Meet The Judges

There are three types of reviews that your submission may receive: Peer-to-Peer Review, Evaluation Panel Review, and Selection Committee Review. Each member of the Evaluation Panel and Selection Committee has been carefully chosen for their knowledge of mathematics, life sciences, or physics. You can learn more about each judge here.

Evaluation Panel Selection Committee

Evaluation Panel

During this phase of review, the Evaluation Panel judges provide additional scores and comments to the top 75 submissions, the Finalists, as determined by the Peer-to-Peer Review.

Emily Abrash
Emily Abrash
Carolina Benedetti
Carolina Benedetti
Tai-Danae Bradley
Tai-Danae Bradley
Anastasia Chavez
Anastasia Chavez
Peter Collingridge
Peter Collingridge
Brit Cruise
Brit Cruise
Ben Eater
Ben Eater
Ross Firestone
Ross Firestone
Tomer Gal
Tomer Gal
Justin Helps
Justin Helps
Rhonda Hughes
Rhonda Hughes
Yuki Jung
Yuki Jung
Jamie Kasuboski
Jamie Kasuboski
Tanner Marshall
Tanner Marshall
David Santo Pietro
David Santo Pietro
Servando Pineda-Carranza
Servando Pineda-Carranza
Rachel Polando
Rachel Polando
Vishal Punwani
Vishal Punwani
Dan Quinn
Dan Quinn
Guillaume Riesen
Guillaume Riesen
Grant Sanderson
Grant Sanderson
Tony St. John
Tony St. John

Nima Arkani-Hamed, Ph.D.

Theoretical Physicist, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Natural Sciences, Princeton, NJ.

Nima Arkani-Hamed studied Mathematics and Physics at the University of Toronto, and then at UC Berkeley under the supervision of Lawrence Hall. He did his post-doctoral studies at SLAC at Stanford University, where he developed, with Savas Dimopoulos, the paradigm of large extra dimensions.

In 1999 he joined UC Berkeley. In 2001, as a visiting scholar at Harvard University, he worked with Howard Georgi and Andrew Cohen on emergent extra dimensions. These ideas eventually led to the development of little Higgs theories. He joined Harvard's faculty in 2002, where he was a Professor of Physics until 2008, when he moved to the Institute for Advanced Study.

Arkani-Hamed has discussed theoretical physics on various media platforms, including the 2013 documentary Particle Fever.

He participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007. He was an inaugural awardee of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He has won the Sackler Prize, the Gribov Medal, the INFN-Pisa Gamberini prize and the Phi Beta Kappa award for teaching excellence. He was awarded the Packard and Sloan Fellowship in 2000, and elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. In 2010 he gave the Messenger lectures at Cornell University.

Lucy Hawking

Author, UK.

Lucy Hawking is a British author who works with scientists to write adventure stories about their research for an elementary school age audience. Lucy’s books, the George series, combine story telling with science and give young readers an exciting and entertaining introduction to the world of science and maths. An Oxford graduate, Lucy started her writing career in journalism and worked for British newspapers, radio and New York Magazine before becoming a published author. The George series of books is published in over 40 languages and is now in production as an animated television series with DHX Media.

Lucy has been recognised for her work in science and education with several awards – she won the Sappio Prize for Popularizing Science in Rome 2008 and the UNSW medal 2015 for Science Communication and was awarded a doctorate in science by Queen Mary University London in July 2015.

Lucy has travelled the world giving talks about science to young audiences. She has frequently been featured on television and radio and most recently, she made a programme for the Royal Bhutanese Tutorial series on science and storytelling. Lucy is a trustee of the Autism Research Foundation, supporting scientific research into the condition of autism.

Salman Khan

Founder and CEO, Khan Academy.

Sal Khan is the Founder and CEO of Khan Academy (khanacademy.org), a nonprofit with the mission of “providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere”. Khan Academy is a learning platform which is comprised of practice exercises, instructional videos, dashboard analytics and teacher tools which empower learners in and outside of the classroom to study at their own pace. Khan Academy has over 26 million registered students and covers subjects from math to science, history, economics, computer science and more. Khan Academy is being translated into more than 36 languages and is used in 190 countries globally.

Khan holds three degrees from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Khan has been profiled by 60 Minutes, featured on the cover of Forbes Magazine, and recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World”. In late 2012, Khan released his book The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined.

Gary Ruvkun, Ph.D.

Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.

Gary Ruvkun is a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley (1973) and Harvard (1982) and joined the Harvard faculty in 1985. In addition to his co-discovery of microRNAs and their mechanism of post-transcriptional control, Ruvkun has explored the genetic control of longevity and immunity.

