Sixth Station Trio is a classically trained piano trio based in San Francisco, CA. Composed of three San Francisco natives, Federico Strand Ramirez, Anju Goto, and Katelyn Tan, Sixth Station Trio debuted at San Francisco’s historic Grace Cathedral in May of 2023 to a sold-out concert, featuring music from the films of Studio Ghibli. Sixth Station trio plays an expansive variety of music ranging from Western classical music, film scores, video game music, and even pop. They’ve gone on to perform monthly concerts featuring titles of Genshin Impact, Stardew Valley, Nintendo, Final Fantasy, Studio Ghibli, Pokemon, and more.
We are an energetic, passionate group of seniors playing Japanese taiko drums. It’s an exciting sound that goes to the heart, body and soul. We have performed for 20 years at a variety of venues including Asian art museum, Bottlerock, San Quentin and many private corporations.
everyone.AI is a global nonprofit dedicated to ensuring Artificial Intelligence serves children, adolescents, and young adults (0–25) whose brains are still developing.
We bring together researchers, governments, industry leaders, and educators to anticipate AI’s risks and opportunities through a child-centered, science-based lens.
Through research, education, and multi-stakeholder collaboration, we promote ethical, developmentally aligned AI design and use.
everyone.AI co-leads the international alliance iRAISE with the Paris Peace Forum to advance beneficial, children-first AI worldwide.
KALW Public Media and BAY POETS presents ¡AQUI ESTAMOS! a fiery collaboration of music and spoken word.
Ellie Lopez is a storyteller from Tracy, CA. Her poetry has been featured in numerous publications most recently Mobile Data Mag and KALW’s BAY POETS.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a shepherd and regenerative land steward. Her writing illuminates the pathos and splendor of the natural world, race in rural spaces, the peculiar wit of livestock animals, and the pains and pleasures of contemporary farm labor.
Josiah Luis Alderete is the curator and host of the monthly Latine reading series Speaking Axolotl and KALW’s BAY POETS. He tends the portal known as Medicina Para Pesadillas Bookstore y Galeria on 24th Street in San Pancho, Califas.
Kim Font is a Bay Area band formed by Mexican immigrants translating their lived experience into sound. Their music blends psychedelic rock, alternative and indie sensibilities with funk, jazz, krautrock, and post-punk influences.
Terah Bajjalieh is a California winemaker, sommelier, and founder of Terah Wine Co., crafting intentional wines that champion underrepresented Mediterranean varietals and organic farming practices. With 14 harvests across five countries and a Master’s degree in Enology from France, she brings a global perspective to California winemaking. Her wines—described by the New York Times as “superb” and recognized in Wine Enthusiast’s Future 40 Tastemakers 2024—are vibrant, textured, and built for connection. As a female, LGBTQ+, Arab American winemaker, Terah is committed to elevating lesser-known voices and varietals in the wine industry.
Eric Blaze is a Parisian record store owner, artist, DJ, label manager, and internationally renowned music producer who lived nearly twenty years in New York. There, he made a name for himself at A1 Records and Academy Records, two of the city’s most respected vinyl shops, and produced numerous legendary artists such as KRS-One, La Mafia K’1 Fry, D.I.T.C, Infamous Mobb, and many others.
Mohamed Bouabdallah is the Cultural Counselor of France in the United States and the Director of Villa Albertine. Working under the authority of the Ambassador of France in the United States, Mohamed leads France’s strategy for cultural, educational, and university exchanges in the US. Prior to his appointment as Cultural Counselor of France in the United States, he served as Cultural Counselor of France in Cairo and Director of the French Institute in Egypt (2016-2019), and Head of the Political Affairs Department at the United Nations Directorate of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in charge of the Security Council (2019-2023).
George Brooks is an award-winning saxophonist and composer, acclaimed for successfully bridging the worlds of jazz and Indian classical music. A long time associate of Terry Riley and Krishna Bhatt, Brooks is the founder of Summit with Zakir Hussain; Bombay Jazz with Ronu Majumdar and Larry Coryell; Raga Bop Trio with Steve Smith and Prasanna; Kirwani Quartet with Hariprasad Chaurasia and Elements with Kala Ramnath and Gwyneth Wentink. His albums, “Lasting Impression”, “Night Spinner”, “Summit” and “Spirit and Spice”, are regarded as groundbreaking work in the realm where jazz and Indian classical music intersect.
