Since the 1990s, Roger Tsien has revolutionized the fields of cell biology and neurobiology by designing fluorescent protein molecules to illuminate biochemical processes. The green fluorescent protein GFP, which occurs naturally in the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, has been used in biochemical research since the 1960s, but work with GFP was long constrained by its single color and unstable light. Tsien was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a kaleidoscopic array of...

Salman Khan founded the nonprofit Khan Academy with the mission of providing free, high-quality education for “anyone, anywhere” in the world. Born in Metairie, Louisiana, to immigrant parents from India and Bangladesh, Khan graduated from MIT in 1998 with three degrees: one bachelor of science in mathematics; another in electrical engineering and computer science; and a master's in electrical engineering. After MIT, Khan worked in Silicon...

Robert S. Langer is heralded as one of the most prolific inventors in the history of medicine, the father of controlled drug release and tissue engineering. His research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining about $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. His discoveries have saved countless lives and launched a $20 billion-a-year industry. Every year, 6,200 Americans die awaiting transplants of organs like the liver, heart and...

Robert S. Langer is heralded as one of the most prolific inventors in the history of medicine, the father of controlled drug release and tissue engineering. His research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining about $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. His discoveries have saved countless lives and launched a $20 billion-a-year industry. Every year, 6,200 Americans die awaiting transplants of organs like the liver, heart and...

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by...

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by...

Prior to his service as President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers enjoyed a brilliant career as an economist and public servant, culminating in a highly successful term as United States Secretary of the Treasury. The youngest tenured professor in Harvard's modern history, Dr. Summers was the first social scientist to win the prestigious Waterman Prize of the National Science Foundation. He was serving as chief economist of the World Bank when President Bill Clinton tapped him to serve...

Prior to his service as President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers enjoyed a brilliant career as an economist and public servant, culminating in a highly successful term as United States Secretary of the Treasury. The youngest tenured professor in Harvard's modern history, Dr. Summers was the first social scientist to win the prestigious Waterman Prize of the National Science Foundation. He was serving as chief economist of the World Bank when President Bill Clinton tapped him to serve...

One day in 1993, an exhausted mountain climber stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women altogether. With no...

Over the last 40 years, Jonathan Spence of Yale University has become the West's leading authority on Chinese history. His books, such as The Gate of Heavenly Peace and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, have brought remote times and places to life for the general reading public, while The Search for Modern China has become a standard text in universities around the world. The undergraduate course he teaches on the modern history of China is among the most popular ever given at Yale. Year...

One day in 1993, an exhausted mountain climber stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women altogether. With no...

When Susan Hockfield was a student, women in the sciences had few role models. As a senior at the University of Rochester, she had come up with an idea for an interesting experiment, but lacked the confidence to carry it out herself. "People like me don't do these things," she remembers thinking. Fortunately, a sympathetic professor encouraged her, and she resolved to pursue a career in the sciences. Today, she is a neuroscientist of international reputation, and the president of one of the...

"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proved him wrong. And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools." Frank McCourt was already retired when he published his first book at age 66. Angela's Ashes, a memoir of his impoverished boyhood in Limerick, Ireland, shot to the top of the best-seller lists and remained there for over a year. Angela's Ashes won McCourt the...

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to...

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to...

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to...

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to...

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps --...

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps --...

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps --...

Elie Wiesel was only 15 when German troops deported him and his family from their home in Romania to the concentration camp, Auschwitz. His father, mother, and younger sister all died at the hands of the Nazis. The young boy survived forced labor, forced marches, starvation, disease, beatings and torture to become a world-renowned writer, teacher and spokesmen for the oppressed peoples of the earth. He is best known as the most eloquent witness to the great catastrophe to which he was the...

As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Wendy Kopp created a plan to build a movement for educational equity by enlisting her generation's most promising future leaders to teach for two years in the nation's neediest urban and rural public schools. After graduation, Kopp set about making her plan a reality, founding Teach for America in 1989. With no teaching or business experience of her own, she created a multimillion dollar organization. Today, more than 3,500 corps members are...

As an undergraduate at Princeton University, Wendy Kopp created a plan to build a movement for educational equity by enlisting her generation's most promising future leaders to teach for two years in the nation's neediest urban and rural public schools. After graduation, Kopp set about making her plan a reality, founding Teach for America in 1989. With no teaching or business experience of her own, she created a multimillion dollar organization. Today, more than 3,500 corps members are...

Michael M. Kaiser is the President of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. An honors graduate of Brandeis and the MIT Sloan School of Management, he studied vocal music, which instilled within him a passion for the arts. Kaiser hoped for a career as an opera singer, but instead focused his career on management consulting. He joined the Kansas City Ballet in 1985 when the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. Within two years, Kaiser revamped and energized...

As a college student, John Sexton barely scraped together a 2.1 GPA. Today, he is the pioneering president of New York University, setting it on an ambitious path to become the U.S.'s leading global university. The son of an alcoholic -- by age ten, he was searching for his lawyer-father in the gutters of Brooklyn -- Sexton was an academic late bloomer. He spent 15 years as the volunteer coach of a high school girls' debate team, taking them to two national championships, and only then did he...