Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely is the Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Behavioral Economics at MIT, where he holds a joint appointment between MIT's Program in Media Arts and Sciences and the Sloan School of Management.

Ariely is the author of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions (HarperCollins), currently on The New York Times best seller list. In this groundbreaking work, Ariely presents often humorous and peculiar research findings that provide new insights into human behavior – insights that will help us make better decisions as individuals, as corporations, and as a society.

Ariely publishes widely in the leading scholarly journals in economics, psychology, and business. His work has been featured in a variety of media including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Business 2.0, Scientific American, Science, CNN, NPR, and he was interviewed for ABC's 20/20.

Ariely received a B.A. in psychology from Tel Aviv University , an M.A. and Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Ph.D. in marketing from Duke University.

John Geanakoplos

John Geanakoplos is the James Tobin Professor of Economics at Yale University. He is also a partner at Ellington Capital Management, a hedge fund that deals primarily with mortgage-backed securities. He joined the Yale faculty in 1980, and became a full professor in 1986. From 1990-1995 he was a Managing Director and Head of Fixed Income Research at Kidder, Peabody & Co., Inc.

Geanakoplos directed the economics program at the Santa Fe Institute in 1990-1991 and in 1999-2000, and he remains an SFI external professor. He spent terms as visiting professor at MSRI in the University of California Berkeley, at Churchill College Cambridge, at the University of Pennsylvania, and at MIT.

Geanakoplos was elected a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1990 and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999. He was awarded the first Bodossaki Prize in economics in 1994 and was awarded the Samuelson Prize in 1999 (for work on lifetime financial security). In 1970, he won the United States Junior Open Chess Championship.

Geanakoplos received a B.A. in Mathematics from Yale University (summa cum laude), an M.A. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Economics under Kenneth Arrow from Harvard University.

Ford Rowan

Ford Rowan is the chair of the National Center for Critical Incident Analysis in Washington, DC, which studies critical incidents, including terrorist threats. The center is a privately funded, not-for-profit civilian organization that collaborates with the National Defense University.

In his first career, Rowan was an NBC News correspondent and host of International Edition, a weekly program on PBS. He covered the Nixon White House, the Watergate trials, the investigation of the CIA, the war in Lebanon, and Three Mile Island.

In his second career, Rowan practiced law in Washington and consulted on health, environmental, safety, and financial issues for corporate clients. In the past two decades, he was involved in the following matters: airline disasters of 9/11, precautions against anthrax, mad cow disease, security issues in the Mideast, aftermath of the Valdez oil spill, silicone breast implant litigation, sports utility vehicle rollover accidents, genetically engineered foods, corporate governance, and restatement of earnings episodes. He continues to consult with his firm, Rowan & Blewitt Incorporated in Herndon, Virginia.

Rowan is the author of books on computer privacy and security, broadcast regulation, and crisis management. He is currently completing a study of bioterrorism. He has taught journalism at Northwestern University and conflict management at George Washington University.

Rowan is a graduate of Tulane University and Georgetown University Law Center. He holds graduate degrees in the following fields: applied behavioral science from Johns Hopkins; government, science and public policy from American University; and international relations from Syracuse. He earned a doctorate in public administration from the University of Southern California.

Daniel Schrag

Daniel Schrag is Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Schrag studies climate and climate change over the broadest range of Earth History.

Schrag has examined changes in ocean circulation over the last several decades, with particular attention to El Niño and the tropical Pacific. He has worked on theories for Pleistocene ice-age cycles including a better determination of ocean temperatures during the Last Glacial Maximum, 20,000 years ago. Schrag has also developed the Snowball Earth hypothesis, proposing that a series of global glaciations occurred between 750 and 580 million years ago that may have led to the evolution of multicellular animals.

Schrag is currently working on creating integrated models of climate change and economic stability for developing countries. He was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2000.

Schrag received his B.S. in Geology, Geophysics, and Political Science from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of California at Berkeley.

George Tenet

George Tenet is a Managing Director with Allen & Company, where he is responsible for the firm's International Merchant Banking business. Previously, George served as the 18th Director of Central Intelligence from 1997 until 2004. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Tenet served as Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, having been confirmed in that post in July 1995. Through December of 2007, Mr. Tenet was a member of the Faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

In December of 2004, President George W. Bush awarded Mr. Tenet the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor. He holds the two highest decorations for leadership from the Central Intelligence Agency and the United States Intelligence Community -- the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal.

Mr. Tenet holds a BSFS from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and an MIA from the School of International Affairs at Columbia University.

Michael Mauboussin
Senior Vice President, Chief Investment Strategist

Michael Mauboussin is Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management. Prior to joining LMCM, Michael was a Managing Director and Chief U.S. Investment Strategist at Credit Suisse. Michael joined CS in 1992 as a packaged food industry analyst. He is a former president of the Consumer Analyst Group of New York and was repeatedly named to Institutional Investor's All-America Research Team and The Wall Street Journal All-Star survey in the food industry group.

Michael is the author of More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places—Updated and Expanded ( New York : Columbia Business School Publishing, 2008), named best business book by BusinessWeek and best economics book by Strategy+Business. He is also co-author of Expectations Investing: Reading Stock Prices for Better Returns (Harvard Business School Press, 2001).

Michael has been an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School since 1993. BusinessWeek's Guide to the Best Business Schools (2001) highlighted Michael as one of the school's "Outstanding Faculty," a distinction received by only seven professors.

Michael is on the Board of Trustees and Science Steering Committee at the Santa Fe Institute, a leading center for multi-disciplinary research in complex systems theory. He received a B.A. in government from Georgetown University.

Bill Miller, CFA
Chairman, Chief Investment Officer

Bill Miller is one of today's most renowned professional money managers. He is Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of Legg Mason Capital Management, Inc.

Bill Miller currently manages the Value Trust and Opportunity Trust mutual funds. Legg Mason Value Trust is the only mutual fund to outperform the S&P 500 for 15 consecutive calendar years, period ending 01/01/06¹. Over the years, Bill Miller and his team have received numerous accolades for their management record and distinct style, which focuses on a detailed understanding of businesses and their intrinsic value.

His unique investment management philosophy and approach to undervalued stocks has also made him the subject of profiles in numerous books as well as publications, including The New York Times, Barron's, Business Week, Kiplinger's, Money, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and SmartMoney.

He was ranked among the top 30 most influential people in investing when he was named a member of the "Power 30" by SmartMoney. He was also named by Money magazine as "The Greatest Money Manager of the 1990's" and named Morningstar's 1998 "Domestic Equity Manager of the Year." In 1999, he was selected as the "Fund Manager of the Decade" by Morningstar.com. Also in 1999, Barron's named him to its All-Century Investment Team and BusinessWeek called him one of the "Heroes of Value Investing."

Bill assumed overall responsibility for the equity funds management area of Legg Mason in late 1990. Prior to this time, he co-managed (with Ernie Kiehne) the Legg Mason Value Trust from its inception in 1982. He was the Director of Research of Legg Mason from October 1981 through June 1985. He earned his economics degree from Washington and Lee University where he graduated with honors in 1972. Subsequent to graduation, he served as a Military Intelligence Officer overseas and then pursued graduate studies in philosophy in the Ph.D. program at The Johns Hopkins University. Prior to joining Legg Mason in 1981, he served as Treasurer of the J.E. Baker Company, a major manufacturer of products for the steel and cement industries. Bill received his CFA designation in 1986.

Bill currently serves as Chairman on the Board of Trustees of the Santa Fe Institute, one of the world's leading scientific research laboratories, which conducts multi-disciplinary research in complex systems theory.