Amanda Chaudhary is a composer, bandleader, electronic musician, jazz keyboardist, and visual/sound artist. She blends experimental electronic sounds with jazz, funk, dance music and other idiomatic styles into her visually captivating performances. Amanda has performed, recorded, and collaborated with such diverse artists as Amy X Neuburg, Rent Romus, G Calvin Weston, Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Tom Djll, Steve Adams, Moe! Staiano, Vacuum Tree Head, and David Wessel. She is also the author of the popular blog CatSynth and its companion video channel CatSynth TV, where she discusses music, art, culture, and of course, cats.
Jennifer (Jen) Dionne is a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and, by courtesy, of Radiology at Stanford. She is also a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, deputy director of Q-NEXT (a DOE National Quantum Initiative), and co-founder of Pumpkinseed, a company developing quantum sensors to understand and optimize the immune system. From 2020-2023, Jen served as Stanford’s Inaugural Vice Provost of Shared Facilities, raising capital to modernize instrumentation, fund experiential education, foster staff development, and support new and existing users of the shared facilities.
Kalie Granier is a French interdisciplinary artist based in Santa Cruz, California, whose work explores the intersections of human and non-human worlds, ancestral stories, and contemporary narratives. She collaborates with scientists, environmentalists, and Indigenous communities, creating art rooted in ecological consciousness through video, installation, and earth-based materials. Kalie co-founded Loud Spring, a European-American art collective fostering locally rooted, globally minded cultural initiatives. She holds a Master of Arts (MA) from ESAG, Penninghen School of Visual Art in Paris. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and she regularly lectures at institutions including UCSC, San Diego University, and Santa Clara University.
Nikhil Gujral is a youth advocate, TEDx and international speaker, USA Debate Development team member, and youth ambassador for Everyone.AI, AI Collective, and iRAISE. In these roles, he works on advancing conversations around AI literacy, ethical AI, and AI regulation, including delivering speeches and engaging directly with diplomats and scientists on youth perspectives in AI policy. Through the intersection of technology, policy, and youth engagement, he brings young perspectives into conversations that shape how ideas are understood and acted upon.
Cyrus has been organizing events around sustainable transportation for the past five years, including the Bay Area Transit Funeral in 2023, and serving as a campaign leader on San Francisco’s Prop L in 2024, a measure that sought to invest in public transit by taxing ride hail companies. He believes that sustainable transportation is not only the key to reaching net-zero emissions, but creates a much happier, more accessible world for all.
Oakland-raised writer Pendarvis Harshaw is a journalist for KQED Arts, where he covers music, prisons, politics and all things impacting his Northern Californian community.
David James is a San Francisco-born-and-based composer, guitarist, vocalist, and bandleader who has been a recording and performing member of Spearhead, The Coup, Afrofunk Experience, and the Beth Custer Ensemble, among others. He currently leads the ensemble GPS, which recently released its second album, “Mission Rebel No. 1”.
Oussama Khatib is a roboticist and a professor of computer science at Stanford University, and a Fellow of the IEEE. He is credited with seminal work in areas ranging from robot motion planning and control, human-friendly robot design, to haptic interaction and human motion synthesis. His work’s emphasis has been to develop theories, algorithms, and technologies, that control robot systems by using models of their physical dynamics. These dynamic models are used to derive optimal controllers for complex robots that interact with the environment in rea
Bay Area Native Kitten on the Keys has been performing stateside and internationally for 25 years -everywhere from sleazy bars to the award winning French film “Tournee” at the Cannes Film Festival. She can be seen in a variety of piano bars and cabarets throughout San Francisco including The Rite Spot, the Madrone Art Bar, the Royal Cuckoo Market, and annually at Flower Piano. Her songbook is deep and wide. Pianist, accordionist, and singer, she plays a delicious smorgasbord of styles and eras from kitschy cabaret originals to bawdy blues, unexpected covers and forgotten gems of yesteryear.
Jo Kreiter is a choreographer and site artist with a background in political science. She engages physical innovation and the political conflicts we live within. Her tools include coalition building, an unklikely use of place, an intersectional feminist lens and a body-based push against the constraints of gravity. Via Flyaway Productions, Jo has spent 30 years creating public art with people marginalized by race, class, gender and the criminal legal system.
Victor Le Masne is a GRAMMY®-winning French composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist whose work moves fluidly across classical music, jazz, electronic, metal, and pop. A leading figure of French Touch, he reached a global audience as Composer and Musical Director of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In 2025, he released a critically acclaimed tribute to Maurice Ravel for Deutsche Grammophon’s Recomposed series. Deeply interested in musical genealogy and cultural transmission, Le Masne’s work explores how sound travels across time, geography, and social history.
