Tara Abrahams is a passionate global advocate for girls and women. She is currently Head of Impact at The Meteor, a media company that uses the power of storytelling to advance one of the greatest causes of our time: the freedom and dignity of all women. Tara also serves as board chair of She’s The First, a global girls’ rights organization that reaches 150,000 girls around the world every year; and of International Center for Research on Women, a global research institute working to accelerate global progress towards gender equity.

Prior to The Meteor, Tara served as a managing director at Arabella Advisors, as interim managing director of VOW, an initiative working to end child marriage around the world, and as executive director of The Girl Project at Glamour.

Tara began her work in girls’ education and women’s empowerment as the president and deputy director of Girl Rising, a global campaign that raised awareness about the importance of educating girls in the Global South. Tara served as founding director of the Maverick Capital Foundation, as a strategy consultant at The Bridgespan Group, and as a managing director at Acelero Learning. She has advised a variety of leading girl-focused initiatives, from Girls Who Code to the Girls Opportunity Alliance at the Obama Foundation.

Tara graduated from Harvard College and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School, where she received the Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowship for outstanding contributions to the nonprofit sector. Tara leads global efforts related to women’s empowerment and anti-racism as a board member of the Harvard Alumni Association.

(Source: www.taraabrahams.com) 

Samuel Bar-sheshet, professionally known as Sam Barsh, is a music producer, songwriter and keyboardist. His discography of over 300 recordings includes 18 Gold and Platinum certifications, two #1 singles, four #1 albums, and four GRAMMY wins out of 12 nominations. Through his collaborations with Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Aloe Blacc, Doja Cat and The Weeknd, he has played a significant role in reincorporating sophisticated harmony into popular music.

During his time at New Trier, Barsh participated in the Jazz Ensembles, Concert Bands, Symphony Orchestra and Lagniappe Potpourri, but found his true passion in jazz. He was twice selected as the top jazz pianist in Illinois by the IMEA, performed in the National High School GRAMMY Combo and received the Downbeat Magazine Student Award for Best Jazz Soloist.

Upon graduating William Paterson University, Barsh began his career as a jazz pianist in NYC, touring and recording with iconic bassist and composer Avishai Cohen’s trio for 3 years, working with artists including Cassandra Wilson, Gregory Porter, Roy Hargrove, Snarky Puppy, Lonnie Plaxico and Robin Eubanks, and leading his own groups. 

After relocating to Los Angeles to pursue songwriting and production, Barsh co-wrote the #1 single “The Man” by Aloe Blacc and helped create 2 of Billboard’s albums of the decade, Anderson .Paak’s “Malibu” and Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly,” which garnered Lamar his first 3 GRAMMYs, a #1 spot on the Billboard 200, and signified a turning point where mainstream artists began to embrace jazz harmony. He remains dedicated to sustaining a multi-faceted career, creating records with artists ranging from Gwen Stefani to J. Cole, co-writing Kanye West and The Weeknd’s GRAMMY-winning #1 single “Hurricane,” and maintaining an active performance schedule.

Barsh is a vocal advocate for reform in the record business, having written articles and viral social media posts about the realities of streaming royalties, lobbying congresspeople on behalf of the Recording Academy’s Advocacy wing, mentoring young artists on copyright law and fair business practices, and working to help create opportunities for women in the male-dominated music industry. He resides in Southern California with his loving wife and son.

NASA chemist Dr. Robert Bryant was born in Chicago. His father, an engineer, and his mother, a reference librarian, encouraged his curiosity from a young age with Legos, electric trains and an Erector Set. An Eagle Scout, Bryant enjoyed exploring the woods, taking things apart to see how they worked and spending plenty of time reading the books his mother would bring home from work.

Despite significant vision challenges caused by the genetic condition oculocutaneous albinism type 2, Bryant developed strong reading comprehension skills in his youth. This later gave him an advantage when it came to reading technical papers and books.

“My advice to kids is to read,” Bryant shared in an interview with the National Inventors Hall of Fame® (NIHF). “Read as much as you possibly can.”

Bryant earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Valparaiso University in 1985. He then joined the University of Akron as a NASA graduate student research fellow, earning his master’s and doctorate degrees in polymer science in 1990 and 1995 respectively.

