Index: Conversations with Maya

Join Maya Ajmera, President & CEO of the Society for Science and Publisher of Science News, as she talks with notable and inspirational people from the greater Society for Science network. See all past interviews below.

• Lauren Williams, Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and a recipient of a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship. 
• Walter “Wally” Gilbert, Carl M. Loeb University Professor Emeritus and Emeritus Chair of the Society of Fellows at Harvard University.
• David R. Liu, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and vice-chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
• Eric Sporkin, an alumnus of the 2007 International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), a program of Society for Science, and a software engineer at Jane Street, a quantitative trading firm.
• Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, Founder and CEO of Instrumental, a company that helps other companies optimize their manufacturing process
• Ted Carter, President of The Ohio State University
• Kelly Benoit-Bird, Senior Scientist and Science Chair at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
• Mohamad Ali, Senior Vice President for IBM Consulting, IBM’s global professional consulting services unit
• Erika Ebbel Angle, CEO and cofounder of Ixcela, a biotech company improving health outcomes through the treatment of gut microbiomes
• Dr. Peter Hotez, Internationally recognized physician-scientist in neglected tropical diseases and vaccine development
• Fatima Cody Stanford — Obesity medicine physician-scientist, educator and policy maker at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
• Frank Wilczek — Theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate
• Raj Chetty — Founder of Opportunity Insights, a nonpartisan research and policy institute that uses big data to improve economic opportunity and mobility in the United States
• Gayle Wilson — Former first lady of California, 1991–1999, and an advocate for STEM education
• Hayley Bay Barna — Partner, First Round Capital
• Lisa Su — CEO of Advanced Micro Devices
• Paul Modrich — James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry, Duke University Medical Center
• George Yancopoulos — Scientific Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of the biotechnology company Regeneron
• Afton Vechery — cofounder and CEO of Modern Fertility, a reproductive health company making personalized fertility information and support more accessible.
• Roderic Pettigrew — founding director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the CEO of Engineering Health and Executive Dean for Engineering Medicine at Texas A&M University, and the recipient of the Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Foundation.
• Roald Hoffmann — Nobel laureate, the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters Emeritus at Cornell University, and an accomplished poet and playwright.
• Monika Schleier-Smith — Associate Professor of Physics at Stanford University, a MacArthur Fellow, and a member of the 2019 SN 10, Science News’ list of 10 scientists to watch.
• Dianne K. Newman — Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology at Caltech, a MacArthur Fellow, Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and member of the National Academy of Sciences. 
• Wei-Hwa Huang — former Google engineer and world-renowned creator of puzzles and games. 
• Ray Kurzweil — renowned inventor and futurist, author of five best-selling books, is Cofounder and Chancellor of Singularity University and is a Director of Engineering at Google.
• Feng Zhang, a Core Institute Member of the Broad Institute, a Professor at MIT, a member of MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. 
• Lester Mackey — statistical machine learning researcher at Microsoft Research Labs New England.
• Moon Duchin — Associate Professor at the Tufts University Department of Mathematics.
• Thomas Rosenbaum — President of the California Institute of Technology.
• Mary Sue Coleman — President of the Association of American Universities and a former President of the University of Michigan.
• Divya Nag — works for Apple in the Health Special Projects section and is a member of the Society’s National Leadership Council.
• Kristina Johnson — Chancellor of The State University of New York.
• Gideon Yu — co-owner and former President of the San Francisco 49ers, Executive Chairman of Bowers & Wilkins and former CFO at Facebook and YouTube.
• Edward Thorp — mathematics professor, inventor, entrepreneur, founder of the first quant hedge fund, and the best-selling author of Beat the Dealer, the first book to mathematically prove that the house advantage in blackjack could be overcome by card counting.