Urrea has made his literary career – which now includes 17 books, numerous awards – writing about places and peoples that few people see or understand, but that form an essential part of our country’s fabric and culture.
Don Pettit is America's oldest actively serving astronaut. And one heckuva great photographer.
Bill McKibben brings a very important voice to the study of our planet’s present and future, because all that he writes, all that he does, is grounded in hope.
It is pretty difficult not to look at our world today and pithily conclude that “it is a mess.” It would seem a time ripe for US leadership, yet it seems to be a time of “rejection of internationalism.”
If this whole opera thing doesn’t work out, Larisa Martínez always has her bachelor’s degree (with high honors) in Environmental Sciences to fall back on. But let’s be clear, the opera thing is going very well.