Chris Miller is Associate Professor of International History at Tufts University, where his research focuses on technology, geopolitics, economics, international affairs, and Russia. He is author of Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, a geopolitical history of the computer chip. He is the author of three other books on Rus…

Anwaar Al Mahmeed is the Managing Director of Republic MENA, Board Member at CubeFabs Inc, and a Venture Capitalist. She founded Menaverse Ventures to invest in early stage deep tech, and had previously co-founded the East Chain Co. focused solely on blockchain infrastructure investments. She was also the lead organizer of The East Chain Open Hub (…

Zoe Weinberg is the founder & managing partner of ex/ante, an early-stage fund that works to counter surveillance capitalism and digital authoritarianism by investing in technology that is more private, secure, and decentralized. Prior, Zoe worked on ethics and policy at the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and at Google AI. …

Dr. Thomas Irvine is a global historian of music from 1500 CE to the present. After studying viola at conservatoire (at the Shepherd School of Rice University and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music) he moved to Germany and played professionally, mostly in Early Music ensembles but also in symphony orchestras. He also taught for a year at the…

Dr. Björn Lomborg is an academic and author of the bestselling titles "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet", "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It". He is currently a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center,…

Serge Faguet is a Russian-Ukrainian entrepreneur and thinker. He has founded multiple tech companies including multi-billion-dollar B2B online travel company Emerging Travel Group, concierge medicine care delivery company Novami, AI drug discovery company Multiomic Health, automated clinical trial recruitment company Nexus and Web2 ⇒ Web3 onboardin…

K. Eric Drexler is a senior research fellow at Oxford University and widely regarded as the father of nanotechnology. He has authored several seminal texts including Engines of Creation and Radical Abundance, his previous research focuses on scalable atomically precise manufacturing (APM) for the purpose of manipulating matter from the bottom up. H…

Andre Watson is Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Ligandal, an industry pioneer in precision genetic medicine. Andre has a background in biomedical engineering and is using his knowledge of nanomaterials to develop next-generation technologies for personalized gene therapy with the ultimate goal of curing chronic illnesses and rare diseases, revolution…

Ranjit Singh is currently a researcher at Data & Society’s AI on the Ground Initiative, a nonprofit research center that convenes experts in industry and academia to address interdisciplinary questions surrounding the development of new technologies with the goal of advancing an understanding of the social relationships governing and governed by da…

George Kurtz is the CEO and co-founder of CrowdStrike, a leading provider of next-generation endpoint protection, threat intelligence, and services. Kurtz is an internationally recognized security expert, author, entrepreneur, and speaker. He has more than 28 years of experience in the security space, including extensive experience driving revenue …

Gaurab Chakrabarti is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Solugen, which he co-founded with Sean Hunt in 2016 with the mission to decarbonize the chemicals industry. Gaurab is a physician-scientist focused on using biology in unconventional ways to solve incredibly complex problems. As CEO, Gaurab is using his insights from enzyme engineering to d…

Henrik Fisker is a risk taking, innovation loving, protocol challenging legendary designer & entrepreneur who turns dreams into reality and believes in never giving up. An entrepreneur, creator, innovator, mentor, brand ambassador and a leading automotive designer. Best known among his creations are iconic cars such as BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9, Ast…

The author of 13 acclaimed books, including New York Times nonfiction bestsellers Case Closed, Why America Slept and God’s Bankers. Posner was a finalist for the Pulitzer in History. “A merciless pit bull of an investigator” concluded the Chicago Tribune. The New York Times said his latest book (2020), PHARMA, was “a withering and encyclopedic indi…

Gustav Söderström is the Chief Research & Development Officer at Spotify. He oversees the product, design, data, and engineering teams at Spotify and is responsible for their product strategy. Mr. Söderström is a startup seed investor and was formerly an advisor to 13th Lab (acquired by Facebook’s Oculus). Before joining the Company in 2009, Mr. Sö…

Dr. Kate Darling is a leading expert in Robot Ethics. She’s a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, where she investigates social robotics and conducts experimental studies on human-robot interaction. Kate explores the emotional connection between people and life-like machines, seeking to influence technology desi…

Tony Arcabascio is the Art Director for Nanotronics and oversees all creative design across branding, marketing, and digital platforms. Tony also provides creative input on design for some engineering projects such as nHale™. Tony joined the Nanotronics team with over 25 years of experience in the streetwear and the fashion industry. In 1999, he co…

