Year: 2023

Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher of Skeptic magazine, the host of the podcast The Michael Shermer Show, and a Presidential Fellow at Chapman University.

At Chapman University where he teaches Skepticism 101. For 18 years he was a monthly columnist for Scientific American. He writes a weekly Substack column. He is the author of New York Times bestsellers Why People Believe Weird Things and The Believing Brain, Why Darwin Matters, The Science of Good and Evil, The Moral Arc, Heavens on Earth, and Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist. Follow him on Twitter @michaelshermer.

Michael regularly contributes opinion editorials, essays, and reviews to: the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Science, Nature, and other publications. He wrote 214 consecutive monthly columns for Scientific American. He appeared on such shows as The Colbert Report, 20/20, Dateline, Charlie Rose, Oprah, and Larry King Live (but, proudly, never Jerry Springer!). He has been interviewed in countless documentaries aired on PBS, A&E, Discovery, The History Channel, The Science Channel, and The Learning Channel. Dr. Shermer was the co-host and co-producer of the 13-hour Family Channel television series, Exploring the Unknown. His two TED talks, seen by millions, were voted in the top 100.

Dr. Shermer received his B.A. in psychology from Pepperdine University, M.A. in experimental psychology from California State University, Fullerton, and his Ph.D. in the history of science from Claremont Graduate University. He has been a college professor since 1979, also teaching at Occidental College, Glendale College, and Claremont Graduate University, where he taught a transdisciplinary course for Ph.D. students on Evolution, Economics, and the Brain.

Michael Jennewein is a Researcher for Democracy and Economics at Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung.

Michael Jennewein, born and raised in Innsbruck (Austria), studied Philosophy & Economics (BA) at the University of Bayreuth in Germany and Technology Governance & Digital Transformation (MA) at Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia.

Before joining FES Democracy of the Future, he worked as an economist at the Vienna-based progressive think tank Momentum Institut. Earlier experience includes internships at the German NGO Lobbycontrol and at the Tyrolean representation at the EU in Brussels. His research interests include inequality, globalisation, public administration, e-governance, and economic & social policy. At FES Democracy of the Future, he is lead project manager for the project lines Inequality & Democracy and Right-Wing Populism.

Matthijs Bogaards is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the Central European University, and Research Affiliate at the CEU Democracy Institute

He joined CEU from Jacobs University Bremen, where he was full professor of Political Science. A graduate from Leiden University, the Netherlands, and the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, Matthijs has studied and worked internationally for the past twenty-five years.

He has published widely on political parties and electoral systems in comparative perspective, on measuring democracy, and on the challenge of democracy in divided societies. His current research focuses on terrorism, de-democratization, consociational forms of power sharing, and feminist institutionalism.

Márta Pardavi is the Co-Chair at Hungarian Helsinki Committee.

Márta Pardavi is co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a leading human rights NGO based in Budapest, Hungary. A lawyer by training, she has recently been focusing on the threats to the rule of law and civil society space in Hungary and in the EU. She also co-leads the Recharging Advocacy for Rights in Europe (RARE) programme, which equips human rights defenders to build stronger organisations and alliances for joint action on civic space and rule of law in the EU.

Márta serves on the boards of PILnet, International Partnership for Human Rights and Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. She has been awarded the 2018 William D. Zabel Human Rights Award from Human Rights First, Civil Rights Defender’s Civil Rights Defenders of the Year 2019 award and was chosen to be a member of POLITICO28 Class of 2019. In 2020/2021, she was a Policy Leader Fellow at the European University Institute’s School of Transnational Governance in Florence, Italy.

Magdalena Grabowska is an Associated Professor at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at Polish Academy of Sciences.

Magdalena Grabowska is an Associated Professor at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the author of the book Broken Genealogy. Women’s social and political activism post 1945 and contemporary women’s movement in Poland (in Polish, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2018). Her research includes the history of women’s movement in Poland, sexual violence against women in Poland, and women’s political activism after 1989. She has collaborated with various international institutions (including European Institute for Gender Equality, and Fundamental Rights Agency, as well as local governmental and non- governmental organizations (including Polish Association for Anti-discrimination Law, Federation on Women and Family Planning, and STER Foundation).

Lucia Plaváková is the Deputy Party Leader at Progressive Slovakia.

In2007, she graduated from the Faculty of Law of Comenius University with a Master’s degree. In 2013, she received her degree from the Faculty of Law of the Pan-European University. In 2015, she received a doctorate in international law from the same faculty. During her studies, she completed an internship at the Department of Analysis and Parliamentary Research of the Chancellery of the National Council of the Slovak Republic. She also completed an internship at the Department of Analysis and Parliamentary Research of the Chancellery of the National Council of the Slovak Republic.

She works for the law firm Růžička and partners. She is the co-author of the Great Commentary on the Public Procurement Act. She has been working on the rights of LGBTI people for “more than a decade” and has been providing them with free legal advice since 2015.

On 6 June 2020, she became a member of the presidium at the Congress of Progressive Slovakia. At the Congress of Progressive Slovakia on 7 May 2022, she became vice-chair.

Lo Ping-cheng is the Minister without Portfolio and Spokesperson at Executive Yuan in Taiwan.

Minister Lo pursued his education at both the National Chengchi University and the National Taiwan University. His profession began in the capacity of an attorney-at-law, a role he held from 1990 to 2017. Notably, from 2012 to 2017, he assumed the role of Chairperson at the Taiwan Innocence Project.

Furthermore, Minister Lo contributed to academia as a lecturer at the College of Law, National Taiwan University, from 2014 to 2017. Prior to his transition in 2017, he also held the position of Chairperson at the Legal Aid Foundation for a duration of one year. He was appointed as a Minister without Portfolio within the Executive Yuan in 2017.

Beginning in 2021, Minister Lo took on the additional responsibility of serving as the Spokesperson for the Executive Yuan. Currently, he also holds the interim position of Acting Spokesperson at the Executive Yuan.