2025 Speakers
February 2025
Anindya Kundu
Anindya is a public scholar with a mission to make social science and education research accessible in order to promote equitable systems of opportunity. Anindya researches how exceptional people overcome the odds stacked against them as they develop agency for positive change. Anindya is most known for his two global TED Talks, which have amassed more than 6 Million views. His 2020 TED Talk on the US Opportunity Gap was listed in the “Top 5 Most Popular TED Talks of 2020."
Anindya is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at Florida International University (FIU). Given the hotly-contested contexts currently surrounding public education and the 2024 election, Anindya realizes his potential to inform public sentiment and frequently engages public readers. Between 2022 and 2023, he published four Opinion Editorials for The Miami Herald and appeared as a featured guest on NPR’ station, WLRN, multiple times to discuss the state of affairs in Florida. His work has also been featured by USA Today, MSNBC, The Miami Herald, and Huffington Post.
Anindya’s body of sociological research is highly approachable to those outside the field. His first book, The Power of Student Agency: Looking Beyond Grit to Close the Opportunity Gap, was published in 2020 and was a finalist for the 2021 Association of American Publishers (AAP) Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) Award. Angela Duckworth, one of his mentors, praised Anindya as "one of [her] favorite thinkers on the social and personal opportunities children need to thrive."Anindya is currently working on his second book, The Power of Educational Leadership (Oxford University Press, 2025), continuing his passion for promoting opportunities for self-improvement, especially for children.
Anamaria Artemisa Sayre
Anamaria Artemisa Sayre is co-host of Alt.Latino and a curator and producer for Tiny Desk. As a podcast, radio, and video host, reporter, and producer for NPR, she is focused on elevating the diversity of sounds and stories that define Latinx culture. This means curating the newest and best in Latin music weekly on the mic with her co-host Felix Contreras and doing deep-dive reported series that highlight music as an answer to some of society’s biggest cultural questions.
In 2023, she traveled around the US and across the southern border to report an award-winning series that revealed how Mexican-American immigrants coming of age led to the explosion of Regional Mexican music. She’s interviewed artists, from Santana to Rosalia, that span generations and the globe and is a trusted voice on one of the most genre-diverse subsets of music in the world.
Additionally, she curates Latin music at the Tiny Desk. This includes leading the annual Latin Music Month Tiny Desk takeover which she conceived of and realized within her first year at NPR. Sayre's producing credits include concerts from artists like Nicki Nicole, Ivy Queen, Karol G and Juanes. Her hosting and reporting credits are spread across NPR stations and beyond, and include frequent hosting on NPR Music’s All Songs Considered, reporting a weekly segment on NPR’s Morning Edition and a regular segment on Here and Now. She’s a frequently featured speaker, host, and panelist at conferences and events across the country and internationally.
She is NPR’s youngest host and has been named a 30 under 30 professional by Forbes and a Major Mujer by Remezcla.
Grace Stanke
It’s not often that you find an athlete, engineer, musician, and a former Miss America all in one. Grace Stanke breaks misconceptions surrounding nuclear energy through social media, public engagements, and educational workshops. During her year as Miss America 2023, Grace was named the “New Face of Nuclear Energy” by the Wall Street Journal and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for Energy. While completing approximately 270,000 miles of travel, she finished her undergraduate degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since passing on the title of Miss America, Grace continues to travel to advocate for peaceful purposes of the science of the atom. Encouraging worldwide change for clean, zero-carbon emission energy sources, Stanke emphasizes the benefits of nuclear power and seeks to dispel the myths around nuclear energy while inspiring the next generation of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. In March 2024 Grace will work as a Core Design Engineer at Constellation.
Paul Hill
Paul Hill is an entrepreneur and the youngest gallerist in New York City, recognized for his innovative approach to merging art, technology, and culture. As the founder of Strada, Paul is redefining how artists and institutions engage with technological advancements. A self-taught curator and gallerist, Paul has made a significant impact by creating platforms and opportunities for the next generation of the art world.
Under his leadership, Strada is creating a new path for artists to navigate and shape their creative futures. Strada is developing Maestro, a workflow management software designed to serve as the foundational infrastructure for all sectors of the fine art world. Maestro streamlines operations, helping organizations save time and reduce costs associated with managing workflows, contacts, and finances. Our mission is to empower museums, galleries, and auction houses with advanced tools that enhance efficiency and elevate audience engagement.
Paul has been recognized for his forward-thinking vision, earning accolades such as the Brooklyn Museum’s Design Visionary Grant and being featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 and Apollo 40 Under 40 lists. Known for his collaborative spirit and commitment to innovation, he continues to push boundaries and advocate for new narratives in the creative world.
Strada caters to a diverse range of collectors, artists, and galleries, offering everything from high-end artists acquired by institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and featured at Art Basel to more accessible art objects for younger collectors entering the market.
Gus Vickery
Dr. Gus Vickery is a board-certified family physician who specializes in personalized health consultations focused on total body and mind optimization. He is also a speaker and the author of Authentic Health (May 2018, MJ Publishing). He founded Authentic Health in 2005 which has grown to multiple medical providers serving in 2 locations including The Clinic at Biltmore, an innovative direct to employer clinic for The Biltmore Company.
Dr. Vickery offers personalized health consultations both virtually and in-person at his office in Asheville, NC. He uses advanced biometrics, genetics, hormonal assessments, metabolic and nutritional assessments, and other advanced diagnostics to determine the proactive and comprehensive strategies that will help his clients experience their best health and lifespan. He is an expert in the use of peptides, targeted supplementation, and hormonal optimization to potentiate an individual’s best health. More information is available at www.drgusvickery.com and www.authentichealth.com
Dr. Vickery is an honor graduate of the Medical College of Georgia. He is a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha honor medical society, and teaches medical students for the department of family medicine of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has served as president of the Western North Carolina Medical Society.
Yele Aluko
Dr. Yele Aluko is a pioneering interventional and structural heart cardiologist, the first fellowship-trained African American in this specialty in North and South Carolina. Born in Nigeria, he graduated from the University of Ibadan College of Medicine and received advanced training in internal medicine and cardiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, Cornell University Medical Center, and the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
In the 1990s, facing challenges in mainstream medicine in Charlotte, NC, Dr. Aluko established his own cardiology practice. By the mid-1990s, his practice had expanded to four African American male cardiology group and later merged with an eight-physician white male cardiology group, creating North Carolina's first interracial medical specialty merger. Aluko would become President of this group, which grew to over forty physicians, becoming the second-largest cardiovascular practice in the Carolinas. The practice was later acquired by Novant Health, where Dr. Aluko served on its Board of Directors and as Medical Director of the Heart and Vascular Institute, overseeing cardiovascular strategy, asset integration, process standardization, and physician governance across a four-state, fourteen-hospital network. This role inspired him to pursue an MBA at Wake Forest University Schools of Business late in his career, which he completed in 2014.
Shifting his focus upstream to the macroeconomic drivers of healthcare inefficiencies and inequities, Dr. Aluko retired from clinical practice in 2018 and joined EY Americas. At EY, he serves as Chief Medical Officer, a member of the Health and Life Sciences Boards of Advisors and leads the EY Center for Health Equity.
Dr. Aluko is a mentor, physician leader, management consultant and social entrepreneur. His renewed life purpose is to make the world a better place by leveraging his clinical and business experiences to optimize human health and health systems.
