The University of California, Berkeley (also referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley, California, or simply Cal) is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. The university occupies 1,232 acres (499 ha) on the eastern side of the San Francisco Bay with the central campus resting on 178 acres (72 ha). Berkeley offers approximately 350 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. Established in 1868 as the result of merger of the private College of California and the public Agricultural, Mining, and Mechanical Arts College in Oakland, Berkeley is the oldest of the ten major campuses affiliated with the University of California (UC). Berkeley has been charged with providing both "classical" and "practical" education for the state's people and is generally considered to be the flagship institution in the University of California system. Berkeley co-manages three United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.

Nicholas Dirks is the Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History at Columbia University, where he is also Vice President of Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Dirks is married to Columbia professor, Janaki Bakhle.

Dirks is the author of numerous books on South Asian history and culture, primarily concerned with the impact of British colonial rule. His most famous works include The Hollow Crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian Kingdom (1987), Castes of Mind (2001), and Scandal of Empire (2006). In these works Dirks has advanced research on how the character of British rule shaped the Indian subcontinent to come, as well as how Britain's development came to be influenced by its colonies.

Tiffany Shlain (born 1970) is an American filmmaker and founder of the Webby Awards. Recognized by Newsweek as "one of the women shaping the 21st century."

Tiffany Shlain was born in Mill Valley, California in 1970. She is the daughter of surgeon and author Leonard Shlain (1937–2009). She is married to artist Ken Goldberg who is a UC Berkeley professor; they live in northern California and have two children.

Shlain is a Henry Crown Fellow of The Aspen Institute. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley where she was selected as a valedictorian speaker for the interdisciplinary Studies Department and received the highest honor in art, The Eisner Award, for filmmaking. She received her BA in film theory and interdisciplinary studies in 1992. She studied organizational change at Harvard Business School Executive Education and film production at New York University’s Sight & Sound summer program in 1990. She serves on the advisory boards for The MIT GeoSpatial Data Center, The Fledging Fund, The San Francisco Film Festival’s Filmmaker Advisory Committee and The UC Berkeley’s Center for New Media. She also advises with The Institute for the Future. In 2010, she was invited to meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to talk about how technology is changing the landscape in society.

Robert Bernard Reich ( /ˈraɪʃ/; born June 24, 1946) is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997.

Reich is currently Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He was formerly a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University. He has also been a contributing editor of The New Republic, The American Prospect (also chairman and founding editor), Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

Reich is a political commentator on programs including Hardball with Chris Matthews, This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CNBC's Kudlow & Company, and APM's Marketplace. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Best Cabinet Members of the century, and The Wall Street Journal in 2008 placed him sixth on its list of the "Most Influential Business Thinkers". He was appointed a member of President-elect Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board.

Kent E. Hovind (born January 15, 1953) is an American young earth creationist. Hovind has spoken on creation science and has aimed to convince listeners to reject theories of evolution, geophysics, and cosmology in favor of the Genesis creation narrative from the Bible. Hovind's views are contradicted by scientific evidence and some of his ideas have also been criticized by young earth creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis.

Hovind established the Creation Science Evangelism ministry in 1989, and frequently spoke on young Earth creationism at seminars at private schools and churches, debates, and on radio and television broadcasts. Since January 2007, Hovind has been serving a ten-year prison sentence after being convicted of 58 federal counts, including 12 tax offenses, one count of obstructing federal agents, and 45 counts of structuring cash transactions. He is incarcerated at the FPC Satellite Camp of the ADX Florence prison in Florence, Colorado.

On February 9, 1969, at the age of 16, Hovind became a born again Christian. In 1971, he graduated from East Peoria Community High School. He holds three degrees in Christian education (1974, 1988, 1991) from unaccredited institutions. He is married and has three adult children and five grandchildren. One of his sons, Eric Hovind, travels doing creationist presentations and debates using many of his father's arguments.