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Will Flanary, MD, is an ophthalmologist and part-time comedian. He moonlights in his free time as “Dr. Glaucomflecken,” a social media personality who creates medical-themed comedy shorts for an audience of over 4 million across social media. He co-hosts the medically themed podcast Knock Knock, Hi! alongside his wife, Kristin Flanary, also known as "Lady Glaucomflecken." Dr. Flanary's humor has been shaped by the tribulations of med school and residency and his experiences as a patient. He is a two-time testicular cancer survivor and cardiac arrest survivor, saved by his intrepid wife and her timely CPR. Initially used as a creative outlet to cope with these health challenges, Dr. Flanary's comedy has evolved over time to incorporate biting satire of the US healthcare system, academic publishing, and interpersonal conflicts pervasive in the medical system.

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Dr. Schulman is a Professor of Medicine, and, by courtesy, Professor of Operations, Information and Technology at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. He serves as interim co-Chair of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Stanford, and as an Associate Chair of the Department of Medicine. He is the Faculty Director of Stanford’s new applied master degree program, the Master of Science in Clinical Informatics Management program. He also serves as Deputy Director of the Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC) at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and has an appointment in the Department of Health Policy (by courtesy) and serves as a Faculty Fellow in Stanford's Global Health Institute.

Dr. Schulman is a health economist/health services researcher working at the intersection of business, medicine and technology. With over 500 publications, he has had a broad impact on several areas of health policy (Scopus h-index=83). His research has appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and Health Affairs. He is the editor-in-chief of Health Management, Policy and Innovation (www.HMPI.Org), and Senior Associate Editor of Health Service Research (HSR).

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, the New York University School of Medicine, and The Wharton Health Care Management Program. He is an elected member of ASCI and AAP.

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Dr. Parvizi is a physician scientist at Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and directs the Stanford Program for Medication Resistant Epilepsy. He is also the principal investigator at the Laboratory of Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (LBCN) where he leads several studies to understand how different regions of the human brain work with each other and how they each contribute to human experience and behavior. 

Josef Parvizi completed his medical school at the University of Oslo - Norway and moved to the United States and completed his PhD training at the University of Iowa with Dr. Antonio Damasio (cognitive neuroscience) and Dr. Gary Van Hoesen (neuroanatomy). He did his internship training at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and Neurology residency at Harvard. He completed epilepsy training at UCLA and has been at Stanford since 2007. 

Lab website: http://med.stanford.edu/parvizi-lab.html.

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Dr. Sunita Puri is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, where she is the Director of the Inpatient Palliative Care Service. A 2025 Literature Fellow of the Bogliasco Foundation, she is the author of That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour, a critically acclaimed literary memoir examining her journey to the practice of palliative medicine, and her quest to help patients and families redefine what it means to live and die well in the face of serious illness. A graduate of Yale University and the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship, her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic, New York Times,  Los Angeles Times, Tricycle, Slate, Wall Street Journal, and the Journal of the American Medical Association, among other places. She and her work have been featured in the Atlantic, People Magazine, PBS’ Christian Amanpour Show, NPR, the Guardian, BBC, India Today, and Literary Hub. In 2019, the Guardian made a mini-documentary of her work with her patients, which has been viewed over 3.5 million times. She has been awarded writing residencies at the Bogliasco Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, Mesa Refuge, and UCross. A sought-after speaker who has delivered lectures around the world, Dr. Puri is passionate about the ways that the precise and compassionate use of language can empower patients and physicians to have the right conversations about living and dying. You can follow her on IG and Twitter: @sunitapurimd

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Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, is the Alex and Susie Algard Endowed Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studies the gut microbiota in health and disease and co-directs the Center for Human Microbiome Studies.  His laboratory at Stanford develops and employs diverse technologies to understand basic principles that govern interactions within the intestinal microbiota and between the microbiota and the host. An ongoing objective of the research program is to devise and implement innovative strategies to prevent and treat disease in humans via the gut microbiota. Justin conducted his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego in the laboratory of Ajit Varki.  His postdoctoral work was conducted at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri in the laboratory of Jeffrey Gordon. He has received an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and Pioneer Award, the AGA Research Mentor Award, and co-founded Interface Biosciences. He and his wife and collaborator, Erica, are the authors of the book The Good Gut:  Taking Control of Your Weight, Your Mood, and Your Long-Term Health.