Instagram | @victor_le_masne
Duo Gadjo’s music is inspired by the sounds of the 20’s and 30’s, when jazz was
the thing and Paris was the place to be. Their style is generally called ‘French Cafe’
or ‘Gypsy Jazz’ as pioneered by the French Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt
Matt Niess is the founder and winemaker of North American Press, a Sonoma County winery dedicated exclusively to native American and hybrid grape varieties. After nearly a decade at Radio-Coteau winery, Niess founded North American Press in 2019 to challenge California’s viticultural status quo and revive grape varieties that have been marginalized since Prohibition.
Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille is a cosmologist specializing in dark matter and dark energy, the Universe’s most mysterious components. She is a key leader in the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument. She spent much of her career at CEA in France before moving to Berkeley Lab in 2021, where she is Director of the Physics Division. She received the 2017 Irène Joliot-Curie Award as “Woman Scientist of the Year” and was elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 2020.
Tiffani channels her love of food—and the people who make it—into action through storytelling, community building, and event design. She’s championed just food systems for over a decade, exploring the intersections of food, culture, and justice, most recently as former Co-Director of Real Food Media. She’s the co-founder of Laughing Gems, a low-intervention wine brand creating vibrant wines that celebrate the cuisines and peoples of the diaspora. She serves on the boards of Mesa Refuge, the People’s Food and Farm Project, and the Vinguard. Past board seats and committees include: HEAL Food Alliance, Oakland Food Policy Council, and Foodwise. She holds dual MPA/MBA degrees in Sustainable Management and is based in Oakland, CA on unceded Ohlone land.
Ray Potes began shooting photos and making zines at age 14 in San Diego. He has been doing the same ever since. Now based in San Francisco, he runs and operates Hamburger Eyes, a magazine dedicated to black and white photography.
In the natural wine movement, where progressive supporters advocate for regenerative farming, sustainable food systems, low-intervention practices and a culture of inclusivity rather than pretense, there’s one person who stands apart in the scope and purpose of their work: Chris Renfro, through his 280 Project, aims not only to transform the culture of wine but, through his urban vineyard and horticulture and viticulture program in the heart of San Francisco, he aims to change the dynamics of race in America. More than anything else, Chris wants everyone to feel valued and supported, and he feels that wine, and the traditional walls of white privilege and power that surround it, is the perfect platform to expose, unpack and redefine how we see and treat each other. Through farming, making wine, and sharing the profound communal experience that wine enables, Renfro believes we shed the veil of race and connect fundamentally as people. And he’s not just talking about it, he’s doing it. By mentoring one winemaker at a time.
Winemaker and co-owner of Sunset Cellars, PhD biomedical researcher, Fah is moved by how wine coalesces art, chemistry, biology, geology, history and culture. He created #drinkAAPIwine with Asian Wine Professionals, now part of the Asian Wine Association of America (AWAA). As a winemaker, he upholds the style developed by Sunset Cellars’ founders, Doug and Katsuko Sparks, allowing time to tame naturally acidic grapes like Barbera (a flagship wine since 1998) and Petite Sirah, with minimal intervention.
Valentin Schmite is the Director and co-founder of Ask Mona, an AI company helping cultural and educational institutions create smarter visitor and learning experiences. He also teaches and trains professionals on practical, responsible uses of generative AI. Bridging entrepreneurship and pedagogy, he focuses on real-world deployment, adoption, and impact. He is the author of books exploring technology, culture, and society. He regularly speaks at conferences in France and internationally.
Marco Senghor is the owner of San Francisco restaurant Bissap Baobab, where he shares his passion for Senegalese cuisine. Through his restaurant, he creates a welcoming space that celebrates Senegalese culture and fosters a sense of belonging within the local Francophone and African community.
Neal Strickberger builds art fusing technology and extreme illumination – crafting interactive light experiences that surprise and engage.
With Project Flashlight, he reanimated 1960s military battlefield searchlights – used by NASA to illuminate Apollo and Space Shuttle launches – then added interactive participant controls with tablets. The result: pure, searing white “fingers of God” sweeping the darkness, inviting collective joy in light at grand scale.
Andrew Sullivan is a fourth-generation SF-native and produces various wine events around the Bay, including the annual ‘Unfiltered’ festival at Donkey and Goat Winery in Berkeley. He is dedicated to supporting our independent artisan wine community and urges everyone to drink our locally produced, low-intervention wines and to support the bottle shops, wine bars and restaurants that carry them.
Bay Area Native Kitten on the Keys aka cabaret artist Suzanne Ramsey has been performing everywhere from sleazy bars to the award winning French film “Tournee” at the Cannes Film Festival. Her songbook is deep and wide. Pianist, accordionist, and singer she plays a panoplie of styles and eras – kitschy cabaret originals, bawdy blues, unexpected covers and forgotten gems of yesteryear.
amara tabor-smith (she/they) was born and raised on Unceded Ramaytush Ohlone territory/ San Francisco, and currently lives in Huichin Ohlone territory/Oakland, CA. She is a choreographer, performance maker, cultural worker, community caregiver, and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. Her interdisciplinary site-responsive and community specific performance making practice utilizes Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging in the Afro NOW. amara’s work is rooted in Black, queer, feminist principles that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being. amara is currently a teaching artist in residence at Stanford University.