Sarah Williams is currently an Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning. She also is Director of the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. The Civic Data Design Lab works with data, maps, and mobile technologies to develop interactive design and communication strategies that expose urban policy issues to br…

The founder and the Director of Silent Cry Inc., Shawanna Vaughn, is a native of Bakersfield, California, and a mother of two. Silent Cry, Inc. is the product of the tears she shed while overcoming the pain and hardships of incarceration, the loss of a brother to gang initiation violence and surviving cancer. She is the true definition of strength,…

Alan Murray is the CEO of Fortune. He previously hosted an eponymous show on CNBC and was president of Pew Research Center from 2013 to 2014, where he oversaw a rapid expansion of the center’s digital footprint. Prior to that, Murray was at The Wall Street Journal for more than two decades. He served as deputy managing editor and executive editor o…

Kweku Mandela is a film producer most well-known for Inescapable (2012). He was born in Transkei, South Africa, and grew up in America, returning to his homeland in 1993. He attended APA International Film School in Sydney and is very active in the South African Film and Entertainment industries. He is dedicated to honoring his grandfather Nelson M…

Béla Fleck, (born July 10, 1958, New York, New York, U.S.), American musician recognized as one of the most inventive and commercially successful banjo players of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Fleck became fascinated by bluegrass music during his youth in New York City. He began to play banjo when he was 15 years old, inspired by the musi…

Juan Martín Maldacena is a theoretical physicist and the Carl P. Feinberg Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study. He has made significant contributions to the foundations of string theory and quantum gravity. His most famous discovery is the AdS/CFT correspondence, a realization of the holographic principle …

Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian moral philosopher. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. …

Janna Levin is the Claire Tow Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College of Columbia University. She is also the Chair and Founding Director of the Science Studios at Pioneer Works. A Guggenheim Fellow, Janna has contributed to an understanding of black holes, the cosmology of extra dimensions, and gravitational waves in the shape of spa…

Vijay Kumar is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Kumar served as the Deputy Dean for Research in the School of Engineering and Applied Scie…

Lee Smolin is a theoretical physicist who has been since 2001 a founding and senior faculty member at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. His main contributions have been so far to the quantum theory of gravity, to which he has been a co-inventor and major contributor to two major directions, loop quantum gravity and deformed special relat…

Dr. Caroline Buckee joined Harvard School of Public Health in the summer of 2010 as an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2017. In 2013, Dr. Buckee was named the Associate Director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics. The Buckee Lab uses mathematical models and data science to understand the …

Dr. James Gimzewski is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; Faculty Director of the Nano & Pico Characterization Core Facility of the California NanoSystems Institute; Scientific Director of the Art|Sci Center and Principal Investigator and Satellites Co-Director of the WPI Center for Materials NanoAr…

Joscha Bach, Ph.D., is the VP of Research at the AI Foundation. He formerly held research positions in Cognitive Artificial Intelligence at MIT and Harvard. Joscha’s work explores the workings of the human mind, intelligence, consciousness, life on Earth, and the possibly simulated fabric of our universe. He has been called the leading philosopher …

Scott Aaronson is a David J. Bruton Centennial Professor of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin, and director of its Quantum Information Center. Prior to coming to UT Austin, Aaronson taught for nine years in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. His interests center around the capabilities and limits of quantum comp…

Jill Neimark is a veteran science journalist and author of adult and children's fiction. She is a former contributing editor at Discover Magazine, she also written for Scientific American, Science, Nautilus, Aeon, The New York Times, NPR, Quartz, and Psychology Today. She published the adult nonfiction book, coauthored with bioethicist Stephen Post…

Physicist and musician Stephon Alexander has straddled the worlds of theoretical physics and jazz music over the last two decades. He works on the connection between the smallest and largest entities in the universe pushing Einstein’s theory of curved space-time to extremes, beyond the big bang with subatomic phenomena. Alexander is a Professor of …

Gary Marcus is a scientist, best-selling author, and entrepreneur. He is Founder and CEO of Robust.AI, and was Founder and CEO of Geometric Intelligence, a machine learning company acquired by Uber in 2016. He is the author of five books, including The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and The New York Times best seller Guitar Zero, as …

Anima Anandkumar is Director of Machine Learning at NVIDIA and Bren professor at Caltech. Anima has led research in tensor-algebraic methods, large-scale learning, deep learning, probabilistic models, and non-convex optimization, among others. She is the youngest named professor at Caltech, the highest honor bestowed to an individual faculty. She i…

