Carol Dweck is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of psychology. Her pioneering work on mindsets has shown the profound effects of believing that human attributes, such as intelligence, are malleable and not fixed. Specifically, her research shows how these mindsets affect the motivation, achievement, and well-being of both children and adults in many cultures around the globe. The research has also led to important innovations in schools and businesses worldwide, innovations that have increased creativity and productivity, as well as inclusion and equity. Dweck has won more than a dozen lifetime achievement awards for her research (including the Atkinson Prize in Psychological and Cognitive Science from the National Academy of Sciences), and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She has also consulted with companies and educational institutions on five continents and has addressed the United Nations. Her book Mindset (published by Random House) has been widely acclaimed, has been translated into 40 languages, and has sold over 7 million copies worldwide.

Mary C. Murphy is the Herman B Wells Endowed Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, the founding Director of the Summer Institute on Diversity at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, and the Founder & CEO of the Equity Accelerator, a research and consulting organization that works with schools and companies to create more equitable learning and working environments through social and behavioral science. Murphy conducts pioneering research on motivation, performance, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. Murphy has published more than 100 articles and won many awards for her research on motivation and inclusion, and has been elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She has consulted with organizations and educational institutions across the world. Her new book, Cultures of Growth: How the New Science of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams, and Organizations (Simon & Schuster), will launch at SXSW EDU in March 2024.

Josh Wyner is founder and executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, where he also serves as a vice president. CEP aims to advance college and university practices, policies, and leadership that significantly improve student outcomes, with a focus on students who are historically underserved in higher education. Josh has spent the past two decades designing and building new organizations that promote talent development and social mobility. He has authored numerous publications about education, including a book, What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students for Success (Harvard Education Press, 2014).

Pascale Charlot is the Managing Director of the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (CEP). She is a visionary and outcomes-driven leader deeply committed to student success. An alumna of Aspen’s year-long Rising President Fellowship, Pascale plays a lead role in crafting and overseeing CEP’s strategy to develop a network of transformational college presidents who share a relentless commitment to advancing excellence and equity in student outcomes. Chief among these programs are Aspen’s Presidential Fellowships, which have graduated over 100 presidents of community colleges that together educate over a million-and-a-half students. In the Fellowships and across CEP’s work, Pascale helps lead efforts to strengthen the inexorable connection between institutional reform and student success.

Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart was named Chancellor of Austin Community College District in 2023. Previously he led Amarillo College, where he built a culture of data-driven support and care for students that resulted in the college winning the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence in 2023. Dr. Lowery-Hart's leadership is focused on improving student success through systemic and cultural change centered on one word: LOVE. Under his leadership, Amarillo College developed a systemic “Culture of Caring” centered on the removal of poverty-based barriers. This culture was featured in The Atlantic (June 2018) in the long-form story “Colleges are no match for American poverty,” and in the documentary The Antidote, from Oscar -nominated and Emmy Award-winning directors Kahane Cooperman and John Hoffman.

Dan Ackerman is a former radio DJ turned journalist, and currently Editor-in-Chief of noted tech news and reviews website Gizmodo. Prior to that, he was a long-time Editorial director at CNET, leading a team covering personal technology, computers and gaming. Dan is also a regular TV talking head and long-time in-house tech expert on CBS Mornings. Dan’s non-fiction business history book, The Tetris Effect (Hachette/PublicAffairs), covers a tangled web of software licensing deals in the Cold War Soviet Union, and has earned rave reviews from the New York Times (“The story shines”), Fortune, WIRED, LA Review of Books, and many other publications.

Shelly Mazzanoble is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Dungeons & Dragons: One Woman’s Quest to Trade Self-Help for Elf Help, and Welcome to Dragon Talk: Inspiring Conversations About Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Love to Play It (co-authored by Greg Tito.) She also co-hosts the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast, Dragon Talk. When she’s not writing books with really long subtitles, she’s writing about her child who thankfully hasn’t added the word “litigation” to his vocabulary yet. Her work has most recently appeared on Scary Mommy, Blunt Moms, Moms and Stories, Pregnant Chicken, and In the Powder Room.

Dan Rawson brings decades of experience in strategic business, e-commerce, and product management to the tabletop industry. Previously COO of Microsoft Dynamics 365, Rawson leverages significant leadership and e-commerce experience to guide D&D on both its digital and tabletop adventures. Prior to Microsoft, he lived in Seoul, South Korea and Bangalore, India. With prior management roles with Amazon and Dell, Rawson served as a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, and received his B.A. from Harvard and his MBA from Northwestern. From playing D&D as an 8-year-old, to playing with his own kids as an adult, to now forging D&D’s digital future – Rawson is excited to be living every Dungeon Master’s dream come true.

Kade has been using D&D, game-theory, and product-based, experiential learning in the classroom for ten years. He presented his research findings for student growth using D&D at the 2013 European Literacy Conference in Klagenfurt, Austria, annually at TCCA conference in Houston (until 2017), and at Serious Play in Montreal, Canada in 2018. He’s been featured in many articles, most notably Mindshift, an online magazine sent to school administrators nationally. Kade also assisted the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to create a reading curriculum with gaming at its core. Most recently Kade has overseen the formation of a grad credit class from the University of Sioux Falls and is training teachers how to play D&D for continuing education credit. He plays D&D with his classes on Friday’s, and his students have grown above the normal measure as a result. His hope is to help people understand the great power that D&D has in educational settings for a myriad of reasons.