Leyya Mona Tawil is an artist, composer, and cultural activist. She works in dance, sound art and hybrid performance practices. Tawil is Palestinian and Syrian; engaged in the world as such. Her works have toured extensively throughout the states, Europe and the Arab region. Tawil has stewarded TAC Temescal Art Center in Oakland since 1997 and is the founding director of Arab.AMP – a platform for worldbuilding artists from the Arab/SWANA diaspora and our allied communities.
The Mermen play an extreme brand of surf music, the black minor-chord moods of guitarist Jim Thomas are like a rough ride on the icy seas of the mid- Atlantic.
– David Fricke, ROLLING STONE
Jim Thomas builds crashing waves of sound that would do Pink Floyd proud. Thomas’ unique vision has never sounded better than this….. sterling set of tone poems that swell up like the sea itself…the psychedelia dominates….Far from the calculating, cultivated rock so common these days. The Mermen’s Road Show album is a tour de force by and inspired musician following his own vision”
– Joel Selvin ,San Francisco Chronicle
Edie Trautwein is a zinester, artist and filmmaker based in San Francisco. In 2022 they began producing zines and short videos under the name Fish Juice. Their zines can be found at independent bookstores throughout the Bay Area. Documenting their life and community is a daily practice
For over 50 years, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition has been transforming San Francisco streets and neighborhoods into more livable and safe places by promoting the bicycle for everyday transportation. We are one of the largest and most effective bicycle advocacy groups in the country. Through our day-to-day advocacy, education and working partnerships with City and community agencies, the SF Bicycle Coalition creates safer streets and more livable communities for all San Franciscans.
Since 2021, Coral has fully embraced Sonoma Valley – building Maison des Plaisances, farming and making wines to honor the long overlooked history of Chinese labor in California. Using food and wine to carry forward these stories of the past, her mission continues to build spaces of representation, amplifying our collective voices – and has even brought deeper meaning to connect with her own identity and culture.
Specializing in intentional winemaking practices and lesser-known varieties, she partners with sustainable, family-owned vineyards. Her motto—Wines of Joy, No Fuss—guides her mission to make wine a conversation starter and a pleasure for all.
Kristina Wong’s solo works include “Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The Wong Street Journal,” and “Kristina Wong for Public Office.” “Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord” premiered at New York Theater Workshop in 2021 and won the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Solo Performance and is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist in Drama. She’s a Doris Duke Award Award Winner and Guggenheim Fellow who has been supported by among others, Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, ASU Gammage Artist Residency, Joan D. Firestone Commissioning Fund from En Garde Arts and the Kennedy Center Social Practice Residency.
Nat Wong is quietly affecting change not only by cultivating rare varietals in his role as a vineyard manager, but by crafting expressive wines from his grapes as well. Nat’s subtle but important influence on our local winemaking community is one of the many underappreciated stories this panel will explore.
Matt Wood is the host and creator of the Indie WIne Podcast. A California native, he’s worked hard to shine more light on producers of his home state. For over 100 episodes the podcast has hosted in-depth conversations with some of California’s most recognized and influential winemakers and the next generation of up and comers. Interspersed with these interviews are historical episodes diving into important moments, producers and people in California’s wine history. Some of these episodes have focused on Kanaye Nagasawa of the Fountain Grove winery, the first Japanese winemaker in the state and an in-depth history of the contributions of Chinese labor in early California viticulture.
Versatile multi-instrumentalist Mark Yee began playing piano and saxophone at a young age, before branching out to drums and bass. Taking full advantage of San Francisco’s rich, musical traditions, Mark performs with an eclectic mix of bands, ranging from punk to jazz. He is now honored to include ensemble work with the Clubfoot Quintet. A Bay Area native, Mark currently lives in San Francisco.
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist making works for voice, electronics, samples, gesture activated MIDI controllers, and video. She has toured throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. Her work has been presented at venues and exhibitions including Bang on a Can (NY), the Japan Interlink Festival, Other Minds (SF), MoMA (NY), the Venice Biennale, and Dakar Biennale. She has composed scores for dance, film, and chamber ensembles (including Kronos Quartet and Eighth Blackbird). Her awards include the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MIT McDermott Award, the Guggenheim, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. www.pamelaz.com