Pamela McCorduck has authored and co-authored several books, including the iconic Machines Who Think, her personal, original, and groundbreaking inquiry into the history and possibilities of AI, first published in 1979. Through her writing, Pamela has worked alongside Marvin Minsky, John McCarthy, Ed Feigenbaum, and other seminal figures of artific…

Joseph Dominick Pistone (born September 17, 1939), also known by his undercover alias Donnie Brasco, is an American former FBI agent who worked undercover between September 1976 and July 1981, as part of an infiltration primarily into the Bonanno crime family, and to a lesser extent the Colombo crime family, two of the Five Families of the Mafia in…

Najee Dorsey is an Artist, a Collector, and the CEO / Founder of Black Art In America. Najee's work has been exhibited in multiple museum shows, including his first major solo exhibition at the Columbus Museum in Columbus Georgia, entitled: Leaving Mississippi -- Reflections on Heroes and Folklore in 2014. In addition, Dorsey has shown his work in …

Stephen Wolfram is a scientist, physicist, and businessman best known for his work in computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. Over more than four decades, Wolfram has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking—and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations. Based on both h…

Tom X. Lee, MD, is the CEO and founder behind Galileo Health, a telemedicine company that aims to provide quality healthcare that is affordable and accessible to everyone. He has a track record of innovation that bridges technology and healthcare. Before founding Galileo, he created Epocrates, the very first medical app on Apple's mobile platform, …

Artist and director Smriti Keshari’s work covers a spectrum of the moving image and explores under-represented themes and experiences. Smriti is known for her acclaimed film, the bomb, which has been shown throughout the world and was heralded as a stunning approach to the plea for nuclear disarmament. She is currently working on a five-part multi-…

In this episode of Utility + Function, Matthew sits down with world-renowned economist, Prof. Steve Hanke, at his offices at Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Hanke is a leading expert on currency boards, measuring and stopping hyperinflation, privatization, currency and commodity trading, as well as water resource economics. He has advised heads of …

When asked if she is ever disappointed in the way the world is going, Living Legend Professor Angeline Butler is unwavering. "The revolution is never over." Angeline Butler is a founding SNCC activist, performer, director, and teacher who has consistently fought for change, whether through her creativity or her activism. Her legacy continues to ins…

On today’s episode, Matthew talks to Jeff Holden, the CEO and Co-Founder of Atomic Machines and former CPO of Uber, Senior Vice President of Groupon, and the Senior Vice President of Consumer Websites Worldwide at Amazon. During their conversation, the friends share their thoughts on invention, fatherhood, and big tech. How do children mold one’s t…

On today’s episode, Matthew talks to Stephen Delaporte, Founder & CEO of Avar Robotics--whose goal is to create the most high-functioning and efficient robots. During their conversation, the friends share their thoughts on the art of invention. What are the barriers to creating something? What is scientific lineage--an exchange of energy? Delaporte…

Bolt Threads' CEO Dan Widmaier sits down with Matthew to discuss their individual evolution from scientist to CEO, the timelines of Startups, how to build a team, and create partnerships.

Matthew talks to Alexis Gambis, French-Venezuelan biologist and filmmaker, about feeling small when you look through a microscope and how being a director allows one to put a spotlight on our own vulnerabilities. How does science open new territories for film and vice versa?

This week, Matthew interviews Beth Comstock about creativity, freedom, and investigation: how do these impulses translate within an organization and within a life? How does one “justify” or capitalize on creative endeavors in our society? How does one return to childlike creative wonder? Beth Comstock is an American business executive and the forme…

Today marks Nanotronics' sixth podcast and we are looking inward. It is time for us to ask what makes a startup tick, and who better to talk to than Farmshelf founder and fellow Navy Yard resident, Andrew Shearer. Matthew Putman speaks to Shearer about his experience working in a cherry-packing facility and the twists and turns that led him on his …

Michael Vassar, founder of the Singularity Institute among many other accomplishments, speaks to Matthew about Thomas Edison, Climate Change, Railroads, President Lincoln, Modern Times, Alien Invasion, and searches for a happy ending. Thank you for listening!

Builder, Mentor, Business Leader. Julie Orlando, Nanotronics CPO, talks to Matthew about building a wooden box for her rare rock collection in kindergarten, taking apart complex machinery at twelve, managing a windshield-wiper factory at 19, cosigning her first patent before graduating college, finding impactful stories to tell about process contro…