Ruvkun initiated the Search for Extraterrestrial Genomes (SETG) project in 2000, developing with Maria Zuber and Mike Finney a compact DNA sequencing module to determine the DNA or RNA sequences from the genomes of microbes on Mars that share a common ancestor with life on Earth, and send that DNA sequence information back to Earth. The exploration of potentially habitable planets such as Mars and Europa or exoplanets in Earth-like orbits are the highest priority NASA goals, so the capabilities of the SETG instrument and the priorities of NASA are aligned. The $40 million SETG instrument should be a high-risk/high-payoff bet in a suite of Mars lander instruments.

With collaborators, he has won the Rosenstiel Award, Warren Triennial Prize, Benjamin Franklin Medal, Gairdner International Award, Albert Lasker Award, Louisa Horwitz Prize, Shaul and Meira Massry Prize, Dan David Prize, Ipsen Foundation Longevity Prize, Paul Janssen Award, Wolf Prize, Breakthrough Prize and Gruber Prize.

Richard Taylor, Ph.D.

Mathemetician, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ.

Richard Taylor was born in 1962, in Cambridge, England, the son of theoretical physicist John C. Taylor and musician Mary Taylor. From the age of two he grew up in Oxford. He did his undergraduate studies at Cambridge University and his graduate work at Princeton University under the guidance of Andrew Wiles. In 1989 he joined the faculty of Cambridge University.

In 1995 Taylor married American mathematician Christine Chang. They have two children, Jeremy and Chloe. Following his marriage, Taylor moved to Harvard University. Since 2010 he has worked at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he is currently the Robert and Luisa Fernholz Professor.

He has won the Ostrowski Prize, the Prix Fermat, the Cole Prize, the Clay Research Award, the Shaw Prize and the Breakthrough Prize. Taylor is an algebraic number theorist working on the interconnections between automorphic forms and Galois representations. He collaborated with Wiles to repair the gap in Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s last theorem, and, with Christophe Breuil, Brian Conrad and Fred Diamond, he completed the proof of the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture. With Michael Harris he proved the local Langlands conjecture. Partly in collaboration with Laurent Clozel, Harris and Nick Shepherd-Barron, he proved the Sato-Tate conjecture.

Pete Worden, Ph.D.

Chairman, Breakthrough Prize Foundation

Simon Peter “Pete” Worden, (Brig. Gen., USAF, Ret., PhD) (born 1949, in Michigan, USA) was Director of NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, USA until his retirement on March 31, 2015. Prior to joining NASA, he held several positions in the United States Air Force and was research professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. He is a recognized expert on space issues – both civil and military.

Dr. Worden has authored or co-authored more than 150 scientific papers in astrophysics space sciences, and strategic studies. He served as a scientific co-investigator for three NASA space science missions – most recently the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph launched in 2013 to study the Sun.

He received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for the 1994 Clementine Mission to the moon. He was named the 2009 Federal Laboratory Consortium Laboratory Director of the Year.

On July 20, 2015 at the Royal Society in London, UK, Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking launched the Breakthrough Initiatives. At the press conference Pete Worden was introduced as the Chairman for the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In this capacity he leads the Initiatives.

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Emily Abrash

Biology Content Fellow, Khan Academy.

Before joining Khan Academy as a Biology Content Fellow, Emily Abrash worked as a laboratory researcher in biology for nearly ten years. She received her B.S. from Stanford, then later returned as a Ph.D. student, finishing her degree in 2014. Her research focused on cell, molecular, and developmental biology, and examined the genes that plants use to control the patterning of stomata, pores on the leaf surface that control carbon dioxide intake and water loss. Between undergrad and graduate school, she lived in Ecuador and worked at a nonprofit called El Centro de la Niña Trabajadora, which focused on promoting education and reducing child labor, particularly for girls and young women.

Carolina Benedetti

Postdoctoral Fellow, York University. Toronto, Ontario.

Carolina Benedetti is a passionate mathematician born in Bogota, Colombia and living in Toronto, Ontario. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University and Visitor Member of the Fields Institute. She is the first in her family to obtain a college degree and a PhD degree. Throughout her career she has had the fortune of working with colleagues that have built on her potential and have empowered her. In the course of her career, she realized that mathematics does not discriminate. As a result of her background and her experiences, she is constantly looking for ways to work for the community. She has volunteered as a math tutor in her home country and abroad. Her passion for mathematics is reflected not only in her research but also in the classes she teaches and the activities she organizes. Her students' reviews always praise her teaching style and ability to connect with them, making math classes fun and challenging. Besides academia and salsa dancing she daydreams of bringing the joy of math to isolated communities in Colombia.

