Aditi Pai is a professor of biology and co-director of the Teaching Resource and Research Center at Spelman College. She is an expert on genealogy and evolutionary biology, focusing on sexual selection. Pai piloted Spelman’s Genetic and Genealogy Program, where students track their genes, their history, and their relatedness to other humans in the world.

Jay Shendure is a professor of genome sciences at the University of Washington. His lab investigates the genetic basis of human disease and develops new technologies for genetics, genomics and molecular biology, largely using next-generation DNA sequencing.

Mariel Vazquez is a professor of mathematics and of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of California, Davis. She is faculty director of the Center for the Advancement of Multicultural Perspectives on Science. Vazquez’s research lies at the intersection of mathematics, polymer physics and molecular biology.