Frederick Luis Aldama is Distinguished University Professor, Arts & Humanities Distinguished Professor of English, University Distinguished Scholar, and Alumni Distinguished Teacher at the Ohio State University. He is the 2018 recipient of the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring and the Susan M. Hartmann Mentoring and Leadership Award. He is the award-winning author, co-author, and editor of 40 books. For more on Aldama visit: www.professorlatinx.com 

Curtis Armstrong is an American actor and singer best known for playing the role of Booger in the Revenge of the Nerds movies, Herbert Viola on the TV series Moonlighting, Miles Dalby in the film Risky Business, and famed record producer Ahmet Ertegun in the film Ray as well as for playing the role of Metatron on the TV series Supernatural. He will be speaking about “An Actor’s Search for Sherlock Holmes.”

Philo Barnhart is professional film animator living in Oak Park, IL, known for his work on feature-length films: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Rescuers Down Under, The Secret of NIMH, Happily Ever After, An American Tail, and special effects for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Philo worked many animated TV shows and video games including The Smurfs, Scooby Doo, Jem and the Holograms, Space Ace, Dragons Lair, and many more. He worked on consumer products for several years with Disney, and to this day you can still find his artwork still being used on toys, books, home electronics/ appliances, apparel, and posters.

Alanna Bennett is a Film and TV Writer for Buzzfeed. She is perhaps best known for her writings on Harry Potter and racebending Hermione Grainger. She has written previously for The Mary Sue, Bustle, and The Harry Potter Alliance. Find her @AlannaBennett

Emmy-nominated Brannon Braga is currently Writer, Executive Producer, and Co-Creator of the drama series Salem. Braga was a key force as a Creator, Writer and Executive Producer of more than 300 episodes of the Star Trek series. For over 13 years collectively, he worked on The Next Generation, Voyager, and Enterprise.

Cheryl Cain is a television screenwriter. Her work includes the episode "War Stories" for the cult television series Firefly, and episodes of Roswell and Threat Matrix. She also wrote an additional script for Firefly, "Dead or Alive," which was not filmed due to the show's cancellation.

Susanna Calkins holds a PhD in history and writes two award-winning historical mystery series. Her fiction has been nominated for multiple awards, including the Bruce Alexander Historical Mystery Award, the Sue Feder Historical Mystery award, the Agatha, the Anthony and the Mary Higgins Clark award. Currently, she is an educator at Northwestern University.

Tracy Clark, a native Chicagoan, is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series, featuring ex-cop turned PI Cassandra Raines. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Edgar and Shamus Award finalist, Tracy is also the 2020 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and has been shortlisted for the Grafton Award again in 2022. She is a proud member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and serves on the boards of Bouchercon National and the Midwest Mystery Conference.

Dr. Wickham Clayton is a lecturer in Film History and Theory at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, UK. He is editor of Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film (2015, Palgrave Macmillan) and co-editor of Screening Twilight: Critical Approaches to a Cinematic Phenomenon (2014, I. B. Tauris). Wickham’s work focuses on film form and aesthetics, film genre (with some specialisation in horror), cult, adaptation, and the Biblical Epic.

Carmelo Esterrich is a Professor of humanities at Columbia College Chicago, where he teaches in Latin American Studies and Cultural Studies, focusing on film, literature and music. His latest book, Star Wars Multiverse (Rutgers, 2021), is a multidisciplinary study of the franchise as only ‘fictionally’ far far away. He is the co-host of Nick and Melo’s Hyperspace, a Star Wars podcast.  

Michelle Falkoff is the author of Playlist for the Dead, Pushing Perfect, and Questions I Want to Ask You. Her fiction and reviews have been published in ZYZZYVA, DoubleTake, and the Harvard Review, among other places. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and currently serves as Director of Communication and Legal Reasoning at Northwestern University School of Law.

Dr. Lincoln Geraghty is Reader in Popular Media Cultures in the School of Media and Performing Arts at the University of Portsmouth. He is author of Living with Star Trek (2007), American Science Fiction Film and Television (2009) and Cult Collectors (2014). He has edited The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture (2008), Channeling the Future (2009), and The Smallville Chronicles (2011).

Claudia Gray is the pseudonym of Amy Vincent. She is the writer of multiple young adult novels, including the Evernight series, the Firebird trilogy and the Constellation trilogy. In addition, she’s written several Star Wars novels, such as Lost Stars and Bloodline. Her debut adult historical mystery, The Murder of Mr. Wickham, released in May 2022. She makes her home in New Orleans with her husband Paul and assorted small dogs.

Rebecca Johns's first novel, Icebergs, was a finalist for the 2007 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award and a recipient of a Michener-Copernicus fellowship. Her second, The Countess--a fictionalization of the life of Elizabeth Bathory--was a Target Discovery pick and published in ten languages. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Missouri School of Journalism, she is the director of the MFA/MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at DePaul University in Chicago.

Mat Irvine spent most of his, what could termed, 'early career' at the BBC. He briefly worked first in the Photographic 'Stills' Library for Television News, then moved to the Visual Effects Department, where he stayed for around 23 years, making an overall total of a couple of months short of 25 years.

Lisa Klink started her career writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager before coming back to Earth for shows like Martial Law and Missing. She’s also written two issues of Batman for DC Comics and contributed a short story to the anthology Empower: Fight Like A Girl. She’s also a five-time champion on Jeopardy!

Stephen Lee is a lawyer who served as a federal prosecutor in Chicago for 11 years and has written and spoken about Sherlock Holmes. Before becoming a lawyer, he was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune.  

