Dr. Brad Aimone is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in the Center for Computing Research at Sandia National Laboratories, where he is a lead researcher in leveraging computational neuroscience to advance artificial intelligence and in using neuromorphic computing platforms for future scientific computing applications. Brad leads several research efforts on designing neural algorithms for NeuroAI, scientific computing applications, and leveraging neuromorphic computing to understand the brain.

Brad has published over 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference articles in venues such as Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Machine Intelligence, Science, Advanced Materials, Nature Electronics, Communications of the ACM, and PNAS and he is one of the co-founders of the Neuro-Inspired Computational Elements, or NICE, conference. Brad led the team that was awarded the 2023 Misha Mahowald Prize in Neuromorphic Engineering for their work in demonstrating a neuromorphic advantage for Monte Carlo simulations.

Prior to joining the technical staff at Sandia in 2011, Dr. Aimone was a postdoctoral research associate at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, with a Ph.D. in computational neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego and Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in chemical engineering from Rice University.

Erol Akçay is a Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a theoretical biologist interested in the evolution of complex biological and social organization. He works on understanding evolution shapes cooperation between individuals with conflicting interests and what the consequences of the mechanisms of cooperation and conflict are. He has worked on systems varying from plant-microbe mutualisms to animal behavior and cultural evolution in humans. Dr. Akçay’s research has been published by Science, the American Naturalist, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and more. Dr. Akçay’s lab is affiliated with the Warren Center for Network and Data Sciences, MindCORE, Perry World House, and the Social and Cultural Evolution Working Group at Penn.

Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, MSc is Professor and Director of the Behavioral Regulation and Health Section in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His primary research interests concern the effects of sleep loss on behavior and cognition, population studies on sleep time and waking activities, the effects of traffic noise on sleep and recuperation, and the effects of long-duration space missions on behavior and cognition. Dr. Basner conducted several large-scale laboratory and field studies on the effects of traffic noise on sleep since 1999. Dr. Basner is Past President of the International Commission of Biological Effects of Noise (ICBEN). Dr. Basner published 135 peer-reviewed articles and reviews. He is Senior Associate Editor of the journal Sleep Health and editorial board member of the journal Frontiers in Physiology. He has reviewed for 100+ scientific journals. He is a member of the Sleep Research Society (SRS) and the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA). Dr. Basner is advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) concerning traffic noise effects on sleep.

Elizabeth (Zab) Johnson is the executive director and senior fellow of the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative. Her research focuses on vision and visual behavior, spanning physiological approaches in the retina and early visual cortex to using eye tracking to investigate how human observers look, how these processes unfold over time and with experience, and the role of visually-guided social cognition and decision-making. As an expert on color vision, she has collaborated with Lenovo to develop computer and tablet screens with features that provide a more personalized color experience. Before coming to Penn in 2016, she was at Duke University, where she was on the faculty in the Neurobiology Department and served as the Associate Director of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. Zab has a long-time interest in how our perception of visual art informs how we see.

Konrad Kording is the Nathan Francis Mossell University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, with appointments in Neuroscience, Bioengineering, and Computer Science. His research uses ideas from machine learning, statistics, and neuroscience to understand how intelligent systems learn and compute. He is also Co-Director of CIFAR’s Learning in Machines & Brains program and Co-CEO of Mindspan Institute, a research organization developing new technologies for understanding the human brain. His work increasingly focuses on the connections between biological and artificial intelligence and on what modern AI can teach us about learning, reasoning, and science.

America’s only pianist to perform Rachmaninoff’s complete solo piano works, Asiya Korepanova is a pianistic powerhouse, also widely recognized as a composer, visual artist, and poet. A herald of an enormous repertoire—over 60 piano concertos and solo works spanning early Baroque to living composers—Asiya is a true completist who finds special joy in performing large-scale cycles such as the 24 Liszt Etudes or Bach’s entire Well-Tempered Clavier. Her emotionally charged, vividly colored performances have earned her deep audience admiration and many repeat invitations.

A prolific creator, Asiya studied composition with Albert Leman, the Composition Department Chair at the Moscow Conservatory and a student of Dmitry Shostakovich. She is the author of numerous original works and a remarkable body of piano transcriptions, including Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, Rachmaninoff’s Cello Sonata, Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, and many others. In 2025, Deutsche Grammophon commissioned her to create a transcription of the 18th variation of Rachmaninoff’s Paganini Rhapsody for Lang Lang, who recorded it for his album Piano Book 2. She also crafts original multimedia projects—merging her poetry, artwork, and music—for works by Liszt, Bach, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky.

Born to a musical family in Russia, Asiya made her orchestral debut at nine with Mozart’s Concerto No. 8, performing her own cadenza, and gave a full solo recital the same year. Since immigrating to the U.S. in 2012, she has garnered national attention with appearances at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, the Phillips Collection, Newport Classical Festival, the International Miami Piano Festival, and many others. Her performances have been featured on CNN, NPR affiliates, WFMT, and WETA.

In the 2025–26 season, Asiya debuts at the Tippet Rise concert series and premieres her beloved Amy Beach Piano Concerto in South America, making her debut with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. She also appears for the first time with the National Symphony Orchestra of Chile, the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, and the Abilene Symphony Orchestra. She returns to the San Francisco Piano Festival, Friends of Chamber Music of Miami, Bargemusic, the MostArts Festival, and more. Upcoming publications include scores of her compositions—Poème for alto saxophone and piano and Con Brio for two pianos—as well as her piano solo transcription of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony and transcriptions of works by Bruckner, Berg, Tchaikovsky, Fauré, and Bach.

