George Church, PhD is Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Director of the Center for Computational Genetics. He is the founder of the Personal Genome Project (PGP), Chairman of PersonalGenomes.org, and PGP#1. He is the recipient of the Franklin Institute's 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science.

Preston W. (Pete) Estep, PhD is the Director of Gerontology, Personal Genome Project, and Chief Scientific Officer, TeloMe, Inc. In addition to his role as PGP Director of Gerontology, he directs the PGP saliva collection and telomere analysis projects. In his work outside the PGP he has invented a variety of chemical and molecular technologies, including methods for measuring lengths of telomeric repeats, and he has founded and is a current or past adviser to many cutting edge biotech companies and non-profit organizations. He also has written and lectured extensively on the evolution of aging and senescence, and on the science and ethics of human life extension and cognitive enhancement.

Peter K. Gregersen MD is Director of the Robert S. Boas Center for Genomics and Human Genetics at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, located within the North Shore LIJ Health System. He has been a leader in the genetic analysis of human autoimmune disorders, having founded or collaborated on major international consortia on the genetics of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus, myasthenia gravis, myositis and many others. These and related projects have catalyzed the formation of many population resources based at the Feinstein Institute that enable the study of genotype-phenotype relationships in both normal and disease affected subjects. Over the last decade, he has also focused on the genetics of rare cognitive traits including absolute pitch, synesthesia and other aspects of musical perception.

Isaac Kohane, MD, PhD is a professor at Harvard Medical School who applies computational techniques, whole genome analysis, and functional genomics to study human diseases through the developmental lens, and particularly through the use of animal model systems. Specific diseases of interest are neurodevelopmental disorders and carcinogenesis. The use of whole healthcare systems as “living laboratories” to drive discovery research in the genomic area compliments his basic research agenda by providing population-level study tools.

Holly Menninger, PhD is the Director of Public Science for Your Wild Life. Your Wild Life is an outreach and science communication program based at NC State University that engages the public in studying, understanding, and celebrating the biodiversity associated with our every day lives - from our belly buttons to our backyards. She earned a PhD in ecology from the University of Maryland, and has worked at the intersection of science and society - in science policy, science communication and natural resource management.

Svante Pääbo, PhD is director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. His research aims to better understand human origins and early migration patterns. TIME magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the year in 2007. He led a team of researchers who extracted DNA from ancient fossils and generated the first draft sequence of the Neandertal genome.

Larry Smarr, PhD is the founding Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), a UC San Diego/UC Irvine partnership, and holds the Harry E. Gruber professorship in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. At Calit2, he has continued to drive major developments in information infrastructure-- including the Internet, Web, scientific visualization, virtual reality, and global telepresence--begun during his previous 15 years as founding Director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). In 2006 he received the IEEE Computer Society Tsutomu Kanai Award for his lifetime achievements in distributed computing systems. For the last 7 years he has been the PI of the Moore Foundation CAMERA global microbial metagenomics computational repository. His personal interests include growing orchids, snorkeling coral reefs, and quantifying the state of his body.

Dana Waring is a co-founder of the Personal Genetics Education Project (pgEd.org). Based in the Wu laboratory at Harvard Medical School, pgEd promotes dialogues on the ethical, legal and social issues in personal genetics through workshops for the general public, conference presentations, and educational events at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels. It is also working with MIT Press to produce a handbook for healthcare workers and their clients. Dana's role in pgEd includes developing curricula, conducting classes, research on the use and impact of personal genetics throughout the world, and fund-raising. She is also working to launch state-wide initiatives in Maine and Massachusetts, with an eye toward expanding this effort to the national level.