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Dr. Philip R. Weinstein is an Emeritus Professor in the Departments of Neurological Surgery and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He earned his B.A. in Philosophy of Science from Princeton University in 1961, followed by an M.D. from New York University College of Medicine in 1965. He completed his residency in Neurological Surgery at UCSF in 1971 and served as a Major in the United States Air Force at March Air Force Base, CA, in 1973. Dr. Weinstein's academic career began at UCSF as an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery from 1973 to 1977, after which he served as a Professor and Chief of Neurosurgery at the University of Arizona from 1977 to 1982. He returned to UCSF in 1982 as a Professor of Neurosurgery, where he continues to contribute to the field. Dr. Weinstein has held several prominent positions, including Chief of Neurosurgery at the San Francisco VA Hospital, Residency Program Director at UCSF, Vice Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery, Founding Co-director of the UCSF Spine Center, and Director of the Cerebral Ischemia Research Program. His clinical interests include revascularization for focal cerebral ischemia, such as ECIC bypass, and complex spine surgery addressing degenerative disease, spinal stenosis, spinal tumors, cysts, and spinal radiosurgery. His research focuses on the pathophysiology and imaging of cerebral ischemia, brain protection, and reperfusion injury prevention, as well as spinal stenosis, spinal cord injury, and the neurobiology and treatment of military Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Dr. Weinstein is deeply committed to education, with interests in resident selection, education, and technical training, as well as the development of surgical simulators for skills assessment. His organizational roles include Chairman of the SNS Neurosurgical Resident Matching Program Committee, Past President of the Society of Neurological Surgeons, and membership in the AANS Professional Standards and AANS/CNS Quality Assurance and Outcomes Committees.

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Dr. Kado is co-director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and a professor of medicine–primary care and population health at Stanford Medicine, where she serves as chief of research in the Section of Geriatric Medicine. A geriatrician and longevity specialist, she also serves as director of the Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center at the Veterans Health Administration in Palo Alto, California.

With a special interest in bone health, Dr. Kado conducts extensive research focused on osteoporosis, musculoskeletal aging, and the related disorder hyperkyphosis, commonly known as the “dowager’s hump.” Her discoveries have helped define the causes and consequences of this condition, with her work published in Annals of Internal Medicine and UpToDate, a clinical decision support resource for physicians worldwide. As a practicing physician and clinician-scientist, Dr. Kado is nationally recognized for her ability to interpret scientific discoveries as they relate to aging, increasing not only people’s health span, but also their quality of life.

A popular speaker and an expert source for numerous health publications nationwide, Dr. Kado is a member of multiple professional organizations, including the American Geriatrics Society, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, the Gerontological Society of America, and the Endocrine Society. She co-chairs the National Institute on Aging workshop for the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.

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Dr. Desiree LaBeaud is a physician-scientist, epidemiologist, and professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. She received her MD from the Medical College of Wisconsin and trained at the Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital during her pediatric residency and pediatric infectious disease fellowship program. She earned her master’s degree in Clinical Research and Epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. LaBeaud studies the epidemiology and ecology of domestic and international arboviruses and emerging infections, with an interest in the vector, host, and environmental factors that affect transmission dynamics and spectrum of disease. Her research is community-engaged and seeks to define and then disrupt the underlying structural determinants of health.

She studies the human health impacts of climate change including research focused on innovative solutions to the global plastic pollution crisis. Her current field sites include Kenya, Grenada, Pakistan, and Brazil. She currently heads a clinical research lab focused on better understanding the risk factors and long-term health consequences of arboviral infections and the most effective means of prevention. She has also recently launched a nonprofit, the Health and Environmental Research Institute- Kenya (www.heri-kenya.org) which is an initiative focused on Kenya to inspire community education, new research, policy change and grass roots activism in environmental health issues. 

