Nobel Prize Summit
OUR PLANET, OUR FUTURE
Speakers and panellists
The first-ever Nobel Prize Summit brought together Nobel Prize laureates, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and today’s youth leaders to explore the question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity?
Nisha Anand
Nisha Anand is the CEO of Dream Corps. She is a veteran fundraiser and consultant with decades of experience in nonprofit development and management.
David Attenborough
Sir David Attenborough is Britain’s best-known natural history filmmaker.
Xiye Bastida
Xiye Bastida is an 18 year-old climate justice activist and the co-founder of Re-Earth Initiative, an international youth led organisation that focuses on highlighting the intersectionality of the climate crisis.
Brigitte Baptiste
Brigitte Baptiste is a biologist and public intellectual. Since 2019 she has served as Chancellor of Universidad Ean, Colombia.
Ahmed Best
Ahmed Best is a writer, director, producer, actor, musician, host, and futurist.
Nobel Prize laureate
Elizabeth Blackburn
Elizabeth Blackburn is Professor Emerita in Biochemistry and Biophysics. She has been a leader in the area of telomere and telomerase research and was awarded the Nobel Prize for her work in this area.
Nobel Prize laureate
Martin Chalfie
Martin Chalfie, the University Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, shared the chemistry prize for his introduction of green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a biological marker.
Nobel Prize laureate
Steven Chu
Former United States Secretary of Energy and recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics 1997, Steven Chu has devoted a significant part of his recent scientific career in search for new solutions to our energy and climate challenges.
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk. He is the spiritual leader of Tibet. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet.
Sandra Díaz
Sandra Díaz is a professor of ecology at Córdoba National University and a senior member of the National Research Council of Argentina.
Bryan Doerries
Bryan Doerries is a New York–based writer, director, and translator who currently serves as the Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions.
Peter Doherty
Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his immunology research.
Jennifer Doudna
Jennifer Doudna is a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley. Her groundbreaking development of CRISPR/Cas9 earned her the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Victor J. Dzau
Victor J. Dzau is President of the National Academy of Medicine, and Co-Chair of National Research Council. He is Chancellor Emeritus and Distinguished James B Duke Professor at Duke University.
Frankie Faison
Frankie Faison has been an actor of stage, screen, and television for over 40 years.
Anthony S. Fauci
Anthony S. Fauci is the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where he oversees an extensive research portfolio focused on infectious and immune-mediated diseases.
Laurie Garrett
Author, speaker and Foreign Policy columnist Laurie Garrett founded the Anthropos Initiative, which engages at the nexus of the Anthropocene, climate change and human health.
Gatwal Augustine Gatkuoth
Gatwal Augustine Gatkuoth is a South Sudanese refugee in Uganda. He is a founding member of the Upper Nile Institute of Public Health and Young Adult Empowerment Initiative.
Marjolaine Goldsmith
Marjolaine Goldsmith is both an actor and Company Manager at Theater of War Productions.
Al Gore
Former Vice President Al Gore is the Co-Founder and the Chair of Generation Investment Management, and the Founder and Chair of The Climate Reality Project. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.”
David Gross
David J. Gross is the Chancellor’s Chair Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction.”
Corey Hawkins
Corey Hawkins made his Broadway debut as Tybalt in the 2013 revival of 'Romeo & Juliet' and received a Tony Award nomination as Leading Actor in a Play in 2017 for his performance in 'Six Degrees of Separation'.
Vidar Helgesen
Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation with a background as a lawyer, diplomat and politician.
Gary A. Hoover
Gary A. Hoover is the Executive Director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University and a professor of economics. He is the founding and current editor of the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy.
Zoë Jenkins
Zoë Jenkins is a 17-year-old education justice advocate from Lexington, KY. She is the founder and Executive Producer of Get Schooled podcast with the Kentucky Student Voice Team.
Rana el Kaliouby
A pioneer in Emotion AI, Rana el Kaliouby is Co-Founder and CEO of Affectiva, and author of 'Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology'.
Natalia Kanem
Natalia Kanem is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and the Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.
John Kerry
John F. Kerry is the US's first Special Presidential Envoy for Climate and former United States Secretary of State.
