OCON 2024 – Speakers

June 13-18, 2024   |   Anaheim

Speakers

Amesh Adalja

Dr. Adalja, a board-certified physician in infectious disease, critical care medicine, emergency medicine, and internal medicine, specializes in the intersection of national security with catastrophic health events. He publishes and lectures on bioterrorism, pandemic preparedness, and emerging infectious diseases. Dr. Adalja is a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. During the COVID pandemic, he treated patients and engaged in high-level policy discussions, advising various organizations and communicating extensively with the public.

Ben Bayer

Dr. Bayer is a fellow and director of content at the Ayn Rand Institute. He teaches at Ayn Rand University and gives talks and interviews for ARI. He writes and edits for ARI’s online publication, New Ideal. Dr. Bayer holds a PhD in philosophy and his writing focuses primarily on the application of philosophy to contemporary cultural and political controversies.

Harry Binswanger

Dr. Binswanger, Ph.D. in philosophy, was an associate of Ayn Rand’s and is editor of The Ayn Rand Lexicon and co-editor of the revised edition of Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. He is the author of How We Know and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and was the founding editor/publisher of The Objectivist Forum. In addition to owning and moderating the Harry Binswanger Letter, he is an instructor at Ayn Rand University.

Jeff Britting

Mr. Britting is a leading authority on Ayn Rand’s life and cultural impact. A composer, filmmaker, and playwright, he is the author of the 2004 short biography Ayn Rand, the first biographical work based on unrestricted access to the Ayn Rand Papers (held at the Ayn Rand Archives).

Yaron Brook

Dr. Brook is chairman of the board of the Ayn Rand Institute. He is co-author, with Don Watkins, of In Pursuit of Wealth (2017), of Equal Is Unfair (2016), and of the national bestseller Free Market Revolution (2012). He is the host of The Yaron Brook Show on YouTube.

Aaron Fried

Mr. Fried is the senior director of Growth and Technology at the Ayn Rand Institute. With a background in marketing, software, and entrepreneurship, Mr. Fried leads teams at ARI that focus on exponentially increasing the number of people reading Rand’s work and learning about Objectivism.

After studying at the Objectivist Academic Center in 2020, Mr. Fried joined ARI in 2021 to grow the program and launch Ayn Rand University.

Dihann Geier

Ms. Geier is a former ballroom dance studio owner. She has taught many forms of dance to different age groups, from kids to seniors, and has performed nationally and internationally in ballroom, swing, and line dancing competitions. She’s been a choreographer and team captain for competitive youth and adult line dance teams. Ms. Geier taught the popular Miami Dance and Salsa class at OCON 2023.

Onkar Ghate

Dr. Ghate is senior fellow, chief philosophy officer, and a board member of the Ayn Rand Institute. He specializes in Rand’s philosophy, Objectivism, and is ARI’s senior instructor and editor. He publishes and lectures on Rand’s philosophy and fiction, including application of Objectivism to cultural issues, and has been a guest on national radio and television programs.

Gena Gorlin

Dr. Gorlin is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, a practicing licensed psychologist, and a coach for entrepreneurs and other ambitious innovators. She has published numerous academic and popular articles on her research examining the moral psychology of self-creation, and she writes a popular Substack newsletter titled Building the Builders. 

Audra Hilse

Miss Hilse is the digital archivist at the Ayn Rand Archives, where she manages the Archives’ digital holdings and online exhibits. She has a BA in history and an MA in Library and Information Studies, and worked at county historical societies and corporate archives before joining ARI.

Elan Journo

Mr. Journo is a vice president and senior fellow at ARI and has been published in various outlets, ranging from The Hill to Foreign Policy. He is an editor of New Ideal. His most recent books are What Justice Demands: America and the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict (2018) and, co-authored with Onkar Ghate, Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: What Went Wrong After 9/11 (2021).

Nicolas Krusek

Mr. Krusek is a musician, conductor, speaker, and music educator. After completing a degree in composition at the University of British Columbia, he studied orchestral and choral conducting at the Janacek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno (Czech Republic). He later returned to UBC to complete a master’s degree in historical musicology.

James Lennox

Dr. Lennox is professor emeritus of history and philosophy of science, University of Pittsburgh. He has published widely on the history and philosophy of biology with a special focus on Aristotle, Charles Darwin, and evolutionary biology. He is a founding member of the Ayn Rand Society and co-editor of the Ayn Rand Society Philosophical Studies series.

Tristan de Liège

Dr. de Liège is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He received his PhD from UC Riverside in 2021. His research centers on productive work and its relationship to well-being, Aristotle’s ethics, and virtue ethics.

