Claire L. Evans is a writer and artist working in Los Angeles, California. Her “day job” is as the singer and co-author of the conceptual disco-pop band YACHT. A science journalist and science-fiction critic, she is a regular contributor to Aeon Magazine, Vice, Motherboard, and Grantland, and is the editor-in-chief of OMNI Reboot.

Her writing has been was anthologized in Best Science Writing Online 2012 (Scientific American Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and she regularly participates in panels, conferences, and screenings on the subject of science and culture. She has performed earnestly cosmic presentations at the Kitchen, MoMA PS1, and the Hirshhorn Museum, spoken about extraterrestrial life at the Rubin Museum’s BRAINWAVE series, and co-authored a book on interdisciplinarity in the arts, NA/SA: New Art Science Affinities.

A collected book of her essays, High Frontiers, is now available from Publication Studio.

Richard Heinberg is the author of ten books including:

• The End of Growth (August 2011)
• The Post Carbon Reader (2010) (editor)
• Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis (2009)
• Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007)
• The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism & Economic Collapse (2006)
• Powerdown: Options & Actions for a Post-Carbon World (2004)
• The Party's Over: Oil, War & the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003)

Richard is a Senior Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators. He has authored scores of essays and articles that have appeared in such journals as Nature, The American Prospect, Public Policy Research, Quarterly Review, The Ecologist, Resurgence, The Futurist, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, Yes!, and The Sun; and on web sites such as EnergyBulletin.net, TheOilDrum.com, Alternet.org, ProjectCensored.com, and Counterpunch.com.

He has been quoted in Time Magazine and has spoken to hundreds of audiences in 14 countries, including members of the European Parliament. He has appeared in many film and television documentaries, including Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour, is a recipient of the M. King Hubbert Award for Excellence in Energy Education, and in 2012 was appointed to His Majesty the King of Bhutan's International Expert Working Group for the New Development Paradigm initiative.

Richard’s animations Don’t Worry, Drive On, Who Killed Economic Growth? and 300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Minutes (winner of a YouTubes’s/DoGooder Video of the Year Award) have been viewed by 1.5 million people.

Since 2002, he has delivered more than four hundred lectures to a wide variety of audiences — from insurance executives to peace activists, from local and national elected officials to Jesuit volunteers.

Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, and self-described “avid internetter”. After graduating with a degree in Graphic and Interactive Design from Tyler School of Art (Temple University) in 2006, she worked for Headcase Design in Philadelphia before taking a position as Senior Designer at Louise Fili Ltd. While working for Louise, she learned most of her skills as a letterer and spent upwards of 16 hours every day working (9 for Louise, 7+ for freelance clients). After two and a half years, Jessica left to further her freelance career and embark on several fun personal projects. Jessica began Daily Drop Cap, a project in which every day she created a new illustrative letter, working through the alphabet a total of twelve times. At its peak, the site had more than 100,000 visitors per month. It culminated with a thirteenth alphabet, each letter crafted by a guest contributor.

Jessica has become as well known for her side projects as she has for her client work. While she doesn’t consider herself a web designer, many of her personal projects are web-centric. She’s created several educational micro-sites including Mom This is How Twitter Works, Should I Work for Free? and Don’t Fear the Internet (with Russ Maschmeyer), each as entertaining as they are helpful. She coined the term “procrastiworking” to describe her tendency to procrastinate on client work by working on personal projects.

Jessica’s clients includes Wes Anderson, Tiffany & Co., The New York Times, Penguin Books, Target, Leo Burnett, American Express, and Wired Magazine. She has also released several commercial typefaces which are available in her store. Jessica has been named a Print Magazine New Visual Artist (20 under 30), one of Forbes 30 under 30 in Art and Design, an ADC Young Gun, a “Person to Watch” by GD USA, and one of 25 Emerging Artists by STEP Magazine. She’s been personally profiled in many magazines including Eye Magazine (UK), Communication Arts, Grafik Magazine (UK), and Novum Magazine (Germany). She is currently serving on the Type Directors Club Board of Directors and divides her time fairly evenly between San Francisco, Brooklyn, and airports en route to design and illustration conferences.

