Clifford V. Johnson is a professor of physics at UC Santa Barbara. His current research focuses on aspects of quantum gravity and black holes, trying to understand how a black hole, and spacetime itself, can behave quantum mechanically in a consistent way. He also teaches physics, and is devoted to public engagement, where he strives to put science back into the general culture. He helps artists, writers, and filmmakers incorporate science into their work, and contributes to many TV documentaries such as Nova and The Universe. He has been science advisor for many shows and movies, including Nat Geo's Genius (featuring Einstein), Marvel's Agent Carter (S2), Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Fantastic Four: First Steps, Palm Springs, as well as the show Dark Matter, on Apple TV+. Johnson is also the author/illustrator of a non-fiction graphic novel featuring science called The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe (MIT Press).

Alessandra Buonanno is an Italian-American theoretical physicist whose work has been central to the rise of gravitational-wave astronomy. Born in Cassino, Italy, in 1968, she studied physics at the University of Pisa and earned her PhD in 1996. After research positions at CERN, IHES, Caltech, and CNRS, she became a professor at the University of Maryland. Since 2014, she has been a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, also known as the Albert Einstein Institute, in Potsdam, Germany. Buonanno is best known for developing accurate models of the gravitational waves produced when black holes and neutron stars spiral together and merge. These models were essential for interpreting detections made by LIGO and Virgo. Her many honours include the Leibniz Prize, the Dirac Medal, and the Balzan Prize. Her research continues to test Einstein’s theory in the most extreme environments in the universe.

Alexandru is a theorist specializing in black holes, classical and quantum gravity, and relativistic astrophysics. Since 2022, he has been Assistant Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Vanderbilt and Project Scientist for the Black Hole Explorer, a proposed NASA mission to capture the sharpest images in astronomy and probe black-hole photon rings near event horizons. His work on black hole imaging has been recognized with the 2024 New Horizons in Physics Prize, shared with Michael Johnson, and the 2024 IUPAP General Relativity and Gravitation Early Career Scientist Prize. In 2025, Science News named him one of ten “Scientists to Watch,” and the Society for Science awarded him the Jon C. Graff Prize for Excellence in Science Communication. He received his undergraduate and PhD degrees from Harvard, where he later became a Junior Fellow, before joining the Princeton Gravity Initiative. He also enjoys teaching, public speaking, and visualizing black holes through art, code, and animation. He has co-developed a Black Hole Vision app, now available on iOS.