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, a member of ARI’s board of directors, is the author of How We Know and The Biological Basis of Teleological Concepts and editor of The Ayn Rand Lexicon and of the expanded second edition of Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. His membership site, HBletter.com, includes weekly teleconferences, a member forum, and an email group.
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 best seller Free Market Revolution (2012). He is the host of The Yaron Brook Show on YouTube.
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.
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.
Nicolas Krusek
Nicolas 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.
Keith Lockitch
Dr. Lockitch is vice president of education and senior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. Dr. Lockitch trains students in how to communicate philosophic ideas and uses his background as a physicist to apply Ayn Rand’s ideas to crucial issues in science and technology.
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.
Michael 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.
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.
Yeonmi Park
Born in North Korea, human rights activist and TED Speaker Yeonmi Park grew up in a punishing society devoted to the worship of Kim Jong-Il. But at the age of 13, she and her family made a daring escape to China in search of a life free of tyranny. In her viral talks, viewed online nearly 350 million times, Ms. Park urges audiences to recognize—and resist—the oppression that exists in North Korea, and around the world.
Gregory Salmieri
Dr. Salmieri is a senior scholar of philosophy in the Salem Center at the University of Texas, 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).
Dan Schwartz
Dr. Schwartz is a visiting fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute. He is a philosopher specializing in the history of early modern philosophy and has taught courses for ARI on Francis Bacon and Philosophical Skills. Dr. Schwartz is also a graduate of the Objectivist Academic Center.
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.
Aaron Smith
Dr. Smith, PhD in philosophy, is an instructor and fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute where he teaches and designs educational content for the Institute’s intellectual training and e-learning programs. He also writes, speaks, and gives interviews for the Institute.
Tara Smith
Dr. Smith is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. She has published books on individual rights, the foundations of value, Ayn Rand’s theory of egoistic virtues, and the requirements of objectivity in judicial review. Current research focuses on psychological aspects of egoism.
Nikos Sotirakopoulos
Dr. Sotirakopoulos is a visiting fellow at ARI and the director of ARI Europe. His main research interest is the history of political ideas, and he teaches the course The Road to Critical Race Theory 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 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 also writes a column for the Orange County Register.
Don Watkins
Mr. Watkins is the best-selling author of books such as Equal Is Unfair (co-authored with Yaron Brook) and the thriller I Am Justice. As the Ayn Rand Institute’s director of coaching and mentoring, he helps students use Objectivism to achieve learning, career, and life success.
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.