Klaus von Klitzing
Klaus von Klitzing is the Director emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart, Germany. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the quantum Hall effect.
Tamar Krishnamurti
Tamar Krishnamurti is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh. She is the co-founder and CEO of Naima Health.
Simon Levin
Simon Levin is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. His research interests are in understanding how macroscopic patterns and processes are maintained at the level of ecosystems and the biosphere.
James C. Liao
James C. Liao, President of Academia Sinica, Taiwan, is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and an academician of Academia Sinica.
Thomas Lovejoy
Thomas Lovejoy is an innovative conservation biologist and Founder and the President of the nonprofit Amazon Biodiversity Center and the renowned Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project.
Frances McDormand
Frances McDormand made her film debut in Ethan and Joel Coen’s 'Blood Simple' (1984). She received an Academy Award for her work in 'Fargo' (1996) and' Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' (2017).
Marcia McNutt
Marcia McNutt is a geophysicist and the 22nd president of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ahmad Mobayed
Ahmad Mobayed is a youth leader and co-founder of the Syrian Youth Assembly.
Bill Murray
Bill Murray needs no introduction. Through his work he transcends genre, form, and many other boundaries, garnering a truly wholistic following of fans of all ages, and many accolades.
Anne Muthoni
Anne Muthoni is a climate change enthusiast. Through her co-founded initiative, Youth Arts Mentorship Initiative, Muthoni hopes to use her acting skills to inform the Kenyan youth about climate change.
Connie Nshemereirwe
Connie Nshemereirwe is an independent science and policy facilitator and acts at the science-policy interface as a science writer, trainer, and speaker.
David Panuelo
His Excellency David W. Panuelo is the Ninth President of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM).
Nobel Prize laureate
Saul Perlmutter
Saul Perlmutter shared the physics prize for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. He is a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Adam Riess
Adam Riess is an internationally renowned observational cosmologist working on the measurement of the expansion of the universe for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.
Richard J. Roberts
Richard J. Roberts is the Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachusetts. He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of split genes.
Johan Rockström
Johan Rockström is the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a professor in Earth system science at the University of Potsdam. He is an internationally recognised scientist on global sustainability issues.
Gingger Shankar
Gingger Shankar is a composer, producer, songwriter, and the only female double violinist in the world.
David Strathairn
Actor David Strathairn has appeared in many films including 'The Spiderwick Chronicles' (2008), 'The Bourne Ultimatum' (2007), Steven Spielberg’s 'Lincoln' (2012), and Chloe Zhou’s 'Nomadland' (2020).
Harold Varmus
Harold Varmus is the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at the Meyer Cancer Center of Weill Cornell Medicine. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for his studies of the genetic basis of cancer.
Ursula von der Leyen
Ursula von der Leyen is the President of the European Commission.
M. Stanley Whittingham
M. Stanley Whittingham is a SUNY Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering at Binghamton. He received the chemistry prize for the development of lithium-ion batteries.
Beatie Wolfe
Beatie Wolfe is an artist who has beamed her music into space, been appointed a United Nations Women role model for innovation, and held an acclaimed solo exhibition of her “world first” album designs at the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Jeffrey Wright
Jeffrey Wright has appeared in numerous films, television, and theater productions and is the co-founder and chairman, Taia, LLC and Taia Peace Foundation.
Academic Science Sessions
See below for more information about our Academic Science Session speakers
Rosina Bierbaum
Rosina Bierbaum is a professor at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability and the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy. Her experience extends from climate science into foreign relations and international development.
Eduardo S. Brondizio
Eduardo S. Brondizio is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University-Bloomington.
Gretchen C. Daily
Gretchen C. Daily is the Co-Founder and the Faculty Director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project.
Partha Dasgupta
Sir Partha Dasgupta is the Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge.
Carl Folke
Carl Folke is Director of the Beijer Institute, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and Founder, Science Director and Chair of the Board of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Frank Geels
Frank Geels is a professor of system innovation and sustainability at the University of Manchester.
Göran Hansson
Göran K Hansson is the Secretary General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation.
HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden
Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Victoria is the eldest child of His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf and Her Majesty Queen Silvia. She is the heir to the Swedish throne.
Karolin A. Johansson
Karolin A. Johansson is a strategic advisor at Stockholm Resilience Centre, farmer and consultant within communications and sustainability.