Julie Ann Horvath is a designer and frontend developer at GitHub. She likes to think of herself as an open source advocate with a big heart for making mockups in markup. She spends a lot of her time speaking at conferences and volunteering to teach (more) women to code.

She’s also the creator and organizer of Passion Projects, a monthly talk series designed to help surface and celebrate the work of incredible women in the tech industry.

Eleanor Saitta is a hacker, designer, artist, writer, and barbarian. She makes a living and a vocation of understanding how complex, transdisciplinary systems operate and redesigning them to work, or at least fail, better. Among other things, Eleanor is a co-founder of the Trike project and the Constitutional Analysis Support Team, Technical Director at the International Modern Media Institute, Principal Security Engineer at the Open Internet Tools Project, a member of the advisory board at Geeks Without Bounds, a contributor to the Briar project, and a Senior Security Associate with Stach & Liu. She is nomadic and lives mostly in airports and occasionally in New York, London, and Stockholm. She can be found at http://dymaxion.org and on Twitter as @dymaxion.

Nirvan is an LA based filmmaker, creative consultant, speaker, and entrepreneur. Nirvan began teaching himself animation while studying philosophy at New College. He went on to earn an MFA in Experimental Animation from CalArts. Nirvan's animated short films have screened in festivals worldwide, winning numerous awards. In 2001, Nirvan began an ongoing collaborative experiment called The 1 Second Film, which became among the first crowdfunded films. In 2012, Nirvan directed Caine's Arcade, an 11-minute short film that became a viral phenomenon, receiving over 8 million views and sparking a global movement of cardoard creativity in kids around the world. After Caine's Arcade, Nirvan founded the non-profit Imagination Foundation to find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids. Nirvan has received the Dan Eldon Creative Activist Award and the Innovation in Action award. Nirvan is a partner at Interconnected, consults with companies and non-profits, serves on the board of CicLAvia, and tries to keep up with his garden and email.

Barefoot Ted is an independent athlete committed to re-discovering primal natural human capacities and encouraging others to do the same.

Having spent the last 10 years focused on mastering barefoot long distance running, BFT now focuses on sharing his insights through speaking engagements, social networking and acting as the Spokesmonkey for LUNA, the adventure sandal company he founded in Seattle.

Many have come to know about him through the pages of Christopher McDougall's best-selling book "Born to Run", a book BFT likes to call his quirky PhD. thesis that he didn't have to write.

Ted has been featured in numerous articles and frequently interviewed. He enjoys sharing his philosophy of running and life to audiences large and small.

As "Barefoot Ted", he has played a major role in defining and popularizing the new/old concept of barefoot running and minimalist footwear to a new generation, being an early adopter of the current trend.

Ted's research and adventures have been regularly shared on his popular blog, Barefoot Ted's Adventures on his Facebook Fan Page and on Twitter. He also hosts an online forum dedicated to minimalist/barefoot running.

These days Ted enjoys spreading the news about his favorite sandals and telling stories of his adventures. Projects for 2014 include more Barefoot Ted's Adventures active vacations in Mexico, Turkey and Japan and a LUNA USA TOUR visiting retailers across the country.

Willo O’Brien has made a career out of creativity. A prolific artist, tech geek, and creative business consultant/coach for over a decade, she knows what works and what doesn’t in the ever-changing world of startups and innovative small business.

After founding several businesses of her own, and serving as co-founder of two successful startups, she now shares her expertise teaching and coaching other multi-hyphenated professionals (like you) to find that elusive sweet spot.

Well versed in the heart-wrenching art of letting go, she’s made big, bold leaps in her career, many of which took a fierce dedication to her motto of “feel the fear & follow your heart anyway.” Willo can be found at WilloLovesYou.com and @WilloLovesYou on every social platform out there… say hello!