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Wasatch Speaker Series
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Presented by
2023-2024 Speakers
“A series of up-close and personal speaking experiences with eminent leaders, thinkers, and innovators of our time in an open and unbiased forum.”
Annie Leibovitz
Renowned American Portrait Photographer
Annie Leibovitz became a working photographer while she was still a student at the San Francisco Art Institute. She began taking pictures in the summer of 1968 and two years later one of her photographs was on the cover of Rolling Stone, which was then a groundbreaking counterculture magazine based in San Francisco. She was Rolling Stone’s chief photographer by 1973. By 1983, when she left Rolling Stone to join Vanity Fair and then Vogue, her photographs had become widely recognizable and distinctive interpretations of the contemporary landscape.​
Leibovitz was influenced early on by the personal style of photographic reportage developed by Robert Frank...(See Full Bio).
Prime Minister Sanna Marin
46th Prime Minister & Head of Government of Finland (2019-2023)
Sanna Marin is the Former Prime Minister of Finland (2019-2023) and the former leader of the Finnish Social Democratic Party. Appointed at the age of 34, Marin served as the youngest Prime Minister of the world when taking office in 2019. She also made history as the longest-serving woman prime minister of Finland, leading a coalition government entirely headed by women.
During Sanna Marin’s term, she led Finland through the COVID-19 pandemic, and her government implemented many progressive reforms addressing climate change, social justice and equality, including world's most ambitious climate laws aiming for carbon neutrality by 2035 and progressive family leave reform. She helped the country navigate neighboring Russia’s devastating full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Finland’s rapid joining of NATO – the swiftest entry for any country in the alliance’s history...(See Full Bio)
Dr. Albert Lin
National Geographic Explorer, Scientist, and Technologist; Host of Lost Cities with Albert Lin; Pioneer in Exploration and Human Potential
Dr. Albert Lin is an award winning scientist, technologist, explorer, and storyteller (both on stage and the big screen). His work to reinvent how we explore has made headlines around the world, merging adventure with innovation. His projects range from an effort to search for the tomb of Genghis Khan in Mongolia (using satellites, crowdsourcing, drones, and ground penetrating radar), to expeditions remapping major sites from the deserts of Jordan to the jungles of Guatemala (with aerial and ground based Lidar), to his most recent efforts to redefine human bionic capabilities through 3D prosthetics and “flow experiments”. Albert is a UCSD Research Scientist, a National Geographic Explorer, and a curious human.
Albert is an award winning Explorer of the National Geographic Society, serial entrepreneur, UCSD scientist, and storyteller. From the remote highlands of Mongolia to the jungles of Guatemala he has applied an innovator’s approach to exploration...(See Full Bio)
Rt. Hon. Justin Trudeau
23rd Prime Minister of Canada (2015–2025)
Justin Trudeau’s tenure as Canada's 23rd Prime Minister coincided with a period of unprecedented global challenge and change.
After leading the third-place Liberal Party of Canada to a historic majority government in 2015, Trudeau set about delivering an ambitious agenda that included appointing Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet, lifting more than 435,000 children out of poverty through the Canada Child Benefit, launching a national $10-a-day childcare program, advancing Indigenous Reconciliation, and taking robust action to fight climate change, including through policies that attracted investment in clean economic growth and jobs...(See Full Bio)
Jack Smith
Former Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice, International War Crimes Prosecutor, and Veteran Federal Investigator
Jack Smith has served as a local, national, and international prosecutor for nearly 30 years.
Mr. Smith most recently served as Special Counsel at the United States Department of Justice, wherein he was charged to investigate whether any person or entity unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election or the certification of the Electoral College vote on January 6, 2021; and the possible unlawful possession of highly classified documents, as well as possible acts of obstruction of justice in the Southern District of Florida...(See Full Bio).​​
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Dr. John Whyte
Physician, CEO of the American Medical Association, Former Chief Medical Officer at WebMD, and Leading Expert on Preventive Health and Longevity
Dr. John Whyte, MD, MPH, is one of the nation’s leading voices on the future of healthcare, medicine, and digital innovation. As CEO and Executive Vice President of the American Medical Association, he brings a rare combination of frontline medical expertise, health policy leadership, and media savvy to conversations shaping the future of patient care.
Previously the Chief Medical Officer at WebMD, Dr. Whyte helped transform how millions of people access health information and connect to care in the digital age. He has also held leadership roles at the FDA, CMS, and Discovery Channel, where he helped influence everything from clinical trial innovation to award-winning public health programming...(See Full Bio).
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Dr. Amber Straughn
NASA Astrophysicist, Associate Director of NASA’s Astrophysics Science Division, Deputy Project Scientist for James Webb Space Telescope Science Communications, & Expert in Galaxy Formation
Dr. Amber Straughn is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and is a member of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) science team. She also serves as the associate director of the Astrophysics Science Division.
Straughn is interested in how galaxies change over time. Specifically, how important are galaxy interactions in the overall picture of how galaxies grow? How do supermassive black holes, star formation, and gas inflows and outflows affect galaxy evolution over cosmic time? These questions are central to NASA’s long-term goal to discover how the universe works while exploring how it began and evolved...(See Full Bio).
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