In 1990, Bryant joined a team at NASA Langley Research Center investigating composite materials suitable for high-speed civil transport aircraft and lightweight rocket bodies. Bryant noticed one of his polymer formulations, LaRC-SI, unexpectedly remained soluble during polymerization. He continued developing LaRC-SI while several NASA research groups explored potential applications and published articles to make scientific and technical communities aware of the formulation.

“LaRC-SI was one of the many things that I’ve invented. And the reason I was able to do that is because [at NASA] I had the freedom to explore and to work on things and develop subject matter expertise in many areas I knew little about,” Bryant said.

In addition to his induction into NIHF, Bryant was inducted into the Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame and the NASA Inventors Hall of Fame. His numerous awards include NASA’s Exceptional Achievement Medal, NASA Langley’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Valparaiso University’s Distinguished Alumni Award and a Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, and three R&D 100 Awards, including an Editor’s Choice. He currently holds 33 U.S. patents, over a dozen foreign patents and over two dozen commercial licenses to NASA.

[Source: https://www.invent.org/inductees/robert-bryant]

Jerry Fiddler has helped create and grow numerous companies, as CEO, chairman, director, investor, educator, and advisor.

He is the founder of Wind River and was for 23 years its CEO and Chairman. Established in 1981 in Fiddler’s Berkeley garage, Wind River grew to become the leading provider of device software worldwide, with over $450M in annual sales, and market cap well over $1B. Its operating systems control many millions of devices, from the commonplace (digital cameras, routers) to the mission critical (anti-lock brakes, defibrillators, nuclear plants, submarines) to the exotic (all the Mars Rovers and landers). While at Wind River, Fiddler gained an international reputation as an expert in the design and implementation of real-time systems, and an early pioneer in the internet of things. Wind River(Nasdaq:WIND) went public in 1993 and was acquired by Intel in 2009.

After leaving Wind River in 2003, Fiddler became an angel investor and adviser, helping to create and fund numerous startups. He founded and became the principal of Zygote Ventures, which funds early-stage startups. He was chairman of Solazyme(Nasdaq:SZYM), the first biotech that used algae to create oil and foods, and served as a board director to numerous other companies in tech and biotech. He also acts as a “mentor” with several other venture funds, helping various companies and executives.

He has worked actively both with students and in an advisory capacity at several universities, including University of California/Berkeley, Stanford, Wharton, and University of Illinois. He was Foundation Capital executive-in-residence, and adjunct professor at UC Berkeley, teaching entrepreneurship in the school of engineering. He served on the UC President’s advisory board on science and innovation, the foundation board of Chabot Space & Science Center, and is a trustee of The California Jazz Conservatory, and (emeritus) the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

Fiddler created his own unique path while completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He studied five different undergrad majors and finished with a double major in music and photography, followed by an MS in computer science. This led him to create The Jerry Fiddler Innovation Endowment Fund at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, to foster those who have interests and passions that don’t fit within any existing major or school.

While at New Trier West, Jerry was a middle-of-the-pack student, though he was photo-editor of the yearbook in 1969.  He was only suspended once, for ditching a class to fly a kite on campus, which was totally worth it!  Among his many wonderful teachers, he particularly loved Mr. Zibart (advisory and English) and Dave Curry (photography).

He still plays and composes music, and does photography. Both can be seen on his web site.

Don Katz is the founder of Audible, the leading creator and provider of premium audio storytelling. He led the company from founding in 1995 until 2022. Today, Audible serves millions of listeners globally and offers nearly 900,000 Audible Originals, audiobooks, audio editions of periodicals, and other programs. 

Under Don’s leadership, Audible commercialized the first portable digital audio player in 1997, four years before the introduction of the iPod. The company was publicly traded on NASDAQ until it was acquired by Amazon in 2008, becoming an independently operated subsidiary. Don moved Audible’s global headquarters from suburban New Jersey to downtown Newark, the largest city in the state, and has long been committed to the Brick City’s comeback and focused on programmatic solutions that address urban inequities. He is the founder of Newark Venture Partners, a social impact early-stage investment fund and ultra-bandwidth accelerator that seeks to connect Newark to the early-stage technology start-up innovation economy.

