Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses serves Associate Rabbi and Director of Lifelong Learning for Romemu, a synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. As the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi from the cloistered community of Syrian Jews, she has dedicated her rabbinate to opening up possibilities for others. A graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary in 1995, in 2007 Rabbi Dianne was named one of fifty top rabbis by the Washington Post online. In addition to her work at Romemu, she co-teaches the Arts Beit Midrash at the Skirball Institute and at the UJA Federation.  She and her journalist husband Larry live in Manhattan and have three children.

David Dow is the Cullen Professor at the University of Houston Law Center, and he taught in the Department of History at Rice University for 12 years before leaving last year. He founded and directs The Texas Innocence Network, where he and his team have represented over 110 death row inmates. His TEDx talk has over 4,000,000 views.