Speakers

Shankar Vedantam is the host and executive editor of the Hidden Brain podcast and radio show, where he explores the hidden patterns that drive human behavior. He and NPR launched the podcast in 2015, which now receives millions of downloads per week and regularly ranks one of the top 20 podcasts in the world. More than 425 public radio stations across the United States air the radio show, which debuted in 2017. 

Vedantam spent 10 years as a reporter and columnist at The Washington Post before becoming NPR’s social science correspondent (2011–2020). In 2009–2010, he served as a fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. 

In addition to winning the Edward R. Murrow Award, Vedantam and Hidden Brain have garnered honors from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, International Society of Political Psychology, Society of Professional Journalists, National Association of Black Journalists, Austen Riggs Center, American Psychoanalytic Association, Webby Awards, Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors, South Asian Journalists Association, Asian American Journalists Association, Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, American Public Health Association, Templeton-Cambridge Fellowship on Science and Religion, and Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship.  

Vedantam speaks internationally about how the “hidden brain” shapes our world and has authored two nonfiction books: The Hidden Brain: How Our Unconscious Minds Elect Presidents, Control Markets, Wage Wars and Save Our Lives, published in 2010, and Useful Delusions: The Power and Paradox of the Self-Deceiving Brain, published in 2021, which explores deception’s role in human success.

Photo by Jamey Stillings

New York Times best-selling author and Washington Post contributing columnist Amanda Ripley is co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict. She has written three award-winning, nonfiction books.  

High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out describes what happens when regular conflict distills into a good-versus-evil kind of feud, the type with an "us" and a "them." It is an evidence-based manual for communicating and staying sane in the current age of runaway conflict. The Smartest Kids in the World follows three American teenagers who spent one year far from home, attending public high school in the countries with the strongest education systems in the world. It was published in 15 countries, turned into a documentary film, and chosen by The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Amazon as one of the most notable books of the year. The Unthinkable chronicles the stories and wisdom of people who have survived disasters of all kinds—from hurricanes to terrorist attacks. It was published in 15 countries, turned into a PBS documentary, and selected by Hudson Booksellers as one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of the year.  

Earlier in her career, Ripley spent a decade writing about human behavior for Time magazine in New York, Washington, and Paris. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Politico, The Guardian, and The Times of London. Ripley has appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX News, and NPR. She has spoken at the Pentagon, U.S. Senate, U.S. Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and dozens of conferences.