CHOREOGRAPHERS
Aubre Hill
Aubre Hill is an international dance artist, choreographer, educator, and producer based in Los Angeles, CA. She has toured the world through dance, been highlighted in numerous films and projects, and is instrumental in community building. The artistic director of the Qabila Project and Dance Company, she is a strong advocate for Arabic culture and building community through movement. Additionally she is the president of Dance For Palestine, a collective of dance artists for collective liberation. She's a mover and shaker and an artist known for her deep respect for history while exploring the creative edges of what it is to be a dance artist in our global society.
Over her career Aubre have been a part of various collaboratives to bring creativity, culture, and community together in new ways. Additionally, she has produced a wide range of events and performances bringing the community together in celebration of Middle Eastern Dance including monthly haflas, dance festivals, long running showcases, workshops, intensives, lectures, and more.
Aubre earned her Master's in Arts Management at Claremont Graduate University in 2022 with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusive practices for accessible arts and culture. Her teaching is known for her deep understanding of anatomy & kinesiology while embedding cultural context, history, and artistic expression for a rich educational and inclusive experience. www.aubrehill.com
Wilfried Souly
Wilfried Souly is a choreographer, dancer, drummer, and Taekwondo expert originally from Burkina Faso, West Africa. Trained in both African traditional and contemporary dance, Wilfried co-founded Compagnie Tâ and has performed and co-choreographed works across the globe, including a standout piece showcased at the Great Barbican Centre in London. Since moving to Los Angeles in 2007, he’s collaborated with top artists and companies like Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project, Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre, and Viver Brasil. Wilfried’s work spans powerful themes of identity, social justice, and cultural connection, with notable performances at the REDCAT NOW Festival and the Africa in America Festival. Beyond dance, Wilfried is also an accomplished martial artist, winning multiple international Taekwondo and Kung Fu competitions. His multidisciplinary approach continues to inspire and energize audiences worldwide.
Donna Sternberg
Donna Sternberg, Artistic Director for Donna Sternberg & Dancers, and founder of AWE & WONDER, has professionally premiered over 100 works since 1975 throughout the United States, Europe, Canada and Mexico; frequently collaborating with artists of other disciplines as well as scientists. Her work has been commissioned by institutions such as the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts, California Science Center, festivals, schools and dance companies. She participated in the 2016 Venice Biennale, was chosen for the first artist/science residency at Djerassi, received the Artist-in-Community award from the Santa Monica Arts Foundation, is featured in the documentary LA Woman, published in the journal Leonardo (MIT Press), featured on KCET’s Life and Times program and is the recipient of numerous grants. She has been a guest artist for many years at Rancho La Puerta in Tecate, Mexico and served on the Santa Monica Arts Commission.
Tai White
Tai Ryan White is a dynamic choreographer, creative director, and movement coach based in Los Angeles. Originally from New York and raised in St. Petersburg, FL, Tai discovered his passion for dance at age 3. Overcoming health challenges as a teenager, dance became his driving force, leading him to train with top talent and work with renowned artists like Beyoncé, John Legend, Kanye West, JHope, and more.
Tai's work is inspired by global solidarity, faith, and purpose. He has shared his craft internationally, from Nigeria to South America, and continues to teach, mentor, and create impactful choreography across the globe. Tai believes in using art as a tool for change, driven by love and spirituality. His latest project, It’s Working, reflects his vision of hope amid life’s challenges, offering a message of resilience and purpose.
SCIENTISTS
Aiichiro Nakano
Aiichiro Nakano is a Professor of Computer Science with joint appointments in Physics & Astronomy, Quantitative & Computational Biology, and Collaboratory for Advanced Computing and Simulations at University of Southern California (USC). He received Ph.D. in physics from University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1989. He has authored 505 refereed articles in the areas of scalable scientific algorithms, scientific visualization and machine learning, and computational materials science. He is a recipient of National Science Foundation Career Award (1997), Louisiana State University (LSU) Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award (1999), LSU College of Basic Sciences Award of Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2000), Best Paper Award at IEEE/ACM Supercomputing Conference (2001), Best Paper at IEEE Virtual Reality Conference (2002), Okawa Foundation Faculty Research Award (2003), USC Viterbi School of Engineering Senior Research Award (2012), Best Paper Award at IEEE PDSEC Workshop (2013), U.S. Department of Energy, Aurora Supercomputer Early Science Program Award (2017), and Best Paper Award at ACM HPCAsia Conference (2020). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of IEEE, ACM and MRS.
Shrikanth Narayanan
Shrikanth (Shri) Narayanan is University Professor and holder of the Niki and Max Nikias Chair in Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) and serves as the inaugural Vice President for Presidential Initiatives on the Senior Leadership Team of USC's President. He is a Professor in the Signal and Image Processing Institute of USC's Ming Hsieh Electrical & Computer Engineering department with joint appointments as Professor in Computer Science, Linguistics, Psychology, Neuroscience, Pediatrics and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. He is also the inaugural director of the Ming Hsieh Institute, a Research Director for the Information Sciences Institute at USC and a Visiting Faculty Researcher at Google. He held the inaugural Viterbi Professorship in Engineering at USC (2007-2016). He was also a Research Area Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center, an NSF Engineering Research Center at USC, and was the Research Principal for the USC Pratt and Whitney Institute for Collaborative Engineering, a unique partnership between academia and industry (2003-2007).
David Nelson
David Nelson is the Director of Mixed Reality Research and Development at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies. He has been engaged in research efforts on immersive user experience design, adaptive user interfaces, the power of storytelling to improve learning, imagineering the Naval workplace of the future, and innovative mixedreality applications training Sexual Assault Response Coordinators and Victim Advocates for the Army SHARP Academy. Nelson has worked in collaboration with ARL-West, USC’s Rossier School of Education, the Viterbi School of Engineering, as well as USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, leading a research effort on the emerging ‘Language of Immersion’ and its impact on the future of storytelling. From 2016 to 2019, Nelson served as Lead Advisor at Sony Pictures Entertainment for their Summer Innovation Program and served as the Lead Advisor to the premier 20th Century Fox Innovation Lab. Nelson is an awardwinning Producer/Director, having created content in the arenas of feature films, documentaries, music videos and commercials. He is a recipient of a Hugo Award for Excellence in Television Documentary and has studied the art of storytelling for more than 20 years. David Nelson’s expertise in creating engaging immersive content for training, education and entertainment is applicable across many domains.
Yajie Zhao
Yajie Zhao is a Research Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the University of Southern California (USC) and the acting director of the Vision and Graphics Lab (VGL) at USC-ICT. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2011 and her Ph.D. degree in 2017 from the University of Kentucky. Yajie’s research interests lie in high-quality 3D content creation, including human digitization, performance capturing, and scene reconstruction/understanding. She currently leads the VGL in research efforts towards high-resolution human face/body 3D representation, neural rendering, and human/scene-related applications in VR/AR. Yajie serves as a reviewer and editor for CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, SIGGRAPH; is the program chair of IEEE AIVR 2022 and 2024; and an Editorial Board member of the journal “Creating Lifelike Digital Humans.” Yajie’s research is currently supported by DARPA, ONR, IARPA, Sony, Nvidia, Meta, Apple, and Zoom.