Prof. Ronald L. Mallett received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the Pennsylvania State University. In 1975 joined the physics faculty at the University of Connecticut in Storrs where he is currently Professor Emeritus of Physics. Prof. Mallett’s published memoir “Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality” has been translated into Korean, Chinese, and Japanese.

Michael Moreci is a bestselling comics author, screenwriter, and novelist. His original works include The Plot, Wasted Space, Roche Limit, the forthcoming Barbaric, and more. Moreci is currently the head writer for Star Wars Adventures, an all-ages Star Wars series published by IDW.

Scott Meyers has written over thirty movie and TV projects at every major Hollywood studio and broadcast network. His screenwriting credits include K-9 (Universal) which spawned two sequels, Alaska (Sony/Castle Rock), and Trojan War (Warner Bros.). Meyers is a cornucopia of knowledge of screenwriting and he helps others learn it via classes at DePaul University, his workshops, and his highly acclaimed blog on the subject, Go Into The Story.

Mark Oshiro, known colloquially as Mark Does Stuff, has been running a series of review websites that chronicle his journey through various fictional universes... while completely unspoiled. He was the nonfiction editor of Queers Destroy Science Fiction! and the co-editor of Speculative Fiction 2015 with Foz Meadows. When he is not writing, crying on camera about fictional characters, or ruining lives at conventions, he is busy trying to fulfill his lifelong goal: to pet every dog in the world.

Ashley D. Polasek, PhD, FRSA, is the Executive Director of The Ken Ludwig Company and the Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary academic journal The Conan Doyle Review. In addition to publishing and lecturing widely on the subject, Ashley also serves as a technical advisor for television, film, and stage adaptations of Sherlock Holmes. You can find Ashley on Twitter @SherlockPhD.

Lori Rader-Day is the Edgar Award- and Agatha Award-nominated and Anthony Award- and Mary Higgins Clark Award-winning author of The Lucky One and Under a Dark Sky. She lives in Chicago, where she co-chairs the Midwest Mystery Conference and teaches creative writing at Northwestern University. Visit her at www.LoriRaderDay.com, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

John Rice began his private detective career when he was 10 years old. Inspired by his father, Edward F. Rice, he became a pioneer in investigating environmental pollution cases. His investigation of Kerr-McGee in West Chicago resulted in a five billion dollar cleanup.

Maureen "Mo" Ryan is an American film and television critic, writer and reporter. From 2000 to 2018, she was a TV critic at the Huffington Post and the Chicago Tribune. Ryan is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and juror for the Peabody Awards.

Robert Shearman has worked as writer for television, radio and the stage.Rob was one of the writers for the BAFTA award winning first series of the revived Doctor Who series starring Christopher Eccleston. His episode, ‘Dalek’, was runner-up for a Hugo Award, and his award winning contributions to the audio range of Doctor Who released by Big Finish have been broadcast on BBC Radio.

Jana Sinyor began her career as a screenwriter and television producer, and won numerous awards for her work, including an international Emmy. She created several television series, including Being Erica, which ran for four years on the CBC, and ultimately led to her to discover Radical Aliveness and Core Energetics.

Maria Jose Tenuto has been a sociology teacher for 18 years at the College of Lake County.  John Tenuto has been a sociology professor for 21 years, 18 of those at the College of Lake County. John and Maria Jose have conducted research on Star Trek fan subcultures and history, and their findings have been featured on BBC Radio, WGN News, the USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune. 

Rachel Talalay is a celebrated and successful writer, producer, and director who made her film directoral debut in 1991 with Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare. In addition to directing films such as Tank Girl and Ghost in the Machine, Rachel has become a prolific television director as well, including becoming Doctor Who’s first female director in four years, helming multiple episodes. She has also directed such television series as The Flash, Supernatural, Sherlock, Reign, and Riverdale, among many others. 

Robbie Thompson was co-executive producer of Supernatural and the author of some of the most thrilling episodes of the show, including the 200th anniversary episode, "Fan Fiction.” He has previously worked on the series Jericho, Human Target, and The Cape, and is currently working on a Marvel comic series, Silk.

Dr. Tom Ue is Assistant Professor in Literature and Science at Dalhousie University and an Honorary Research Associate at University College London. His research, teaching, and public engagement reconsiders the global nineteenth century to reveals the close correspondence between canonical and less canonical writers, foreground the commonalities and differences in their thinking, and illustrate the persistence of their concerns in our own times.
 

Dr Rebecca Williams is Senior Lecturer in Communication, Culture and Media Studies at the University of South Wales. Her work on fandom has been published in journals such as Celebrity Studies, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Transformative Works & Cultures, Continuum, Popular Communication, and Cinema Journal and she is a member of the Board of the Fan Studies Network. She is currently writing Theme Park Fandom: Distinction, Immersion & Participatory Culture for University of Amsterdam Press. 

Arwel Wyn Jones is a Production Designer and Art Director on many productions from BBC Wales. He was installed as Production Designer on the Pilot for Sherlock in 2009, and returned to the role when the concept was approved to Series. He has worked in various capacities on Doctor Who and its spin off series since 2006.

Caroline M. Yoachim is a two-time Hugo and six-time Nebula Award finalist. Her short stories have been translated into several languages and reprinted in multiple best-of anthologies, including four times in Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Yoachim’s short story collection Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories and the print chapbook of her novelette The Archronology of Love are available from Fairwood Press. For more, check out her website at carolineyoachim.com.