Jonah Lehrer: Using Arts to Build Successful Schools

Jonah Lehrer

Jonah Lehrer is an author and journalist who writes often about neuroscience and psychology. He has published two books, "Proust Was a Neuroscientist," about the connections between science and the humanities, and "How We Decide," about the brain and decision-making. He has written for The New Yorker about the science of insight and about the psychology of delayed gratification.

Andrea Mitchell

Andrea Mitchell is NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and the host of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” She currently covers foreign policy, intelligence, and national security issues, including the diplomacy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for all NBC News properties. Mitchell’s extensive reports include a 2010 interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a series of exclusive interviews, over the years, with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Mitchell’s travels for NBC have included exclusive reports from North Korea, Afghanistan, the Middle East, Bosnia, Kosovo, Pakistan, and Haiti. Mitchell covered the entire 2008 presidential campaign for NBC News and MSNBC. She is the author of Talking Back, a memoir about her experiences covering five presidents, Congress, and foreign policy. Mitchell received several awards including the prestigious Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism and the Leonard Zeidenberg Award for her contribution to the protection of First Amendment Freedoms.

Damian Woetzel

Damian Woetzel is the director of the Aspen Institute Arts Program. A former principal dancer with New York City Ballet, Woetzel is also the artistic director of the Vail International Dance Festival, the founding director of the Jerome Robbins Foundation’s New Essential Works Program, and he works with Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Connect Program in the New York City public schools. He is active as a director and producer, and among his recent projects, Woetzel was the director of the first performance of the White House Dance Series hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama, and of an arts salute to Stephen Hawking at Lincoln Center for the World Science Festival. Woetzel has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard Law School. In 2009, President Obama appointed Woetzel to the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.