Tai-Danae Bradley

PhD Mathematics Student, Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Tai-Danae Bradley is a second year PhD student in the mathematics program at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her journey into science can be described as unconventional at best: she began college as a basketball player with an undeclared major and graduated summa cum laude with a double major in math (with honors) and physics.

Ironically, she had always considered both subjects to be too intimidating to be attractive, but in college her entire viewpoint changed. Having been taught by science professors with a talent for unveiling the simplicity and beauty behind complex ideas, it has since then been her own goal to do the same when given the chance. Now, as a graduate student, she continues to foster her deep appreciation for making science accessible by maintaining Math3ma, a blog about undergraduate/graduate level mathematics.

Anastasia Chavez

Mathematics Doctoral Candidate, University of California.

Anastasia Chavez is a doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley and mother of two bright and energetic daughters. Her research interests are in algebraic and enumerative combinatorics, with current focus on Matroid theory and polytopes. Anastasia earned a B.S. in applied mathematics and M.A. in mathematics from San Francisco State University. It was during her time at SFSU that her true passion for activism through mathematics was born. As a Latina and first generation college graduate, Anastasia's passion for mathematics is fed also by her passion for increased diversity in STEM and access to mathematics for minority students. She believes everyone has the ability to do math, and it is our job as educators to ensure ALL students have the opportunity to build their math skills.

Peter Collingridge

Freelance Programmer, Content Creator, Khan Academy.

Peter Collingridge has a degree in biochemistry and a PhD in pathology from the University of Oxford. After graduating he researched cell signalling at a marine biology lab. There he taught himself coding so he could develop a bioinformatic algorithm for better aligning protein sequences and then to simulate the 3D motion of a cell as it swam. It was at that time he also started volunteering at Khan Academy, answering students' questions and creating online programs to explain and explore concepts.

Now he works as a freelance programmer, spending most of his time as a content creator for Khan Academy. Most recently he built the interactive elements for a series of lessons explaining the mathematics behind Pixar's movies.

Brit Cruise

Content Producer, Khan Academy.

Brit Cruise is currently a Content Producer at Khan Academy. He has been making educational videos since age 10, inspired by Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, and James Burke. In 2011 he began creating a collection of video essays on YouTube titled “Art of the Problem.” This series, which explores the origin and conceptual progression of the fields of Cryptography and Information Theory, has been featured on PBS and viewed over 4 million times. In 2012 Cruise joined Khan Academy to develop videos, interactive content, articles, physical camps and teacher workshops. Cruise holds a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Western Ontario and a B.S. in Computer Science from McGill University. He is passionate about creating new kinds of educational experiences both online and off.

Ben Eater

Engineering Manager, Khan Academy.

Ben Eater joined the Khan Academy team in 2011 as lead exercise developer, building over a hundred interactive math exercise modules for the Khan Academy platform. As the team grew, he helped build tools to allow scores of great teachers, tutors, and professors create rich learning experiences on Khan Academy, and led a partnership with Phillips Academy Andover to create Khan Academy's AP calculus content. He now manages the web frontend team, helping to make all aspects of the website delightful for learners. Before joining Khan Academy Ben worked on networking hardware at his own startup, and previously at larger tech companies. In his spare time he enjoys flying airplanes and sharing his passion for learning how things work through his own instructional videos.

Ross Firestone

MD/PhD Student, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Curriculum Producer, Khan Academy.

Ross Firestone graduated from Wesleyan University in 2012 and is currently a 4th year MD/PhD Student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is now working towards his PhD in biochemistry studying enzymology and drug design. Ross has produced a number of videos for Khan Academy’s medicine curriculum covering topics ranging from evolutionary biology to biochemistry.

Tomer Gal

Math Content Creator, Khan Academy.

Tomer Gal is a part of the Content team in Khan Academy, where he is ceaselessly working on improving Khan Academy’s high school math content. Prior to that, he worked for the Center of Educational Technology in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he lives. He has also served as a tutor in the Unit for Science Oriented Youth in Tel Aviv University.

He has a Bachelors in Mathematics and a Masters in the History and Philosophy of Science. His masters thesis was about mathematical errors in proofs used by Galileo in three of his works, and the way those errors can shed new light on Galileo's methods, motivations, and hidden assumptions. Tomer believes that any subject can be interesting if presented clearly and with genuine passion.

Justin Helps

Content Team, Khan Academy.