In June, she directs her Flatiron Festival, a two-week chamber music series in Manhattan.

More information and shop: www.asiya.us

Director, Wharton Neuroscience Initiative
James S. Riepe University Professor of Marketing, Neuroscience, and Psychology

Dr. Platt’s research focuses on the brain’s decision-making processes. As a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) Professor, he has appointments in the Department of Neuroscience in the Perelman School of Medicine, the Department of Psychology in the School of Arts and Sciences, and the Department of Marketing in the Wharton School. Platt has served as Professor of Neurobiology, Director of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University. He has also served as the President of the Society for Neuroeconomics. He has been recognized in the New York Times, the Washington post, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, ABC, BBC and PBS.

Natalie Richardson is Director of HabLab at Slalom, where she brings neuroscience, behavioral science, and human-centered design together to reimagine how organizations work, lead, and thrive in an era of unprecedented change. Her team’s workplace lab, which focused on the “habits and habitats” of work explores the future of human-AI teaming, collaboration, organizational culture, team dynamics and trust, and The Global Brain Economy. Natalie works with leading institutions, including the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative, Stanford d.school, NYU Stern School of Business, and others to translate cutting-edge science into new possibilities for leaders and organizations around the world. Slalom HabLab has partnered with the Wharton Neuroscience Initiative since 2020, creating a longstanding collaboration focused on bringing brain science into the real-world challenges of work, leadership, and organizational transformation. Natalie lives in Denver, Colorado. As a lifelong lover of the outdoors, she is especially fascinated by the neuroscience of nature and the ways our environments shape the brain, behavior, and human thriving.

Jerry Rosburg is a distinguished leader in professional sports and veteran advocacy, bringing over 40 years of elite football experience to his role as Vice President of Sports Services at NexGen Hyperbaric. A Super Bowl XLVII champion and former Interim Head Coach for the Denver Broncos, Rosburg spent 11 seasons as Associate Head Coach for the Baltimore Ravens, where he set league standards for special teams excellence and player development.

At NexGen, Rosburg bridges the gap between medical technology and athletic performance, spearheading Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) integrations for premier NFL, MLB, and NHL franchises. Beyond the field, he is a dedicated advocate for the veteran community, serving on the advisory board for Bravo Zulu House and collaborating with the Pat Tillman Foundation. As a guest speaker and consultant on the national and international stage, Rosburg remains a prominent voice in leadership, innovation, and service-driven excellence.

Mallika Sarma is a human biologist and an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of Pennyslvania School of Arts and Sciences and the director of the Health and BioBehavior Laboratory (HaBBLab). Her work her centers on biological and behavioral responses and adaptive processes in novel, energy-intensive, and extreme environments in contemporary human populations. Her work considers the entire human system, from microscale hormone secretion up through macroscale social systems and environments, to understand the long-term consequences of stress under environmental constraint, and to identify social and structural mechanisms that promote resilience, with a view towards translation for contemporary communities in a rapidly changing world. Together, they converge on a single overarching question: How do human biological and behavioral systems respond when pushed to their limits, and what protects us when they are?

Mallika received a B.S. in Evolutionary Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Michigan, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology, with a focus in human biology training in the Hormones, Health, and Human Behavior Lab at the University of Notre Dame, and postdoctoral training at the Human Spaceflight Lab at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research has examined the intersection of hormones, energetics, environmental signals, and social dynamics in extreme settings including the Himalayas, Central Congo Basin, American Rocky Mountains, and the spaceflight environment. Her recent work is exploring the protective effects of social structures in harsh and unpredictable contexts. At the Penn, she is also an Penn Climate/Environmental Innovation Initiative Faculty Fellow and part of Penn Climate’s Extreme Heat working group. She has been funded by institutions such as the NIH, NSF, and NASA Translational Research Institute for Space Health and has published in journals including American Journal of Human Biology, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine, PNAS, and Nature.

Melissa Dawn Simkins is the founder and architect of Athleadership®, a leadership conditioning operating system grounded in neuroscience and the elite athletic mindset. As CEO of Velvet Suite®, an Inc. 5000 ed-tech company, she has spent more than two decades designing, validating, and evolving a system that measurably strengthens how leaders think, decide, and lead in modern business. Her work has reached more than 250,000 leaders across 26+ countries. She is the author of Athleadership: The Elite Athletic Mindset: How to Lead Under Pressure and Perform When It Counts.

Melissa partners with Fortune 500 companies, professional sports organizations, elite athletes, and high-performing executives to equip them with a conditioning system to perform under pressure, adapt to change with clarity, and lead when it matters most. Her work redefines modern leadership as a discipline of conditioning, drawing from neuroscience, sports psychology, and behavioral performance data to condition leaders the way elite athletes train.

Beyond the boardroom and stage, Melissa’s greatest joy is being a believer, wife, mother, and athlete. Well-being fuels everything she builds, and she practices discipline, recovery, and mental conditioning daily.

Her work has been featured in CNN, CNBC, Forbes, and Fox Business. She is a global keynote speaker, Inc. contributor, advisor to senior executives, and host of the C-Suite Confidential podcast.