Brandon Lisi

Mr. Lisi is a historian who assists with physical and digital projects for the Ayn Rand Archives. He also writes articles for ARI’s online journal, New Ideal, and for Ayn Rand Today, based on his archival research. Mr. Lisi holds a master’s degree in history and is a graduate of Ayn Rand University.

Robert Mayhew

Dr. Mayhew, a member of ARI’s board of directors, teaches philosophy at Seton Hall University. He is the author or editor of nine books in his area of specialization, ancient philosophy (for instance, his recent Aristotle’s Lost Homeric Problems), and author or editor of ten books related to Ayn Rand and Objectivism.

Mike Mazza

Dr. Mazza is an associate fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He specializes in the philosophy of science with a particular interest in causality.

Scott McDonald

Mr. McDonald is a retired US Marine Corps China specialist and PhD candidate at The Fletcher School of Tufts University. He has taught at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Tufts University, and Wellesley College. He is co-editor of and a chapter author in The Future of the United States–Australia Alliance (2021).

Shoshana Milgram

Dr. Milgram, associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, specializes in narrative fiction and film. Her scholarship includes introductions to Victor Hugo’s novels, a study of Ayn Rand’s life up to 1957, and articles on Dostoevsky, George Eliot, Nabokov, and others. She relishes the roles of literary detective and cheerleader.

Jean Moroney

Ms. Moroney, president of Thinking Directions, teaches ambitious people the psycho-epistemological skills they need to achieve challenging, selfish goals. This material is available to individuals in her Thinking Lab, an online membership program.

Evan Picoult

Dr. Picoult has had a long, successful overlapping career at Columbia University and Citigroup. He has been affiliated with four departments at Columbia University: Physics (PhD), Psychology (assistant professor), Business (MBA, adjunct professor), and Engineering and Applied Science (adjunct professor). Dr. Picoult retired as managing director of Citigroup (1980–2018), where his work focused on developing methods for measuring financial risks.

Jason Rheins

Dr. Rheins is a scholar of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. He has taught or held professorships at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, UNC Chapel Hill, St. John’s University, and Loyola University Chicago. He has published articles and book chapters on the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, and metaphysics. He is currently writing a monograph on Plato’s theology.

Greg Salmieri

Dr. Salmieri is a senior scholar of philosophy in the Salem Center at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds the Brigham Fellowship for the Study of Objectivism and is director of the Center’s Program for Objectivity in Thought, Action, and Enterprise. Dr. Salmieri is the co-editor of A Companion to Ayn Rand (2016), Foundations of a Free Society (2019), and Aristotle and Ayn Rand (forthcoming).

Peter Schwartz

Mr. Schwartz is the author of The Tyranny of Need: Examining the Code of Self-Sacrifice—and the Alternative of Rational, Non-Predatory Self-Interest  (Expanded Second Edition). He is a former chairman of the board at ARI, and is currently a distinguished fellow there.

Thomas Shoebotham

Mr. Shoebotham is principal conductor of New Ballet in San Jose, California. Previous conducting engagements have included Berkeley Opera, Opera San José, Palo Alto Philharmonic and many others. He has lectured on music, taught in school music programs, and performed numerous recitals as a cellist and pianist over the last thirty years.

Tara Smith

Dr. Smith is professor of philosophy at University of Texas at Austin. Her several books concern different aspects of Ayn Rand’s ethics, individual rights, and objectivity in judicial review. Current research focuses on privacy as both a personal value and legal right.

Nikos Sotirakopoulos

Dr. Sotirakopoulos is a visiting fellow at ARI. His main research interest is the history of political ideas, and he teaches the course Marx and Communism at Ayn Rand University. He is the author of Identity Politics and Tribalism: The New Culture Wars.

Tal Tsfany

Mr. Tsfany is president and CEO of the Ayn Rand Institute. Previously, he was an entrepreneur, investor, and executive in the software world in Israel and the United States. He is a co-founder of the Ayn Rand Center Israel and has published a young adult book titled Sophie.

Agustina Vergara Cid

Ms. Vergara Cid, LLB, LLM, is an alumna of the Objectivist Academic Center and a current student at Ayn Rand University, where she is taking advanced courses. She is a teaching assistant in ARU writing courses and a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. She writes a column for the Orange County Register.

Don Watkins

Mr. Watkins is vice president of fundraising and marketing at the Ayn Rand Institute. He is the best-selling author of books such as Equal Is Unfair (co-authored with Yaron Brook) and, most recently, Effective Egoism.

Sam Weaver

Mr. Weaver is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and a recipient of the Conceptual Education Fellowship. He works as a teaching assistant for Ayn Rand University and leads sessions in ARI’s reading group program. Mr. Weaver holds a BA in English from Davidson College and is a graduate of the Objectivist Academic Center.

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