Justin oversees many of Khan Academy's math and science content creation projects. He's super-duper excited to help find great new ways of looking at and explaining math and science concepts.

Justin is originally from the great state of Minnesota. He earned his B.A. in physics from Gustavus Adolphus College and used electron microscopes to study nanoparticles on his way to an M.S. in materials science from the University of Minnesota. His favorite fruit is the pineapple for obvious reasons.

Rhonda Hughes

Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Bryn Mawr College.

Rhonda Hughes is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Bryn Mawr College, where she taught for thirty-one years. In 1998, she co-founded the EDGE Program (Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education) to support women pursuing careers in the mathematical sciences as they enter graduate school. To date, over 200 women have participated in the program, and 66 of them, half of whom are members of underrepresented groups, have obtained Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences and other STEM fields.

Rhonda also served as President of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM, 1987-89), was awarded the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA, 1998), received the AAAS Mentoring Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004), and was the first recipient of the Gweneth Humphreys Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Women in Mathematics (AWM, 2011).

For the past two years, Rhonda has worked as a Math Content Creator for Khan Academy, where she has welcomed the opportunity to reach women and men around the world, and to participate in the exciting adventure and breathtaking vision that is Khan Academy.

Yuki Jung

Chemistry Content Fellow, Khan Academy.

Yuki is the Chemistry Content Fellow at Khan Academy, where she is curating chemistry content and thinking up different ways to making chemistry more tangible for students. She received her Ph.D. on polymer chemistry from Cornell University, where her research focused on using polymers to make safer batteries.

Jamie Kasuboski

Neuroscientist, Pfizer, Neuroscience and Pain Department.

Jamie Kasuboski is a Neuroscientist in Pfizer’s Neuroscience and Pain Department and studies neurodegeneration diseases focuses in discovery of novel therapeutic treatments for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Prior to joining Pfizer he was a Staff Researcher in the Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies where he worked on designing and constructing advanced microscopes and high throughput screening systems to explore the complexity of neuronal circuits and brain wiring. Before joining the Salk, he received a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Notre Dame where he studied cellular trafficking events during cell division and Niemann Pick's Type C disease to better understand the mechanism of action that give rise to neurodegeneration and cancer. He is an avid ice hockey player, enjoys volunteering and outdoor activities.

Tanner Marshall

Health and Medicine Freelance Content Creator, Khan Academy.

Tanner is a content creator for Khan Academy's subject on health and medicine. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a BS and continued on to receive his MS in the same field. Tanner focused his graduate studies in a biomechanics laboratory, mainly using ultrasound as an imaging modality for muscle and tendon, while also acting as instructor for both an introductory biomechanics and bioinstrumentation laboratory. After graduating, he spent over a year working in the cardiac rhythm management industry where he helped troubleshoot implantable pacemakers and defibrillators—everything from EKG interpretation to suggestions on interference with other electronics.

Meanwhile, he started reviving his creative neurons and began creating video content for Khan Academy on the side. Finding a niche, Tanner has since dedicated an increasing amount of time to Khan Academy and feels education—with a touch of creativity—is an extremely powerful and important piece of a successful and forward-moving society; he hopes to continue delving deeper into the educational field as it applies to science, health, and medicine."

David Santo Pietro

Physics Content Fellow, Khan Academy.

David Santo Pietro is the Physics Content Fellow at Khan Academy and teaches physics in Las Vegas, NV. He received his Master’s degree studying particle physics at UC Davis and also did research on carbon nanotubes at UNLV. He has fun thinking of ways to make abstract physics concepts understandable and interesting. He does this at Khan Academy as the Physics Content Fellow where he creates and curates videos, articles, and exercises. He has also been trying new pedagogical approaches to teaching physics at The Meadows School in Las Vegas, NV where he lives with his wife and two sons.

Servando Pineda-Carranza

Supplemental Instruction, San Francisco State University & Math Instructor, Diablo Valley College, San Francisco, CA.

Servando runs the math branch of Supplemental Instruction program at San Francisco State University, and is a math instructor at Diablo Valley College. Servando earned his B.A. in math at the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. in math at San Francisco State University. His passion for mathematics and education has allowed him to work in various types of programs: SF Math Circle instructor and summer camp co-founder, managed the sites of several science summer camps, and created a math summer program for College Track, a non-profit dedicated to serving students from underrepresented communities. Servando’s passion is to find better ways to empower minority students in mathematics.

He is currently working with the Equity team at San Francisco State University to bring social justice into math classrooms to help increase the university’s first and second-year retention of STEM majors.

