Alexis Hope is a designer and researcher based at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Civic Media and the Massachusetts College of Art & Design, where she studies Industrial & Furniture Design. Alexis was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow from 2012 - 2015, focusing on bringing human-centered and participatory research methods to technology design. As part of her commitment to participatory design, she helps organize unique hackathons and civic technology workshops around the world.

Daniel Kohn is an artist whose work stands at the crossroad of art and science. Long immersed in questions of place and representation, his engagement with science began in 2003 when he was invited to the Broad Institute where he became Founding Artist in Residence and co-founded the Viz Group. Kohn was subsequently in residence at the Center for Epigenomics and Art/Science Research Director at Ligo Project. Following a NAKFI conference on the Mesopelagic Daniel refocused his work on the Ocean. He now co-leads a 4 year NAS interdisciplinary grant based on the question: Does the ocean have memories?

Hansi Singh began knitting peculiar undersea oddities following the birth of her son in 2006, inspired by hours spent marveling over the fauna at the Seattle Aquarium with her newborn.  In the following years, her knitting brand Hansigurumi became synonymous with hyper-realistic knitted cephalopods, anglerfish, and other sea creatures. More recently, she returned to graduate school, where she obtained degrees in Atmospheric Sciences and Applied Mathematics, and researched the Earth's physical climate system as a coupling of large-scale atmospheric and oceanic dynamic processes. She remains interested in how awareness of the ocean, through science and art, can inspire action on climate change and other pressing environmental issues.

Geoff Shelton is a filmmaker who’s work has been featured on the websites of numerous publications including: Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Spin Magazine, Time Magazine, NPR, AOL and HuffPost. Geoff’s documentary work with the band OK Go has accumulated over five million views across multiple platforms and was featured on CNN, ABC News and premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA.

Whitney Cornforth grew up in the small coastal town of Rockport, Maine. With magical summers on Penobscot Bay kindling a love for the ocean and a passion for creating all manner of things, it’s no wonder he was drawn to the fluidity and process of glassblowing. While earning degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at MIT, he discovered glassblowing, and the course of his life was dramatically changed. Upon graduation in 2001, he decided to pursue glassblowing full-time. Whitney now teaches at the MIT Glasslab, while exploring his own designs and ideas.