Ric Burns is a documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for his eight-part, 17-hour series New York: A Documentary Film, which premiered nationally on PBS to critical acclaim (1999, 2001, 2003). Burns has been writing, directing and producing historical documentaries for over 25 years, since his collaboration on the PBS series The Civil War (1990), which he produced with his brother Ken and co-wrote with Geoffrey Ward. Since founding Steeplechase in 1989, he has directed many films of note for PBS including Coney Island (1991), The Donner Party (1992), The Way West (1995), Ansel Adams (2002), Eugene O’Neill, Andy Warhol (2006), Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World (2010), Death and the Civil War (2013), American Ballet Theatre: A History (2015), Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History (2015), The Pilgrims (2015), VA: The Human Cost of War (2017), The Chinese Exclusion Act (2018), Oliver Sacks: His Own Life (2019), and Driving While Black (2020). His work has won numer-ous film and television awards including six Emmy awards, three Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Journalism awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Organization of American Histori-ans’ Erick Barnouw prizes, three Writers Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing, and the D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review. Burns was educated at Columbia University and Cambridge University. He lives in New York City with his wife and two sons.

Kate Edgar is the executive director of the Oliver Sacks Foundation. She began working with Oliver Sacks as editor and researcher in 1983, and contributed to all sixteen of his books, including the recently published Everything in its Place. For over three decades, she travelled the world with Dr. Sacks and knew many of his patients and subjects.

Jenna Flanagan first knew she was destined for a career in journalism after following the weekly reports of the Muppet News Flash as a child. She went on to study communications and journalism at Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts. In 1999, Jenna took her first job in the business as a Production Assistant for 1010WINS eventually working her way up to assistant editor. Working in a busy New York newsroom, she quickly learned what it takes to churn out a factual, engaging and newsworthy story on deadline. From there she took her first on-air position at WBGO, Newark Public Radio and began a lifelong love of public broadcasting. After WBGO, Jenna spent 6 ½ years writing, reporting and producing All Things Considered for WNYC in New York City. Her work has also aired nationally on NPR. Her television reports can be seen on WMHT’s award-winning public affairs show, New York NOW, which airs on PBS stations statewide.