W. Drake McFeely has made his entire career at W. W. Norton and Company, founded in 1923 and today the largest independent publisher wholly owned by its employees. McFeely serves as Norton’s fifth president and chairman of the board of directors. His editorial pursuits began with textbooks by such economists as Joseph E. Stiglitz, who would win the 1991 Nobel Prize, and Hal Varian, now chief economist at Google. Today he mainly edits books for the trade, including the current bestseller The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria, Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its Discontents, six books by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, fellow Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney’s bestselling verse translation Beowulf, and the Pulitzer Prize finalist Rise of American Democracy by Sean Wilentz. Under McFeely’s direction, Norton was selected to publish The 9/11 Commission Report, which pioneered the use of a commercial press to distribute a major government study simultaneous with its release in Washington. Norton authors have been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes and five National Book Awards, and Norton’s college department has doubled in size while expanding into many new fields.

As a partner at Venrock in New York, Mr. Pakman focuses on early stage venture investing in internet and digital media companies. His active investments include Media6Degrees, Smartling, Singly and Crunchyroll. Previously, Pakman was the CEO of eMusic, the world’s leading digital retailer of independent music, second only to iTunes in number of downloads. After buying eMusic from Vivendi Universal, he grew the business by more than 850% in three years, raising revenues from $7 million to more than $68 million. Pakman transformed the business from an obscure also-ran with 50,000 subscribers to the second largest digital music retailer in the world, with more than 400,000 subscribers and more than 12% market share. Prior to joining eMusic, Pakman was co-founder and president of business development and public policy at Myplay, Inc., the company he co-founded in 1999 in Redwood City, CA that introduced the “digital music locker” and pioneered the locker category. In 2001, Myplay was sold to Bertelsmann’s ecommerce Group. Before Myplay, he was vice president at N2K Entertainment, which created the first digital music download service. He also was the co-creator of Apple Computer’s Music Group. Pakman is a graduate of and a former member of the Board of Overseers at University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, and holds a degree in computer science engineering. Pakman is an avid musician and songwriter.

Judith Shapiro became president of Barnard College in 1994 after serving eight years as provost of Bryn Mawr College. She taught at the University of Chicago before joining Bryn Mawr's Department of Anthropology in 1975, where she was successively assistant professor, associate professor, and professor, becoming chair of the department in 1982.  

A native of New York City, she received her undergraduate degree from Brandeis University and her doctor of philosophy in anthropology from Columbia University. She is the author of numerous studies in the areas of gender differentiation, social theory, and missionization, many based on her field research in lowland South America. She has been president of the American Ethnological Society, a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences and a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. She is currently a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Anthropological Association, and the American Ethnological Society. Ms. Shapiro is chair of the board of the New York-based nonprofit Common Cents.

Jeffrey Sine is the co-founder and a partner of Raine, a merchant bank focused on advising and investing in the global entertainment, sports, and digital media industry. Prior to founding Raine in 2009, Mr. Sine was vice chairman and global head of Technology, Media & Telecommunications Investment Banking at UBS Investment Bank. In 1991 Mr. Sine was global head of Media Investment Banking at Morgan Stanley, and named global co-head of the firm’s combined Media and Communications Investment Banking in 2001.

Mr. Sine has sat on the boards of The Manhattan Theatre Club, The International Radio and Television Society, The Museum of Television and Radio Media Center, The USC Annenberg School of Communication / Law Center Joint Venture, and is currently chair of the Board of Trustees of American University in Washington DC He has produced numerous Broadway, Off-Broadway, touring, and West End plays and musicals. He has been nominated for six Tony Awards and is a three-time Tony Award Winner. He lives in New York with his wife, Samira, and has three sons and one daughter.

Mr. Sine received his bachelor of arts from American University and his juris doctor from the University of Southern California.

In addition to his role as professor, Stephen M. Stigler also holds an appointment in the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, and in the Social Science Collegiate Division. He has taught at the university since 1979; prior to that he taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Mr. Stigler has worked on a variety of topics in mathematical statistics, ranging from asymptotic theory to the theory of experimental design, and on applications of statistics including anthropology, forensic science, paleontology, psychology, information transfer, and sports. In recent years he has concentrated on the history of statistics, with inquiries ranging from the development of statistical methods in astronomy and geodesy and their spread to biological and social sciences, to lotteries and the modern development of statistical theory. He has published two books, The History of Statistics (1986) and Statistics on the Table (1999).

Honors include election to the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Humboldt Foundation Research Award, and election as a Membre Associé of the Académie Royale de Belgique, Classe des Sciences. Mr. Stigler received his bachelor of arts and doctor of science (hon) from Carleton College, and his doctor of philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley. He has served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and of the International Statistical Institute, and as editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association: Theory and Methods.

Charles M. Vest joined the faculty of the University of Michigan as an assistant professor in 1968 and taught in the areas of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics. He became an associate professor in 1972 and a full professor in 1977.

In 1990, after serving three years as provost, he became president of MIT and served in that position until December 2004, when he become professor and president emeritus. During this time, Dr. Vest co-founded the Alliance for Global Sustainability; enhanced the racial, gender, and cultural diversity of its students and faculty; established major new institutes in neuroscience and genomic medicine; and redeveloped much of its campus.

He was a director of DuPont for 14 years and of IBM for 13 years; was vice chair of the U.S. Council on Competitiveness for eight years; and served on various federal committees and commissions, including the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology during the Clinton and Bush administrations, the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, and the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on Transformational Diplomacy.

In 2007, he was elected to serve as president of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He has authored one book on holographic interferometry and two on higher education. He has received honorary doctoral degrees from seventeen universities, and was awarded the 2006 National Medal of Technology by President Bush. Most recently, Dr. Vest was awarded the 2011 Vannevar Bush Award from the National Science Board of the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Vest earned a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from West Virginia University in 1963, and master of science in engineering and doctor of philosophy degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan in 1964 and 1967, respectively.

Herbert S. "Pug" Winokur Jr. has served as the chairman and chief executive officer of the private investment firm Capricorn Holdings, Inc. since 1987. He also has been the managing general partner of a number of affiliated limited partnerships, whose goals are to invest in companies with the potential of long-term superior capital appreciation through financial or operating restructuring and industry consolidation. These partnerships controlled companies whose aggregate revenues exceeded $3 billion, and which employed more than 25,000 people. From 1973 to 1987, Mr. Winokur served as senior executive vice president and director of the Penn Central Corporation, and held senior management positions at Pacific Holding Corporation, Victor Palmieri and Company, and Pennsylvania Company.

From 1969 to the early 1970s, Mr. Winokur was co-founder and chairman of ICF Inc., a management consulting and investment firm specializing in policy planning for senior government and business officials, and also concentrating on socially oriented investments. He served as a U.S. Army officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1967 to 1969. He is an honorary director of the UCLA Medical Center Board of Advisors, a former trustee of Greenwich Academy, and a former co-chair of the New York Historical Society. He currently serves on the boards of the National Humanities Center, Ithaka Harbors, Inc., and Squash Haven, which he co-founded. He serves on the Board of Advisors of Columbia Journalism Review, and is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Mr. Winokur served as a fellow of the Harvard Corporation and on the board of Harvard Management Company. He earned an artium baccalaureus, artium magister, and a doctor of philosophy from Harvard University, the last in decision and control theory.