Bill Newsome is an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of neurobiology at the School of Medicine. He also co-teaches an undergraduate course on social and ethical issues in the neurosciences. Newsome is a leading investigator in sensory and cognitive neuroscience and has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and simple forms of decision making. Among his honors are the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, the Spencer Award for highly original contributions to research in neurobiology, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association and the Dan David Prize. In 2000, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences.  Close

Krishna Shenoy's group at the Neural Prosthetic Systems Lab conducts neuroscience and neuroengineering research to better understand how the brain controls movement and to design medical systems to assist those with movement disabilities. His neuroscience research investigates the neural basis of movement preparation and generation using a combination of electrophysiological, behavioral, computational and theoretical techniques. His neuroengineering research investigates the design of high-performance neural prosthetic systems, which are also known as brain-computer interfaces and brain-machine interfaces. These systems translate neural activity from the brain into control signals for prosthetic devices, which assist disabled patients by restoring lost function. This work includes statistical signal processing, machine learning, low-power circuits, and real-time system modeling and implementation. Among his awards and honors are the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences, the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neurosciences Award and an NIH Director's Pioneer Award.  Close

Scott Rozelle's research focuses almost exclusively on China and is concerned with three general themes: agricultural policy, including the supply, demand, and trade in agricultural projects; rural resources, especially the management of water, forests and cultivated land; and the economics of poverty-with an emphasis on the economics of education and health. Rozelle is the co-director of the Rural Education Action Project (REAP), a set of studies that seek to evaluate China's new education and health programs and have an impact on policy. In the past several years his papers have been published in top academic journals, including Science, Nature, American Economic Review and the Journal of Economic Literature. He is fluent in Chinese and has established a research program in which he has close working ties with several Chinese collaborators and policy makers. He is the chair of the International Advisory Board of the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy.  Close

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, where he also directs the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He is the founding co-editor of the Journal of Democracy and serves as senior consultant (previously he was co-director) at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy. Diamond is also professor by courtesy of political science and sociology; he teaches courses on comparative democratic development and post-conflict democracy building. In 2007, he was named Teacher of the Year by the Associated Students of Stanford University and received the University's Dinkelspiel Award for Distinctive Contributions to Undergraduate Education. His latest book, The Spirit of Democracy: The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World (Times Books, 2008), explores the sources of global democratic progress and stress and the prospects for future democratic expansion. He is also co-editor of numerous works on democracy, including Political Change in China: Comparisons with Taiwan.  Close

Carol Dweck is a leading researcher in the field of motivation. Her research focuses on what makes students succeed and what fosters their success. More specifically, her work has demonstrated the role of mind-sets in students' motivation and has illuminated how praise for intelligence can undermine motivation and learning. Dweck has held professorships at Columbia and Harvard and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She recently won the Donald Campbell Award for contributions to social psychology, the Ann Brown Award for contributions to Developmental Psychology and the Klingenstein Award for leadership in education. Her work has been prominently featured in such publications as The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and she has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, 20/20, and NPR's Morning Edition. Her recent book, Mindset, has been widely acclaimed and is being translated into 17 languages.  Close

Deborah Stipek's scholarship concerns the instructional effects on children's achievement motivation, early childhood education, elementary education and school reform. In addition to her scholarship, she served for five years on the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Academy of Sciences and chaired the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Increasing High School Students' Engagement & Motivation to Learn. Stipek served 10 of her 23 years at UCLA as director of the Corinne Seeds University Elementary School and the Urban Education Studies Center. She joined the Stanford School of Education in January 2001. She is a member of the National Academy of Education.  Close