Boaz Barak (he/him) is the Gordon McKay professor of Computer Science at Harvard University's John A. Paulson school of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His research interests include all areas of theoretical computer science and in particular cryptography, computational complexity, and the foundations of machine learning. Previously, he was a principal researcher at Microsoft Research New England, and before that an associate professor (with tenure) at Princeton University's computer science department. Barak has won the ACM dissertation award, the Packard and Sloan fellowships, and was also selected for Foreign Policy magazine's list of 100 leading global thinkers for 2014. He was also chosen as a Simons investigator and a Fellow of the ACM. Barak is a member of the scientific advisory boards for Quanta Magazine and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. He wrote with Sanjeev Arora the textbook “Computational Complexity: A Modern Approach.” He is also a board member of AddisCoder, a nonprofit that teaches algorithms and coding to high-school students in Ethiopia and Jamaica.

Jacob Barandes (he/him) is a theoretical physicist and philosopher of science at Harvard University. He did his undergraduate work at Columbia University in physics and mathematics, and then completed his PhD in theoretical physics at Harvard. Dr. Barandes currently serves as Lecturer and Co-Director of Graduate Studies for the physics PhD program at Harvard, where he teaches courses on the fundamentals of theoretical physics, classical electromagnetism, general relativity, and the history and philosophy of quantum mechanics. He is also a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Black Hole Initiative and an Associated Faculty member with the Harvard Department of Philosophy. His research publications span the foundations of quantum theory, philosophy of science, and quantum field theory. Dr. Barandes also organizes an international workshop series on physics and philosophy.

Katie O’Neill (she/her) is a Costume Designer and Community Outreach Consultant. After receiving her MFA from Yale School of Drama, she designed costumes for theaters around the country. In her travels she noticed that a strong theater-going habit is the cornerstone of communities with a healthy and vibrant civic dialog... and a lot of fun, so here in Cambridge she works on audience expansion for the large professional theaters. However, even artists have to wrestle with math as a gate-keeper. Katie does outreach for the Cambridge Math Circle so they can bring their “fun, beautiful math for all” to every student and family in Cambridge—and have more time to go to the theater!

Lauren K. Williams (she/her) is the Dwight Parker Robinson Professor of Mathematics in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Her research is in algebraic combinatorics; more specifically, she uses algebraic tools to study discrete structures in mathematics. Among her best-known work are combinatorial formulas for the stationary distribution of the asymmetric simple exclusion process (a model for traffic flow and translation in protein synthesis) and structural results for soliton solutions to the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation. Williams received her BA in mathematics from Harvard College, and after a year at the University of Cambridge completing Part III of the Mathematical Tripos, she obtained her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subsequently, she was a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley; a Benjamin Peirce Fellow at Harvard; and a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics at Berkeley.

Cambridge businesswoman and former candidate for Cambridge School Committee Bernette Dawson is a member of the Advisory Board.

Cambridge community leader JP Kambazza is a member of the Advisory Board.