People

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress and playwright who is said to have created a new form of theater. She has won numerous awards, among them two Obies, two Tony nominations, a Drama Desk Award, the Susan V. Berresford Fellowship from United States Artists, and a MacArthur fellowship. She was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Fires in the Mirror. Her work, in a series called "On The Road: A Search for American Character," combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through performance. She currently plays hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus, a series regular, on Showtime's hit series Nurse Jackie. Additional screen credits include The West Wing, The American President, Rachel Getting Married, Life Support, and others. Honorary degrees include those from Juilliard, John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY, Northwestern, Haverford, and Radcliffe. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also been the inaugural artist in residence at the Ford Foundation, MTV Networks, and the Aspen Institute. She is a professor at New York University. She is founding director of Anna Deavere Smith Works, Inc., a center that convenes artists whose work addresses the world's most pressing problems.

Anna is a Senior Digital Producer at GBH, with expertise in website production, digital design, photography, video and photo editing, research, project management, asset acquisition, and writing.

Anna Kusmer is a radio producer for WGBH Radio and a journalist based in Boston. She previously worked at KQED in San Francisco. She is also a freelance science and health writer with stories appearing in PBS, NPR, Rewire.News and Atlas Obscura, among other places.

Anna Lappe is a national bestselling author and sought-after public speaker, respected for her work on sustainability, food politics, globalization, and social change. Named one of Time's "eco" *Who's-Who*, Anna has been featured in *The New York Times*, *Gourmet*, *O: The Oprah Magazine, Domino, Food & Wine, Body + Soul, Natural Health*, and *Vibe*, among many other publications. She is the host for MSN's *Practical Guide to Healthy Living *and is a co-host for the public television series, *The Endless Feast*. She has written two previous books, *Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet,* co-written with her mother Frances Moore Lappe, which chronicles courageous social movements around the world, and *Grub:* *Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen*.

Anna Lawrence Pietroni grew up outside of Birmingham, England. She graduated with a first class degree from Oxford and worked for several years in the British prison system before turning to writing. *Ruby's Spoon* is her first novel.

Anna Marie Wagner, MBA, is the SVP of Corporate Development and Interim CFO for Ginkgo Bioworks. Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company that genetically engineers "made-to-order" microbes for customers across industries, including industrial chemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and agriculture, and personal care. Ginkgo designs these microbes in a 100K+ sqft Boston facility that brings scale economics to biological engineering using robotic automation and custom software. The company has raised over $800M in venture capital funding and has partnerships with companies including Bayer, ADM, Cargill, Genomatica, Cronos, Roche, Synlogic, and Moderna.

Anna was raised to believe that every crisis is an opportunity. In 2011, the young musical theater performer and lifestyle journalist co-founded a movement called Save Philippine Seas as a response to an illegal wildlife trade case. Since then, she has taken on the title “Chief Mermaid” and led campaigns to conserve sharks, empower Filipino seatizens, and reduce single-use plastics nationwide by writing policies, using social media, and implementing community-based programs. She will discuss how she is mobilizing businesses, government officials, youth, and marine life to protect, conserve, and restore the Philippine seas. Image: [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/annaroposa)

Anna Rothschild is the creator and host of Gross Science, a YouTube series from NOVA and PBS Digital Studios. She's a multimedia producer and science journalist with a deep curiosity, a passion for education, and expertise in all areas of production: she directs, shoots, edits, animates, narrates, and hosts. Rothschild was awarded the 2016 AAAS Kavli Gold Award for Children's Science News for her Gross Science series. She also received the American Institute of Physics' 2012 Science Communication Award for New Media, and their 2015 award for Broadcast/New Media.

Annalee Newitz is a freelance writer and a contributing editor at *Wired* magazine. In 2004 and 2005, she was the policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Based on her doctoral research at Berkeley, her forthcoming book, *Pretend We're Dead: Capitalist Monsters in American Pop Culture*, is about capitalism and monster movies. Formerly, Newitz was the culture editor at* The San Francisco Bay Guardian*. After being named a Knight Science Journalism Fellow, she spent the 2002-2003 academic year as a research fellow at MIT. Her work has appeared in magazines and papers such as *Wired*, *Popular Science*, *Salon*, *The San Francisco Bay Guardian*, and several academic journals and anthologies. Newitz's writing focuses on pop culture and technology, from the politics of open source software to hacker subcultures. Her weekly syndicated column, Techsploitation, is about the ways that media mutates and reiterates the problems of everyday life. Newitz's next book will deal with the cultural impact of technology.

Annaliese Baker is the summer intern for the digital team at GBH News.