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Sergiu P. Pasca is the Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor and the Uytengsu Director of Stanford Brain Organogenesis. He seeks to understand the rules governing human brain assembly and the mechanisms of disease. His laboratory pioneered the first assembloids, introduced the use of instructive signals to create regionalized neural organoids, and developed integrated human circuits following transplantation into living animals. These models have been adopted by hundreds of laboratories worldwide, and he systematically applied them to gain insights into physiology and disease and, more recently, to develop therapeutic approaches for psychiatric disease. He was named a New York Times’ Visionary in Medicine and Science. He is a Knight of the Order of Merit, holds a Doctor Honoris Causa, and was a TED-2022 Speaker. His work was recognized with the Vilcek Prize, the American Philosophical Society's Daland Prize, the 12th IBRO-Kemali Neuroscience Award, the ISSCR Momentum Award and the Schaller Prize in Translational Neuroscience.  

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Dave Evans has a long history in innovation. He was part of Apple in the early days, where he led the first mouse team and introduced laser printing to the masses.  Next, he was a co-founder of Electronic Arts leading product development with “software artists”. After fifteen successful years as a tech executive, Dave went out on his own as a management consultant assisting both startups and multi-nationals in strategy, marketing, and corporate culture formation.  Dave served on the inaugural Corporate Culture Committee with Steve Jobs when at Apple.  Starting with that assignment and continuing thereafter, Dave noticed everyone was struggling with how to answer the question, “What do I do with my life?” Helping people discern and build the life they really want grew into Dave’s personal mission and became his next career.  In 2007 Dave co-founded the Stanford Life Design Lab with Bill Burnett with the mission of applying the innovation principles of design thinking to the wicked problem of designing your life.  The Life Design Lab has enjoyed great success at Stanford and is now expanding broadly across higher education, having trained teams from over 400 universities serving over millionsstudents.  Bill and Dave's 2016 book, Designing Your Life, How to Build a Well-Lived and Joyful Life, is a NY Times #1 bestseller, is available in 26 languages worldwide, and was followed in 2021 with, Designing Your New Work Life helping workers of all types make more out of life on the job in the new post-pandemic reality.

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Ellen Oh oversees interdisciplinary initiatives, interweaving art into campus structures and systems in order to demonstrate its consequential impact. She creates the conditions for collaboration between Stanford’s academic community and visiting artists looking to expand their practice or arts-based research into new realms. Ellen is a creative producer, program catalyzer, and curator of people/teams who has worked as an arts administrator for the last 25 years in organizations of varying shapes and sizes. She currently serves on advisory boards for Root Division and Headlands Center for the Arts and formerly served as the Executive Director of Kearny Street Workshop, the longest standing multidisciplinary Asian American arts organization.

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Sara Manning Peskin, MD, MS, is an assistant professor of clinical neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude prior to moving to Philadelphia. She attended medical school and received a master’s degree in cellular and molecular biology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also completed her neurology residency and a fellowship in cognitive and behavioral neurology. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Boston Globe Magazine, among other publications.

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Dr. Dimpi Desai is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, specializing in diabetes and obesity management. She completed her fellowship training at the University of Pennsylvania, served as faculty at Baylor College of Medicine, and currently practices at Stanford. Her passion lies in improving the lives of individuals with type 2 diabetes and obesity, and her clinical research also focuses on advancing care in these areas. Dr. Desai is dedicated to delivering compassionate, comprehensive care to a diverse patient population.

She currently serves as a member of the Endocrine Society’s guideline writing panel for the clinical guidelines on the pharmacological management of obesity. Beyond clinical care, she is deeply committed to education. As the Endocrine Rotation Director for medical students and internal medicine residents, she plays a pivotal role in shaping the next generation of healthcare professionals. Her active involvement in national societies—including the Endocrine Society and The Obesity Society—underscores her commitment to research, advocacy, and the advancement of her field.