Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) AI on Biodiversity working group, WWF working group on AI Collaboration to End Wildlife Trafficking, AAAS-FBI Big Data in the Life Sciences and National Security Working Group, and the organizing committee of the National Academies First U.S.-Africa Frontiers of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Symposium, among many others.

She has received numerous awards for her research and mentoring, including University of Illinois Scholar, UIC Distinguished Researcher of the Year, US National Science Foundation CAREER, Association for Women in Science Chicago Innovator, and the UIC Mentor of the Year.

Berger-Wolf is also a co-founder of the AI for conservation non-profit Wild Me, home of the Wildbook project, which has been chosen by UNSECO as one of the top AI 100 projects worldwide supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  

Berger-Wolf’s work has been featured in popular media, including Forbes, The New York Times, CNN, National Geographic, The Economist. She has given hundreds of talks, including at TED/TEDx, UN/UNESCO AI for the Planet, and SXSW EDU.

Prior to joining OSU in January 2020, Berger-Wolf was at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She received her PhD from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002.

Peter Diamandis

Founder, X Prize

Diamandis is the Founder & Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions.  He is also the Executive Founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world's leaders on exponentially growing technologies.

As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is also co-Founder BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies.

Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. 

He earned degrees in Molecular Genetics and Aerospace Engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Peter’s favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”

Jake Hanft

Program Manager, Schmidt Marine

Jake works as a program manager for Schmidt Marine, helping to research and analyze economically viable solutions to complex ocean health problems. A San Francisco native, Jake graduated from University of California, Davis with a B.A. in international relations with a global environment emphasis, and a minor in English. As an undergraduate, Jake interned at then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's Capitol Hill office, covering environmental issues. He has a background working in the intersection between economics and sustainability, and is passionate about preventing bycatch, increasing kelp production, restoring coral reefs, and removing C02 from the atmosphere.