MICHAEL A. BERNSTEIN is Provost and Professor of History and Economics at Tulane University. Previously he served as Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, San Diego. He has held faculty appointments at Cambridge University, Mills College, and Princeton University, University of California, San Diego, and he served briefly as a Staff Economist in the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. His research and teaching interests focus on the economic and political history of the United States, macroeconomic theory, industrial organization economics, and the history of economic theory. His publications explore the connections between political and economic processes in modern industrial societies, as well as the interaction of economic knowledge and professional expertise with those processes as a whole. A former Fulbright Scholar at Christ’s College (Cambridge University), Bernstein has held research grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, and the Economic History Association. In addition, he has been an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the National Humanities Center and has held a Residency Fellowship at Sophia University (Tokyo, Japan). More recently, Bernstein received the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award of the University of California, San Diego. Bernstein earned his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in economics at Yale University.
AUGUSTO DE LA TORRE, a national of Ecuador, is the World Bank's Chief Economist for Latin American and the Caribbean. Since joining the World Bank in 1997, he has held the positions of Senior Advisor in the Financial Systems Department and Senior Financial Sector Advisor, both in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. From 1993 to 1997, de la Torre was the head of the Central Bank of Ecuador, and in November 1996 was chosen by "Euromoney Magazine" as the year’s "Best Latin Central Banker." From 1986 to 1992 he worked at the International Monetary Fund, where, among other positions, he was the IMF’s Resident Representative in Venezuela (1991-1992). de la Torre has published extensively on a broad range of macroeconomic and financial development topics. He is a member of the Carnegie Network of Economic Reformers. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Economics at the University of Notre Dame and holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Ecuador.
GERRY ELLIS is the Founder and President of GLOBIO, a children’s education nonprofit based in the United States. As an award-winning nature photojournalist for over 25 years, he has documented the lives of endangered species, indigenous cultures, and threatened ecosystems across every continent. While filming orphaned baby African elephants in Kenya for his book, Wild Orphans, Gerry was inspired to create GLOBIO to engage and connect kids in dialogue around the world about what makes up their own unique “backyard.” Gerry’s career has encompassed numerous long-term documentary projects for World Wildlife Fund, Chevron PNG, and the Australian government, countless magazine projects for publications including the Paris Match, Ranger Rick, New York Times, GEO and National Geographic, as well as award winning book projects, including The Outdoor Traveler’s Guide to Australia, America’s Rainforest, and several titles in the highly acclaimed children’s series “Nature Watch” by Carol Rhoda Books.
ANN A. FISHMAN, President of Generational-Targeted Marketing Corp. and a member of the adjunct faculty at New York University, is a nationally-renowned generational marketing expert. In her diverse career, Fishman has served clients in the public and private sectors. During the Bush 41 and Clinton Administrations, she received four U.S. Senate Fellowships to study generational trends. Included among this work was research about the importance of lifelong learning. Fishman’s ideas resulted in original and annotated versions of the Senate information paper Lifelong Learning for an Aging Society, Federal legislation that created the National Mentor Corps, and a national workshop on intergenerational mentoring. In the private sector, she has consulted with clients in arenas such as human resources, education, tourism, financial services, publishing, direct marketing, e-commerce/website design, fundraising, and meeting planning. She has presented to a range of audiences, including Time Warner Cable, The National Geographic Society, and Tulane University, and she has been featured in almost every major U.S. newspaper and has appeared on numerous broadcast outlets. Fishman earned a B.A., with a major in French and a minor in Russian, from Newcomb College, and she has studied at Harvard University, Loyola University, and Tulane University.
PETER GREENBERG is the nation's pre-eminent expert on travel and travel-related issues. Best known as the travel editor for NBC's Today Show, MSNBC and CNBC, the Emmy award-winning writer and producer has more than 11 million miles of direct experience under his belt, covering thousands of stories in hundreds of countries around the globe. Greenberg is also author of the New York Times' bestselling book series, The Travel Detective, which reveals secrets that the airline, hotel, cruise, and rental car industries don't want consumers to know. The books provide guidance on becoming a proactive traveler and navigating the travel industry maze. An expert in aviation safety and security, Greenberg is creator and co-executive producer of Secrets of the Black Box, a special series for the History Channel which investigates the world's most tragic aviation disasters. And his series, The Royal Tour, makes history with one-on-one journeys through various countries with their heads of state, including the King of Jordan, Prime Minister of New Zealand, and President of Peru, among others.
DANIEL LEVINE is a celebrated international trends expert with a sharp eye for discovering pioneers in business and consumer culture. Levine is the Executive Director of the Avant-Guide Institute and the hands-on leader of an international team of journalist “cool-hunters” who chronicle the latest ideas, trends, and experiences from around the globe. He is the author of over 20 bestselling books and a frequent guest on international television and radio—including BBC, HBO, NBC, Fox, and many others. Levine often consults with leading international companies to help them identify and understand cultural trends that will affect their growth and prosperity. As a corporate trends consultant, Levine’s unique perspective has long been helping businesses overcome difficult economic environments. Uniquely, Levine is able to describe critical cultural shifts through the prism of the travel and marketing industries. Using hilarious, inspirational and enlightening examples of where culture and business are headed, Levine demonstrates how creative companies from around the world are transcending market challenges and reaping major benefits by responding to broad cultural trends in innovative new ways. A wide variety of businesses, such as MasterCard, Deutsche Telekom AG, and Samsonite, have sought out Levine when looking to understand the impact of forthcoming social and cultural trends and to “hip” up their image.
PETER YESAWICH is a frequent commentator on travel trends in such publications as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time, Newsweek and Business Week, on the CNN, CNBC d MSNBC cable television networks, and on National Public Radio. He serves as a featured columnist in several industry trade publications and has authored numerous articles on marketing and advertising strategy in professional journals. He is also a co-author of Marketing Leadership in Hospitality published by Prentice Hall. Listed in Who’s Who in America, Yesawich is the recipient of the World Travel Award from the American Association of Travel Editors, The Albert E. Koehl Award from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI), and the Silver Medal from the American Advertising Federation. He was also named one of the “25 Most Extraordinary Marketing Minds” by HSMAI. Yesawich is a member of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants and serves on the board of directors of the Travel Industry Association of America. Yesawich received three degrees from Cornell, including a doctorate in applied psychology, and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Yale.
NILOU MOTAMED is features editor for Travel + Leisure, covering subjects ranging from restaurants, hotels, and shopping to trends in the world of international travel. She joined T+L eight and a half years ago as associate editor and was soon promoted to food editor, overseeing (as she still does) the magazine's award-winning restaurants coverage. Previously she was an editor at Condé Nast's Women's Sports & Fitness, an international project manager at Bertelsmann, a senior editor at AOL's Book Report, and an editor at Manhattan File. A frequent guest on a variety of television programs, Motamed makes regular appearances on NBC Today, as well as ABC Good Morning America, CBS The Early Show, CNN, and E!, among others. She is currently the host of Ultra HD's Reservations Required and was a host of the Travel Channel series Travel Spies. Fluent in English, Spanish, French, and Farsi, Motamed is a graduate of the State University of New York at Binghamton, and also attended the Sorbonne University in Paris. Motamed currently lives in Brooklyn with her husband, T+L Editor-at-Large, Peter Jon Lindberg.
