As a producer, Julie Burstein builds places to talk (brilliantly) about creative work.

Her book Spark: How Creativity Works, shares what she knows, and  traces the roots of some of the twenty-first century's most influential and creative thinkers, including Joyce Carol Oates, Yo-Yo Ma, David Milch, Isabel Allende, and Joshua Redman. 

Regina E. Dugan is the 19th Director of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). She was appointed to that position on July 20, 2009. She is the first female director of DARPA.

She directed a portfolio of DARPA programs including the Dog’s Nose program, which focused on the development of an advanced, field-portable system for detecting the explosive content of land mines.

Materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez lives for figuring out new ways to control metals and shape them into materials that can be put to practical use — for instance, in the ever-shrinking smart phones.

Her research on shape memory alloys — so-called “smart materials” — and on a solder that can be manipulated into place with a magnetic field has kept her busy during her time in Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Tiffany Shlain is a filmmaker, artist, founder of The Webby Awards, and co-founder of The International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences.

A celebrated thinker and catalyst, Tiffany is known for her ability to illuminate complex ideas in culture, science, technology and life through her unique films and her dynamic talks and projects.

She has been named by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century.” Here's some of what she had to say at TEDxWomen 2011...