Pamela Matson
Pamela Matson is an interdisciplinary sustainability scientist, academic leader, and organisational strategist. She is Dean emerita of Stanford University’s School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences.
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is Director Emeritus of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Brian P. Schmidt
Brian P. Schmidt is Vice-Chancellor and President of the Australian National University and 2011 Nobel Prize laureate in physics.
Karen Seto
Karen Seto is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of the Environment.
Magdalena Skipper
Magdalena Skipper is Editor in Chief of Nature and Chief Editorial Advisor for the Nature portfolio. A geneticist by training, she holds a PhD from University of Cambridge, UK.
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Joseph E. Stiglitz is an American economist and a professor at Columbia University. He was awarded the prize in economic sciences for analyses of markets with asymmetric information.
Leena Srivastava
Leena Srivastava is the Deputy Director General for Science of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria.
Holden Thorp
Holden Thorp is Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals.
Solution Sessions
See below for more information about our Solution Session speakers
Arun Agrawal
Arun Agrawal is the Samuel Trask Dana Professor at the School for the Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.
Tateo Arimoto
Tateo Arimoto is a visiting professor and the Deputy Director of the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Research Center at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, the Principal Fellow at the Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the Vice Director General at the International Institute for Advanced Studies.
Svanika Balasubramanian
Svanika Balasubramanian is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of rePurpose Global, the world’s first plastic credit platform dedicated to making planetary action delightfully simple for purposeful people and companies of any size, anywhere.
Sajitha Bashir
Sajitha Bashir is the adviser in the Office of the Global Director of the Education Practice in the World Bank. She currently leads the work on digital skills as part of the digital economy initiatives of the World Bank.
Vinton G. Cerf
Vinton G. Cerf has served as the Vice President and the Chief Internet Evangelist for Google since October 2005. In this role, he contributes to global policy development and continued standardisation and spread of the Internet.
Ambassador Amanda Ellis
Ambassador Amanda Ellis leads Global Partnerships for the Arizona State University (ASU) Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and serves as the Co-Chair of the WE Empower United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Challenge and the ASU SDGs and Beyond Task Force.
Julie Fratantoni
Julie Fratantoni is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Center for BrainHealth, part of the University of Texas at Dallas.
Chris Greer
Chris Greer is the Senior Executive for Cyber Physical Systems, the Director of the Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program Office, and the National Coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Sam Gregory
Sam Gregory is the Program Director of WITNESS, which helps people use video and technology to defend human rights.
Marilu Hastings
Marilu Hastings is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation in Austin, Texas. Hastings originated and leads the foundation’s grantmaking program that moves knowledge to action for sustainability.
Dan Higgins
Dan Higgins is the Global Technology Consulting Leader at Ernst & Young (EY) Global Ltd. and a member of its Global Consulting Executive where he is responsible for driving the business strategy and offerings for the practice.
Philip N. Howard
Philip N. Howard is a statutory professor of Internet studies at Balliol College at the University of Oxford.
Anne Kapuscinski
Anne Kapuscinski is the Director of the Coastal Science and Policy Program and a professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Bobby Kia
Bobby Kia is the Co-Founder and the Head of investor relations of The Peace Department. Kia helms The Peace Department’s investment strategy and oversees its partnerships and relations with institutional investors.
Theresa Kotanchek
Theresa Kotanchek is the Chief Executive Officer of Evolved Analytics LLC
Debra Lam
Debra Lam is the Founding Director of the Partnership for Inclusive Innovation,
Katherine Maher
Katherine Maher is the Chief Executive Officer and the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation and oversees the operations of the organisation and its professional staff.
Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli
Paola Malanotte-Rizzoli is a professor of physical oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ramesh Mashelkar
Ramesh Mashelkar is the former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the former President of the Indian National Science Academy.
Moira Mcdonald
Moira Mcdonald is the Director of the Environment Program at the Walton Family Foundation. For the past 11 years, she led the foundation’s Mississippi River and coastal initiatives.
Maria Cristina Messa
Maria Cristina Messa has been the Italian Minister of University and Research (MIUR) since February 2021.
