Dr. Fei-Fei Li is a Chinese-American computer scientist who obtained her B.A. degree in physics from Princeton in 1999 with High Honors, and her PhD degree in electrical engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 2005.
Dr. Fei-Fei Li is the inaugural Sequoia Professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University, and a Founding Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute. She served as the Director of Stanford’s AI Lab from 2013 to 2018. During her sabbatical from Stanford from January 2017 to September 2018, Dr. Li was Vice President at Google and served as Chief Scientist of AI/ML at Google Cloud. Since then, she has served as a Board member or advisor in various public or private companies. She is currently a Co-founder/CEO of World Labs, an AI company focusing on Spatial Intelligence and generative AI.
Dr. Fei-Fei Li’s current research interests include AI, machine learning, deep learning, computer vision, robotic learning, and ambient intelligence for healthcare delivery.
Diandrea Rees is an American screenwriter and director. She is known for her feature films Pariah, Bessie, Mudbound, and The Last Thing He Wanted. Rees has also written and directed episodes for television series including Empire, When We Rise, and Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams.
Diandrea received her master’s degree in business administration from Florida A&M University, graduating with a plan to work in advertising. However, on one of her first commercial shoots, she discovered her passion for film and followed that passion to New York University’s graduate film program. She made a semi-autobiographical short film titled Pariah as her final graduate thesis at NYU. The short film got accepted by Sundance labs, allowing her to turn it into a stunning independent feature film by the same name in 2011.
Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Stewart was born in Tecalitlán, Jalisco, she migrated to the United States with her family when she was just 6 years old to escape the Mexican Revolution.
Stewart earned her doctorate in microbiology in 1939 and began working as a professor of bacteriology at Georgetown University School of Medicine – unofficially attending medical courses until the school finally began allowing women to enroll in 1947. Stewart was the first woman to earn an MD from the university.
Through her studies, she joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and sought funding to explore a link between viruses and cancer. The NIH denied her initial requests because the idea of cancer-causing viruses was not yet accepted by the scientific community, and because the program did not believe Stewart was qualified to pursue cancer research as a woman and virologist.
Undeterred, Stewart went on to demonstrate the existence of cancer-causing polyomaviruses with her NIH colleague Bernice Eddy, definitively proving a link between infection and tumor development. Her work, twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, was key to the development of the HPV vaccination to prevent cervical cancer.
Nirmala Sitharaman was appointed as India's finance minister and minister for corporate affairs in 2019. She was reappointed to both posts following India's general election in June 2024. She completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirapalli. In 1984, she moved to Delhi to complete her Master of Arts and M.Phil in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She is India's first full-time female finance minister overseeing what is likely to become the world's third-largest economy by 2027.
Dr. Regina Barzilay is an Israeli-American computer scientist. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University and spent a year as a postdoc at Cornell University. She is a School of Engineering Distinguished Professor of AI & Health in the Department of Computer Science and the AI Faculty Lead at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Jameel Clinic.
She develops machine learning methods for drug discovery and clinical AI. Her research interests are in natural language processing and applications of deep learning to chemistry and oncology. Regina Barzilay and her team created a deep learning model that analyzes mammogram images to detect early signs of tumors.
Her research has been recognized with the MacArthur Fellowship, an NSF Career Award, and the AAAI Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity.
Canadian director Celine Song was born in South Korea. She studied psychology at Queen's University in Ontario. Celine moved to New York from Ontario to attend Columbia University, where she earned her MFA in playwriting in 2014. She is a writer and a director, known for Past Lives (2023), The Wheel of Time (2021) and Working in the Theatre (1976). Her movie Past Lives was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
Dr. Jewel Plummer Cobb was born in Chicago. Jewel pursued graduate studies at New York University, where she was mentored by M.J. Kopac and earned her Ph.D. in cell physiology in 1950. Her doctoral research formed the basis for her lifelong interest in melanin (a pigment found in skin, hair, and other tissues) and skin cancer. She worked with oncologist Jane C. Wright at the National Cancer Institute at Harlem Hospital. Cobb and Wright made a critical contribution in the early 1960s by demonstrating the effectiveness of methotrexate in treating skin and lung cancer, as well as childhood leukemia. Methotrexate is now used for a broad range of cancers, including breast cancer.
This film highlights Dr. Jewel Plummer Cobb's life and achievements, a leading cell biologist and educator.
Mary Teresa Barra is an American businesswoman who has been the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors since January 15, 2014. She is the first female CEO of a 'Big Three' automakers. Mary began her career with GM in 1980 as a General Motors Institute (Kettering University) co-op student at the Pontiac Motor Division. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1985, followed by a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 1990.
Prior to becoming CEO, Barra served as GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain, and as senior vice president, Global Product Development. In these roles, Barra and her teams were responsible for the design, engineering and quality of GM vehicle launches worldwide.
Currently, she is focused on creating the best customer experience and strengthening GM’s core vehicle and services business, while also working to deliver transformative technologies such as electrification, autonomous driving, and software.