Faculty
Kai Kight
Innovation Speaker, Violinist
As a classical violinist turned innovative composer, Kai Kight uses music as a metaphor to inspire individuals and organizations across the world to compose paths of imagination and fulfillment. Inspired by his own mother who, when diagnosed with cancer, revealed regrets of not bringing her ideas to the world, Kai is on a mission to spark a global mindset shift in which ingenuity is the norm, not the exception. In his emotionally powerful presentations, Kai performs mesmerizing original music and vulnerably shares stories from his own transformation as an artist. Kai translates these insights into takeaways that audiences can easily infuse into their own lives and work environments.
A product of Stanford University’s design and engineering program, the d. School, Kai remains fascinated by the leaders, artists, and companies who dare to be different. As both a Mayfield Fellow and Kleiner Perkins Design Fellow, Kai has proven himself as a leader of the next generation of innovative and entrepreneurial talent. As a musician, Kai has performed his original music for thousands in venues across the world, from the White House to the Great Wall of China. As a speaker, he has created impactful experiences for audiences at conferences, companies, and universities internationally. Some of his clients include The Walt Disney Company, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and the Super-bowl winning Seattle Seahawks. His mesmerizing and original violin performance beautifully becomes a sonic metaphor for the core of his message: to inspire people to compose unique ideas in a world that celebrates conformity.
Laurel Braitman, PhD
Author, Writer-in-Residence, Director of Writing and Storytelling, Medicine & the Muse Program, Stanford University School of Medicine
Laurel Braitman, PhD, is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and anthropologist of science. She is the first Writer-in-Residence and the Director of Writing and Storytelling at the Medicine & the Muse Program at the Stanford University School of Medicine where she is helping medical students and physicians communicate more meaningfully--for themselves and their patients. She holds a PhD in Science, Technology and Society from MIT, is a Senior TED Fellow and a 2019 National Geographic Explorer. Her last book, Animal Madness, was a NYT bestseller and has been translated into eight languages. Her next book House of the Heart, (forthcoming, Simon & Schuster) is about growing up, mortality and how we might live with the perspective of a terminal disease without the dire prognosis. Her work has been featured on the BBC, NPR, Good Morning America and Al Jazeera. Her stories have appeared in The Guardian, on Radiolab, in The Wall Street Journal, Wired, National Geographic and other publications. She is a Contributing Writer and frequently performs live for Pop Up Magazine, and has taught interdisciplinary courses at Harvard, MIT, Stanford School of Medicine and Smith College and she loves collaborating with musicians, physicians, scientists engineers and artists-- helping them learn to communicate better with the audiences that matter most.
Dr. Peter Buerhaus, PhD, RN, FAAN
Nurse & Health Care Economist
Dr. Peter Buerhaus is a nurse and a healthcare economist and is well known for his studies and publications focused on the nursing and physician workforces in the United States. He is a Professor in the College of Nursing and Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Health Workforce Studies at Montana State University. Before coming to Montana State University, Dr. Buerhaus was the Valere Potter Distinguished Professor of Nursing (2000-2015) and Professor of Health Policy (2013-2015) at Vanderbilt University, and assistant professor of health policy and management at Harvard School of Public Health (1992-2000). During the 1980s he served as assistant to the chief executive officer of The University of Michigan Medical Center’s seven teaching hospitals (1983-1986) and assistant to the Vice Provost for Medical Affairs, the chief executive of the medical center (1987-1990).
Dr. Buerhaus maintains an active research program involving studies on the economics of the nursing workforce, forecasting nurse and physician supply, developing and testing measures of hospital quality of care, determining public and provider opinions on issues involving the delivery of health care, and assessing the quantity and quality of health care provided by nurse practitioners. Of the more than 100 articles he has published in peer-reviewed journals, five publications are designated as “Classics” by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Patient Safety Network. Other publications have ranked among the most widely accessed articles published in the health policy journal Health Affairs. Dr. Buerhaus is the co-author of the 2008 book The Future of the Nursing Workforce in the United States: Data, Trends, and Implications. He has editorial responsibilities with many peer-reviewed health services research and nursing journals and has advised policymakers and legislators on nursing workforce policy.
In 2003, Dr. Buerhaus was elected into the National Academies Institute of Medicine and since1994 has been a member of the American Academy of Nursing. He has served on the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Nursing Research (2001-2006), National Quality Forum Steering Committee on Nursing Quality Performance Measures (2004-2005), Board of Directors of Sigma Theta Tau International (2001-2005), and The Joint Commission’s Nursing Advisory Committee (2003-2010). He is currently an expert advisor for the Bipartisan Policy Center’s health care workforce initiative and is a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Graduate Medical Education Governance and Transparency.
Dr. Buerhaus earned his baccalaureate degree in nursing from Mankato State University (1976), a master’s degree in nursing health services administration from The University of Michigan (1981), master’s degree in community health nursing from Wayne State University (1983), a doctoral degree from at Wayne State University (1990), and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation postdoctoral faculty fellowship in health care finance at The Johns Hopkins University from 1991-1992.
On September 30, 2010, Dr. Buerhaus was appointed to Chair the National Health Workforce Commission that was established under The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Among other responsibilities, the Commission (once funded) will provide advice to the Congress and the President on national health care workforce policy.
Ben Hammersley
International Strategic Forecaster, Hammersley Futures
As an international reporter, author and adventure seeker, Ben explores the effects of the internet and the digital network on the world’s business, political and social atmospheres. His latest book, which was published internationally, “64 Things You Need to Know Now For Then” gives us the essential guide to the things we need to know for life in the 21st century. Ben is the writer, host, and narrator of Netflix and BBC television series “Cybercrimes with Ben Hammersley” that was shot in over six countries across the globe. As the first specialist correspondent on the internet for The Times [of London] and the Guardian, he became the inventor of the popular term, ‘podcast’.
With his current position as the Editor-at-Large of UK’s WIRED magazine, Ben has been called upon to advise three governments and countless organizations in the area of technology and media including a seat on the European Commission High-Level Group on Media Freedom of the European Union. His personal experiences from the fields of aviation, emergency medicine, genomic science, disaster response, and war reporting, has enabled Ben Hammersley to deliver insightful, practice-changing messages to corporate and governmental clients on five continents for over two decades.
Over the past 20 years, he has been a technology journalist for the Times and the Guardian, a war reporter covering Afghanistan and Beirut, an author of 5 books, the presenter of a landmark BBC and Netflix television series, the Editor at Large of UK’s WIRED magazine, a consultant to the UK and US governments and the European Commission, the inventor of the word “podcast”, and a pilot, emergency medic, rescue diver, and ultra-runner.