Dent 2026 Speakers
Maria Konnikova
Author, Journalist, and Professional Poker Player
Maria Konnikova is a New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and professional poker player. Her books include The Biggest Bluff, The Confidence Game, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. She writes for The New Yorker and co-hosts the podcast Risky Business with Nate Silver. While researching The Biggest Bluff, she became a World Series of Poker bracelet winner and an international poker champion. She holds a psychology degree from Harvard and a PhD in psychology from Columbia.
David McRaney
Science Journalist and Author
David McRaney is a science journalist who writes about brains, minds, and culture. He created the blog, book, and podcast You Are Not So Smart, translated into 17 languages. His books include You Are Now Less Dumb and How Minds Change, which won the Excellence in Science Journalism Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is a two time winner of the William Randolph Hearst Award and started his career as a newspaper reporter covering Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast.
Chris Rainier
Director, Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation; Documentary Photographer and Filmmaker
Chris Rainier is a documentary photographer and filmmaker and a National Geographic Explorer. In the early 1980s, he was Ansel Adams' last photographic assistant and helped Adams use photography to help conserve many of the American national parks. In 2002 he was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award by The Explorers Club, and in 2023 he was elected an Explorers Club Fellow. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Geographical Society for his work in cultural preservation.
Rainier was a National Geographic Society Fellow as director of the All Roads Photography Program and co-director of the Enduring Voices Project, both focused on preserving traditional cultural knowledge. He is the co-founder and CEO of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation, a global charitable foundation focused on preserving traditional culture and land. During the 1990s he was a war photojournalist covering conflicts in Somalia, Cambodia, Sarajevo and Bosnia, Rwanda, and Iraq, along with the events of September 11, 2001, working for Time, Life, and The New York Times.
Dr. Sonia J. Rowley
Marine Biologist
Dr. Sonia J. Rowley is an award-winning evolutionary marine biologist, technical diver, and Sir David Attenborough Award recipient. Using closed-circuit rebreathers at extreme depths exceeding 180 meters, she conducts field experiments on remote mesophotic coral reefs, revealing hidden evolutionary secrets and bringing Earth's deepest marine biodiversity to global audiences.
Ricardo Caté
Cartoonist, Without Reservations
Ricardo Caté is of Santo Domingo (Kewa) Pueblo. He is the country's most prominent Native American cartoonist and the creator of Without Reservations, the only Native produced comic strip carried daily by a mainstream U.S. newspaper. The strip has run in the Santa Fe New Mexican since 2007 and also appears in the Taos News. Caté is also a Marine Corps veteran, a middle school social studies teacher on the pueblo, and a stand up comedian.
Eric Mead
Magician
Eric Mead is a magician, performing artist, and writer whose work explores deception, perception, and imagination. He has written and produced international television series including Magic Man and Magic Asia, and won the F.U. trophy on Penn and Teller: Fool Us. His performances and keynotes use mystery to create meaningful connections and challenge assumptions.
Adam Gopnik
Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Adam Gopnik has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1986, publishing more than a million words in the magazine, including essays, memoirs, fiction, reviews, and profiles. His books include Paris to the Moon, The King in the Window, Through the Children's Gate, At the Strangers' Gate, and Winter, the Fiftieth Anniversary Massey Lecture. His work in musical theater includes the libretto and lyrics for the musical comedies Our Table, with David Shire, and Fairy Tale and Looking Glass, with Andrew Lippa, along with the in-progress opera The Swerve, with Stewart Wallace.
He has won the National Magazine Award for Essays and for Criticism three times, along with the George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting. In January 2021 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur by the French republic. He holds honorary degrees from McGill University and the Rhode Island School of Design, and in 2025 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Raised in Montreal, he now lives in New York with his wife, Martha Parker, and their two children, Luke Auden and Olivia Esme Claire.
