What Can I Do? with James Bennet, Michael Posner, Arthur Mutambara, David Dubal, Sidney Harman, Nigel Cameron, Brian Greene, The Hon. Stephen Breyer, and Her Majesty Queen Noor with an introduction by Elliot Gerson.
Some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers and other leaders drawn from myriad fields and from across the country and around the world all gathered in a single place - to teach, speak, lead, question, and answer at the 2006 Aspen Ideas Festival. Throughout the week, they all interacted with an audience of thoughtful people who stepped back from their day-to-day routines to delve deeply into a world of ideas, thought, and discussion.
Bio
HM Queen Noor
HM Queen Noor of Jordan is an international humanitarian activist and an outspoken voice on issues of world peace and justice. An expert advisor to the United Nations, Queen Noor is founder and chair of the King Hussein Foundation, a nonprofit, non-governmental organization which fosters peace and security through programs which promote cross cultural understanding and social, economic, and political opportunity in the Muslim and Arab world. She is president of the United World Colleges, advisor to Women Waging Peace, Seeds of Peace, and the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a trustee of the Aspen Institute, Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund International, Refugees International, and a member of the International Commission on Missing Persons. Her autobiography, Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life is an international best seller.
James Bennet
James Bennet is editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. Before joining the Atlantic staff, Bennet was the Jerusalem bureau chief for the New York Times. During his three years in Israel, his coverage of the Middle East conflict was widely acclaimed for its balance and sensitivity.
His much-lauded long-form writing for The New York Times Magazine was responsible for catching the eye of Atlantic owner David Bradley during his year-long search for a new editor. Upon accepting the position, Bennet told a Times reporter that he saw the Atlantic job as "a chance to help, encourage and preserve the practice of serious, long-form journalism."
Prior to his work in Jerusalem, he served as the Times' White House correspondent and was preparing to join its Beijing bureau when he was offered the Atlantic editorship. Bennet began his journalism career at the Washington Monthly.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer
Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice, was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938.
He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965-1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974-1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979-1980.
He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967-1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977-1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome.
From 1980-1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990-1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990-1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985-1989.
President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994.
David Dubal
David Dubal is an internationally known pianist, teacher, writer, and broadcaster. He is heard every Wednesday night in his program Reflections from the Keyboard: The Piano in Comparative Performance, on New York classical radio station WQXR, where he previously was the host of The American Century, a series devoted to American music. As the former music and program director of WNCN, he received a Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting. He also received an Emmy Award for his video, The Golden Age of the Piano. He teaches at the Julliard School and the Manhattan School of Music, and his books include The Essential Canon of Classical Music, The Art of the Piano, Reflections from the Keyboard, and Evenings with Horowitz.
Elliot Gerson
Elliot Gerson is executive vice president for Seminars and Public Programs at the Aspen Institute. Gerson is responsible for the Aspen Institute's seminars, including the Executive Seminar, topical and custom seminars, and those offered in Socrates programs. He also manages the Institute's public programs, including the Aspen Ideas Festival and the World Biomedical Forum.
As American secretary of the Rhodes Trust, he manages the US Rhodes Scholarships. He is also a founding trustee of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation Trust, which focuses on African higher education and leadership; a director of the International Biomedical Research Alliance, affiliated with the National Institutes of Health; and director of a Kabul-based logistics, security, and construction company focused on the reconstruction and redevelopment of Afghanistan.
He was a US Supreme Court clerk and has practiced law, held executive positions in state and federal government and in a presidential campaign, served as president of leading insurance and health care companies, and served on many nonprofit boards, especially in the arts and humanities.
Brian Greene
Brian Greene is Professor of Physics and co-director and co-founder of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics at Columbia University.
Greene has worked on mirror symmetry, relating two different Calabi-Yau manifolds (concretely, relating the conifold to one of its orbifolds). He also described the flop transition, a mild form of topology change, showing that topology in string theory can change at the conifold point.
Sidney Harman
Sidney Harman is executive chairman of Harman International Industries, Inc., a leading manufacturer of high-quality, high-fidelity audio, video, and navigation products for automotive, consumer, and professional markets. From 1970 to 1973, he was president of Friends World College, a worldwide experimental Quaker college.
Harman founded the Program on Technology, Public Policy, and Human Development at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. He has written extensively on productivity, quality of working life, and economic policy. He is the co-author (with Daniel Yankelovich) of Starting with the People and the author of Mind Your Own Business. He also serves as a trustee of the Aspen Institute.
Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Nigel M. de S. Cameron is President of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future, Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society, Research Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Cameron founded the journal Ethics and Medicine in 1983 and is widely recognized as a commentator on bioethics and biotech policy issues with appearances on ABC Nightline, CNN, PBS Frontline, and the BBC. His books include The New Medicine: Life and Death After Hippocrates and Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives for the Nano Century (edited, forthcoming).
He has been a visiting scholar at UBS Wolfsberg in Switzerland, a featured speaker at the Aspen Ideas Festival, and a participant in the US/European Commission dialogue on Perspectives on the Future of Science and Technology. He has also represented the United States as bioethics advisor on US delegations to the United Nations, and is currently a member of the United States National Commission on UNESCO. A native of the United Kingdom, he has studied at Cambridge and Edinburgh universities and the Edinburgh Business School.
Arthur Mutambara
Arthur Mutambara is a Zimbabwean opposition leader, president of one of the two Movement for Democratic Change party formations. He also serves as managing director and CEO of the Africa Technology & Business Institute in South Africa and professor of Operations Management at the University of South Africa's Graduate School of Business Leadership.
Extensively involved in socio-economic-political issues in both the US and Africa, he was named one of the World Economic Forum's "Young Global Leaders" in 2007. Mutambara was formerly a director of Standard Bank with responsibilities in 17 African countries. He is also a former Rhodes Scholar, NASA research scientist, MIT professor of Robotics and Mechatronics, visiting professor of Business Strategy at Northwestern’s Kellogg School, and management consultant with McKinsey & Company. Mutambara is also a Fellow of the African Leadership Initiative, a partnership of the Aspen Institute.
Michael Posner
Michael Posner, President of Human Rights First, has been at the forefront of the international human rights movement for nearly 30 years. As its Executive Director he helped the organization earn a reputation for leadership in the areas of refugee protection, advancing a rights-based approach to national security, challenging crimes against humanity, and combating discrimination. He is a frequent public commentator on these and other issues, and his opinion essays have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and many other newspapers. Michael has also testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress. In January 2006, Michael stepped down as Executive Director to become the President of Human Rights First. In this new position, he will focus more on public outreach, writing, and public advocacy, to advance the organization's core mission.
member. 