Sandhya Murali
Sandhya Murali is the Co-Founder and the Chief of Operations of Solstice, an award-winning social enterprise dedicated to expanding access to clean energy to all Americans.
Shamila Nair-Bedouelle
Shamila Nair-Bedouelle is the Assistant Director-General for Natural Sciences at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
Safiya Noble
Safiya Noble is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the Department of Information Studies where she serves as the Co-Founder and the Co-Director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry.
Lyne Odhiambo
Lyne Odhiambo is part of Zero Hour, a youth-led climate and social justice organisation.
H. E. Karin Olofsdotter
H. E. Karin Olofsdotter is the Ambassador of Sweden to the United States.
Phoebe Omonira
Phoebe Omonira is the Director of Community Outreach for Gen Z Girl Gang.
Ilona Otto
Ilona Otto is a professor in societal impacts of climate change at the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change at the University of Graz.
Carlo Ratti
Carlo Ratti is an architect and engineer by training and teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab and is a founding partner of the international design and innovation office Carlo Ratti Associati.
Daya Reddy
Daya Reddy is the President of the International Science Council and holds the South African Research Chair in Computational Mechanics at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Jeffrey D. Sachs
Jeffrey D. Sachs is a professor and the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed the Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016.
Cristián Samper
Cristián Samper has served as the President and the Chief Executive Officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) since 2012.
Kate Starbird
Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington (UW).
Andrew Steer
Andrew Steer is the President and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Bezos Earth Fund, which is a $10 billion fund that will address climate, nature, and environmental justice.
James Sternlicht
James Sternlicht is the Co-Founder and the President of The Peace Department.
Ellen Stofan
Ellen Stofan is the Under Secretary for Science and Research for the Smithsonian Institution.
Sam Teicher
Sam Teicher co-founded Coral Vita, a social enterprise that grows resilient corals up to 50 times faster to restore dying reefs.
Armando Varricchio
Armando Varricchio is the Ambassador of Italy to the United States.
Maurizio Vecchione
Maurizio Vecchione is the Co-Founder of AdAstral, the President and the Chief Executive Officer of the Washington Global Health Alliance, and the Chief Innovation Officer of the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation.
Alfred Watkins
Alfred Watkins is the Founder and the Chairman of the Global Solutions Summit.
Phil Wong
Phil Wong is the Chief Executive Officer of Misfit Foods. Wong started Misfit Foods in his college kitchen to prove that delicious foods can fight climate change.
Ada Yonath
Ada Yonath is focusing on protein biosynthesis, antibiotics hampering it, human diseases associated with ribosomal mutations, and origin of life.
Shahzeen Attari
Shahzeen Attari is an Associate Professor at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington.
Audrey Azoulay
Audrey Azoulay is Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Peter Bakker
Peter Bakker is the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
Joe Robert Cole
Joe Robert Cole co-wrote the Academy Award–nominated Black Panther and is currently co-writing the sequel.
E. William Colglazier
E. William Colglazier is the Editor-in-Chief of science and diplomacy and the Senior Scholar at the Center for Science Diplomacy at the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Pedro Conceição
Pedro Conceição is Director of the Human Development Report Office and the lead author of the Human Development Report of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Jonathan Donges
Jonathan Donges is the co-leader of the FutureLab on Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Cameron Hepburn
Cameron Hepburn is a professor of environmental economics at the University of Oxford and the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
Tawakkol Karman
Nobel Peace Prize 2011.
Tawakkol Karman is a human rights activist, journalist and politician. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.
Tim Lenton
Tim Lenton is the Director of the Global Systems Institute and the Chair in climate change and Earth system science at the University of Exeter.
Martha Delgado Peralta
Martha Delgado Peralta is an environmentalist renowned nationally and internationally, with more than 29 years of professional experience in public service through the Public Federal Administration and nongovernmental organisations.
Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer, best known for his Mars trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars.
Nobel Prize Summit
In partnership with
Event partners
Supporting organisations
Nobel International Partners
Special thanks to
ASU Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Carnegie Corporation of New York, DICCE, Elsevier, Embassy of Italy in the US, Embassy of Sweden in the US, Global Solutions Summit, PeaceTech Lab, Project Syndicate, S&R Foundation, The Club of Rome, Peace Department