Praveen Sethupathy is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Center for Genomics at Cornell University. He received his BA degree from Cornell University and his PhD in Genomics from the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Human Genome Research Institute under the mentorship of Dr. Francis Collins, he moved in 2011 to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics. In 2017, he returned to Cornell University as an Associate Professor. Praveen has authored over 90 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals and has served as a reviewer for over 35 different journals. Recent honors include a faculty merit award for outstanding teaching and mentoring. Praveen’s laboratory is located in the newly renovated 7th floor of the Research Tower on Tower Road. He lives in Brooktondale, NY with his wife and three children.

Bill Newsome is the Harman Family Professor of Neurobiology and Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University. He received a B.S. degree in physics from Stetson University and a Ph.D. in biology from the California Institute of Technology. Bill is a leading investigator in systems and cognitive neuroscience. He has made contributed substantially to our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying visual perception and simple forms of decision making. Among his honors are the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American Psychological Association, the Karl Spencer Lashley Award of the American Philosophical Society, and the Champalimaud Vision Award. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and to the American Philosophical Society in 2011. Newsome co-chaired the NIH BRAIN working group, charged with forming a national plan for the coming decade of neuroscience research in the United States. Born in north Florida, Bill is the son and grandson of Baptist ministers. His has been a lifelong quest to be a friend of science and a friend of faith, and he regularly “tithes” his speaking time to address science and faith issues for diverse audiences. Bill is a member of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo Alto.