Don was previously a journalist and author for 20 years, writing five books and serving as contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Outside, Esquire, and other publications. His work won an Overseas Press Club award and a National Magazine Award, and his book Home Fires was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.  His two books about businesses – The Big Store: Inside the Crisis and Revolution at Sears (winner of The Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction); and Just Do It: The Nike Spirit in the Corporate World – were both best-sellers. 

Recognized as one of America’s Top 25 Disruptive Leaders by Living Cities for his work on behalf of urban transformation, Katz was named New Jersey’s most influential tech leader by ROI-NJ in 2021. He was the recipient of a Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Award in 2013. For his leadership and founding vision for Audible, he was honored by both PEN America and Gotham Film & Media Institute in 2022.

Don graduated from New York University, where he studied with novelist Ralph Ellison.  He also holds an MSc Econ from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Liesel Pritzker Simmons is Co-Founder and Principal of Blue Haven Initiative, where she oversees an impact investing portfolio structured to generate financial returns and address social and environmental challenges. The portfolio spans asset classes, from traditional equities and private equity to philanthropic programs.

A longtime advocate for informed, conscientious investing, Liesel co-founded Blue Haven, a single-family office, with her husband, Ian Simmons. Their family office is considered to be one of the first to have been created with impact investing as its mission.

Liesel works closely with organizations that support and advance the field of impact investing. She was a co-founder of The ImPact, a network of families committed to the conscientious stewardship of wealth. She serves on the board of Activate, the board of the IDP Foundation, and the board and the investment committee of ImpactAssets.

Dr. Richard Sherman is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who specializes in treating disorders of the knee, hip, and shoulder, including sports injuries, the various forms of arthritis, and trauma.  He offers his patients the most up-to-date techniques in joint replacement, as well as arthroscopic knee and shoulder surgery to reduce pain and speed recovery time. His practice philosophy is to give every patient the highest level of personalized care using state of the art techniques and cutting-edge knowledge. He is a partner of the Illinois Bone and Joint Institute, a senior attending at North Shore University Health System, and a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Loyola University Medical Center.

Dr. Sherman graduated from New Trier West in 1973.  During his high school career, he played Varsity football, was an All-Conference and All-Area running back, culminating with an undefeated Central Suburban Conference championship season as a senior. In addition, he was captain of the Varsity baseball team.

Dr. Sherman graduated from Harvard University in 1977 and received his Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Chicago in 1981.  Upon completion of his Orthopedic Surgery residency in 1986 at Loyola University Medical Center, Dr. Sherman went back to Harvard for fellowship training in Sports Medicine and Joint Replacement at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Since 1987, when he started in practice on the North Shore, Dr. Sherman has served as the team physician for New Trier sports, and he has been present at every football game, both home and away, since that time.  The request to be the team physician came from Dr. Sherman’s varsity football coach Robert Naughton, who at that time was New Trier’s Athletic Director.  Dr. Sherman wanted to give back to the New Trier sports programs, to the student athletes, and to all the families of the New Trier township that had been so impactful in shaping his life and his career.  The value of the 4 “Ps” of NT—Preparation, Perseverance, Passion, and Pride—instilled into him through his New Trier experience continues to be a driving force in his life.

Ellen Spertus has been teaching Computer Science since 1998, when she received her PhD from MIT and joined the faculty of Mills College, now part of Northeastern University. She has done research and development in compilers, programming languages, computer architecture, information retrieval, and online communities at MIT, University of Washington, Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google.

Ellen has been involved in broadening participation in computing since writing a 1991 report "Why Are There So Few Female Computer Scientists?", which went viral. She helped create the Hour of Code and App Inventor, which have introduced millions of students to computer programming. She is the co-founder of the Tech Intersections conference for women of color in computing and has served on the boards of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Just Detention International, the Human RIghts Defense Center, and the Ada Initiative. During summers, she teaches technical interview skill preparation through CodePath. She has contributed chapters to App Inventor 2, Rendering History: The Women of ACM-W, and She's Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Nerdy Stuff. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, child, and cats.

She is a second-generation New Trier graduate through her father Phil Spertus '52. Ellen spent her freshman year at the Northfield campus and her remaining years at the Winnetka campus. She participated in Math Club all 4 years, helping win state championships, and was president of Bridge Club. She fondly remembers playing bridge with her friends on the bus to math meets. She credits the rigor of her New Trier education for the ease of her transition to MIT.