This Year's Speakers

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Blair’s Society of Skeptics program was established as a forum for students and faculty to discuss and debate important global issues; it has grown to become one of the premier high school lecture series in the United States. Without exception, every Tuesday night at 7 p.m., speakers from the political, social, scientific, economic and literary arenas come to campus to share their unique perspectives with students, who are encouraged to engage with presenters, ask questions and debate points of view.

Fall 2022

Date	Speaker
September 20	Claude Johnson, Founder, BlackFives.org; Author, The Black Fives: The Epic Story of Basketball's Forgotten Era
October 4	Dr. David Robinson, New Jersey State Climatologist Rutger's Department of Geography
October 11	Maggie Doyne, Founder, The BlinkNow Foundation, Author, Between the Mountain and the Sky, 2015 CNN Hero of the Year
October 18	Loung Ung, Cambodian-American Activist; Author, First They Killed My Father
October 25	Ralph Jerome, Former, Global R&D VicePresident, Mars Global Chocolate Mars Distinguished Fellow Venture Partner, The March Fund
November 8	Jason Howk, Director, Global Friends of Afghanistan Islamic and Afghan Studies Interfaith Leader
November 15	Cass Gardiner '07, Filmmaker, Former Programs Coordinator @ Tribeca Film Institute
November 29	Dr. James Basker, President, Glider Lehrman Institute of American History Professor of Literary History, Barnard University
December 6	Dr. Keisha-Kahn Perry, Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Winter/Spring 2023

Date	Speaker
January 17	Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow, Cato Institute
January 24	Tyler Moulton, Program Manager, Veritas AI
January 31	Alan Brown '98, Founder, Learning to Thrive
February 14	Aaron Rettaliata ’96, Partner at McKinsey and Co., Global Management Consulting Firm
February 28	Craig Powell '96, CEO, Entrepreneur, Investor
March 21	Karen Baum Gordon, Author of The Last Letter: A Father's Struggle, A Daughter's Quest, and the Long Shadow of the Holocaust
March 28	Trisha Prabhu, Innovator, Social Entrepreneur, Global Advocate & Creator of ReTHINK, a patented technology to detect and stop online hate
April 11	Young Alumni Skeptics
April 18	Ben Hartranft, Autism Educator
April 25	Kendall Fitzgerald '16, Field Projects Manager, Brook Lab at the University of Chicago

Recent Lectures

Young Alum & Aspiring Scientist Kendall Fitzgerald ’16 Shares Stories with Skeptics

Apr 21 2023

On Tuesday, April 25, Blair Academy was excited to welcome Kendall Fitzgerald ’16, who spoke to the Society of Skeptics about her work as a field project manager for the University of Chicago’s Brook Lab, where she studies “zoonotic infections–pathogens transmitted from wildlife to human hosts.”

Founder & President of Benergy1 Presentations Ben Hartranft Reminded Skeptics of the Impacts of Autism & the Importance of Family

Apr 14 2023

Blair was excited to welcome Ben Hartranft, founder and president of Benergy1 Presentations, to Skeptics on Tuesday, April 18, to discuss autism, kindness and how inclusion has shaped his life--and why he believes others should lead by such virtues.