Rachel Polando

Associate Professor of Biology, Manchester University, Manchester, IN.

Rachel Polando is an Associate Professor of Biology at Manchester University, where she is also the Director of the Honors Program. She was awarded the Teacher of the year at Manchester in 2015. Her primary interests are in undergraduate education, and she enjoys helping students pursue their dreams of biomedical research. She teaches courses in Microbiology, Immunology, Cell Biology, Virology, and Parasitology. Her research areas focuse on how macrophages of the immune system respond during bacteria and parasite infections. Rachel obtained her B.S. in Biology from Hillsdale College and her Ph.D in Infectious Diseases and Immunology from the University of Notre Dame. She lives in South Bend, Indiana with her husband and two cats.

Vishal Punwani

Medical Student, Health and Medicine Freelance Content Creator, Khan Academy.

Vishal is a senior medical student who has been involved in science education for over 7 years. He has worked as a lab instructor in undergraduate human anatomy, biology, and physiology, and in medical school anatomy, immunology and neuroscience. He is currently a Health and Medicine Teaching Fellow for Khan Academy, and is a Lead Editor at Osmosis, a Boston-based medical education platform. He is also an active peer reviewer for two medical journals.

Vishal is undertaking parts of his medical education at the University of Melbourne, the University of British Columbia, and at Harvard University. He interacts with and is inspired by incredible faculty and clinicians - each of whom themselves started as young scientific thinkers.

Vishal’s areas of interest include Women’s and Children’s Health, and medical education. He serves as an Ambassador of the Melbourne Medical School and of the Melbourne Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Sciences, working closely with each to improve clerkship curriculum delivery within the school.

Vishal is strongly committed to promoting advocacy and equity in science education. He is excited about the up-and-coming generations of budding scientists and thinkers, and is looking forward to reviewing submissions to this exciting competition.

Dan Quinn

Postdoctoral Researcher, Bio-Inspired Research and Design Lab, Stanford University.

Dan Quinn is a postdoctoral researcher in the Bio-Inspired Research and Design Lab at Stanford University. As an aerospace engineer by training, Dan’s role in the lab is to study the aerodynamics of bird flight, specifically the stability of flapping flight in lateral gusts and turbulence.

Prior to coming to Stanford, Dan received his PhD in Fluid Dynamics at Princeton University. His doctoral research focused on the role of flexibility in the propulsion of rays and skates. While at Princeton, he developed a strong interest in science education and began publishing short videos that explain fluid dynamics to a general audience. His videos have been featured on National Public Radio, TedEd, and The Atlantic.

Guillaume Riesen

Neuroscience Graduate Student, Stanford University, CA.

Guillaume Riesen is a neuroscience graduate student at Stanford who is committed to promoting public understanding of science and enthusiasm for learning. He produces educational videos covering a wide range of topics in science, math and philosophy. He holds a BSc in Cognitive Neuroscience from Brown University, where he co-created a Brown-RISD course on science video production. He was a 2015 Khan Academy Talent Search winner, and placed second in the Society for Neuroscience's 2015 Brain Awareness Video competition.

In his free time, he enjoys many hobbies including juggling, photography, graphic design and baking as well as creating art pieces in wood, metal, glass, leather and fabrics.

Grant Sanderson

Math Video Creator, 3blue1brown.

Grant Sanderson studied math and computer science at Stanford, where he explored his interests in modern algebra and number theory. Enthusiastic about education, he makes videos about mathematics on his YouTube channel 3blue1brown using an animation tool he is currently developing, which placed him among the winners of the 2015 Khan Academy Talent Search.

Tony St. John

Professor of Chemistry, Skagit Valley College, Mount Vernon, WA.

Tony St. John loves Chemistry! Every day he is fascinated by observing the world around him and thinking about all of the different atoms and molecules that are making up literally everything you can see (clouds) or feel (wind) or smell (the salty ocean) or touch (Legos). Chemistry is the study of all of these different atoms, molecules and substances. It explains why certain things explode, different things are sticky, or how two chemicals will react with one another. It's so cool!

Luckily for Tony, his day job is working as a Professor of Chemistry at Skagit Valley College in Mount Vernon, WA. In his short time as a college instructor, Tony has focused on flipping his classroom to get rid of boring lectures and spend more time on student-centered activities! Additionally, Tony has been working hard to produce a series of instructional YouTube videos for his 1st and 2nd year chemistry students. These videos cover a range of topics and he's continually uploading new content.

In his free time, Tony enjoys catching Dungeness crab in Bellingham Bay, alpine climbing in the North Cascades, and eating shrimp.

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