Mary Ellen Avery	Mary Ellen Avery, AAAS President, Children's Hospital Boston Mary Ellen Avery is best known for her 1950s discovery that a lack of surface active agents in the lungs of newborn babies led to respiratory distress and caused many of them to die. One of four women at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Avery was inspired to become a pediatrician while an undergraduate at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. She says her research at Johns Hopkins, McGill University and Harvard showed her the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to science and science policy. • BACK TO TOP
Richard D. Klausner	Richard Klausner, Executive Director, Global Health, Gates Foundation Richard Klausner is the executive director of the Gates Foundation's Global Health program, whose mission is to improve global health equity. He is the former Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and former chief of the cell biology and metabolism branch of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Dr. Klausner has served as a Senior Fellow, National Academies of Science, Advisor to the Presidents of the Academies for counter-terrorism, and liaison to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. • BACK TO TOP
Sir David King	Sir David King, FRS, United Kingdom, Office of Science & Technology, Chief Scientific Advisor Sir David King was appointed chief scientific advisor to HM Government and Head of the Office of Science and Technology in 2000. He continues as the 1920 Professor of Physical Chemistry and Fellow, Queens' College, University of Cambridge, where his research continues. He advises the Prime Minister on scientific issues. In 2001, he chaired the Foot and Mouth Science Panel, and in 2003, the GM Science Review Panel. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Knight Bachelor. • BACK TO TOP
Kenneth R. McIntosh	Kenneth R. McIntosh, Division of Infectious Diseases, Children's Hospital Boston Kenneth McIntosh's research includes the natural history, pathogenesis, management and treatment of childhood HIV infection. Over the past decade, he has largely conducted clinical research in this area. Studies include investigations of the natural history of HIV infection in infants and children and explorations of cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus in this disease. Dr. McIntosh has collaborated in clinical trials in the developing world to prevent HIV mother-to-child transmission. • BACK TO TOP
Kip S. Thorne	Kip S. Thorne, Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, California Institute of Technology Kip Thorne's research has focused on Einstein's general theory of relativity and astrophysics, with emphasis on relativistic stars, black holes and gravitational waves. He was co-founder of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory. Thorne also authored the award-winning book for non- scientists, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy, as well as the textbook, Gravitation, from which most of the present generation of scientists have learned general relativity theory. Probing the Universe with Gravitational Waves Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and time produced by cosmic violence, such as the the universe's big-bang creation and collisions of black holes. These waves carry information about the "dark side" of the universe that cannot be learned in any other way. The high-frequency gravitational-wave window onto the universe will be opened soon by LIGO (NSF's earth-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, which is now in operation and searching for waves). A lower-frequency window will be opened in ~2012 by LISA (the NASA/ESA Laser Interferometer Space Antenna). This lecture will describe LIGO, LISA, and what they may teach us about the universe and about warped spacetime.