The Open Mind, Hosted by Alexander Heffner Creators & Guests

Alexander Heffner is host of The Open Mind on PBS.

Zeynep Tufekci is a writer, academic, and techno-sociologist. She is known primarily for her research on the social implications of emerging technologies in the context of politics and corporate responsibility.

Franak Viačorka is a journalist, Vice President of the Digital Communication Network, and Senior Advisor.

Joseph Weisberg is an American television writer-producer, novelist and school teacher. Weisberg is best known as the creator and executive producer of the FX TV series The Americans.

Julia Angwin is an investigative journalist who specializes in data-driven journalism, and the effect of technology, specifically algorithms, on culture. She is co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup.Previously, Angwin was a senior reporter on technology at ProPublica, and technology reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal.Angwin's first book, "Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America," was published in 2009, and her second book, "Dragnet Nation," was published in 2014.In 2003, Angwin was one of The Wall Street Journal's staff reporters whose stories were acknowledged with a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.

Pete Buttigieg is the Secretary of Transportation. Buttigieg is a veteran, musician, and businessman, and is formerly known as South Bend's "Mayor Pete."

Carissa Byrne Hessick is a criminal justice scholar. Currently, she is a Law Professor and the director of the Prosecutors and Politics Project at the University of North Carolina.Hessick's research interests include criminal law, the structure of the criminal justice system, criminal sentencing, and child pornography crimes. She is the author of multiple law review articles, essays, and op eds on plea bargaining, the powers and selection of prosecutors, Sixth Amendment sentencing rights, and criminal statutes. Her work has appeared in the California Law Review, the Cornell Law Review, the L.A. Times, the UCLA Law Review, and the Virginia Law Review.Hessick received her B.A. in Linguistics from Columbia College of Columbia University and her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She clerked for Judge Barbara S. Jones on the Southern District of New York and for Judge A. Raymond Randolph on the D.C. Circuit.

Charles Graeber is a freelance medical journalist and author. He is best known for his first book, "The Good Nurse," which was adapted into a drama for Netflix in 2022.Before becoming a journalist and author, Graeber was a medical student and researcher, and he co-authored papers for scientific journals. Graeber's work has appeared in Wired, GQ, The New Yorker, Outside, and The New York Times. His first book, "The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder," was published in 2013. His second book, "The Breakthrough: Immunotherapy and the Race to Cure Cancer," was published in 2018.

Matthew Mahan is an American politician and tech entrepreneur.

Jennifer Keishin Armstrong is an author.

Dr. Lindsay M. Chervinsky is a presidential historian and the Executive Director of the George Washington Presidential Library. She is the author of the award-winning book, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution, co-editor of Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, and Making the Presidency: John Adams and the Precedents That Forged the Republic. She regularly writes for public audiences in the Wall Street Journal, Ms. Magazine, The Daily Beast, The Bulwark, Time Magazine, USA Today, CNN, and the Washington Post.

Lis Smith is a campaign manager affiliated with the Democratic Party.

ZZ Packer is an American writer of short fiction.

Dr. Megan L. Ranney is an emergency physician. Currently, she is a Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown University. Additionally, she is the Academic Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and is the founding Director of the Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health.Dr. Ranney is known for bringing public attention to the lack of protective equipment for frontline workers in the U.S. during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. She launched the grassroots organization #GetUsPPE to collect, create and distribute protective equipment around the United States.Dr. Ranney received her B.A. in History of Science from Harvard University. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cote d'Ivoire, then received her medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. She completed internship, residency, and chief residency in Emergency Medicine, as well as a fellowship in Injury Prevention Research and a Master of Public Health, at Brown University.

Ali Breland is a technology journalist. Currently, he is a staff writer specializing in disinformation and extremism at The Atlantic.Previously, Breland was reporter at Mother Jones, where he covered internet disinformation. Before that, he was a Tech Reporter at The Hill.Breland's work has appeared in The Guardian, The New York Times Magazine, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Vice.

Elizabeth Wydra is a constitutional lawyer and legal expert. Currently, she is President of the Constitutional Accountability Center. Previously, she was its Chief Counsel.Wydra has filed briefs on behalf of constitutional scholars and historians, state and local government organizations, groups such as the League of Women Voters and the AARP, and members of Congress. She has argued cases on immigration law, habeas corpus, and sovereign immunity.Previously, Wydra was in private practice in San Francisco. Before that, she was a supervising attorney and teaching fellow at the Georgetown University Law Center appellate litigation clinic.Wydra has appeared as a legal expert for NBC, ABC, PBS, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News, BBC, and NPR. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Politico, CNN.com, Slate, Reuters, Huffington Post, SCOTUSblog, and ACSblog. She has also published in the UCLA Journal of Environmental Law & Policy, Syracuse Law Review, The Cato Institute’s Supreme Court Review, and the Yale Journal of International Law.Wydra received her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She clerked for Judge James R. Browning of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Jeff Timmer is a political expert, campaign strategist, writer, communicator, author, and senior advisor at The Lincoln Project.

Aaron Belkin is a political scientist, researcher, author, and activist. Currently, he is professor of political science at San Francisco State University, where he teaches on delusion and paranoia in American politics. Belkin's most recent book, "Bring Me Men" Military Masculinity and the Benign Facade of American Empire," was in 2012.Since 1999, Belkin has served as founding director of the gay rights organization Palm Center, which was successful in lobbying to reverse the military's ban on gay and transgender personnel.Previously, Belkin was an associate professor of political science at University of California, Santa Barbara and an associate professor of psychology at City University of New York.Belkin received his B.A. in International Relations from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Vice President & Program Director, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Working at the intersection of two cultures: sciences and humanities.