Silke Lange is an accordionist and synthesist. She studied accordion at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. She is interested in contemporary classical music and cross-genre projects. She is co-founder of the LUX:NM contemporary music ensemble, whose debut album “LUXUS” was longlisted by the German Record Critics’ Award. Since 2018, she has been a member of the Lange//Berweck//Lorenz trio for live electroacoustic music. Besides contemporary music, she is also interested in musical improvization and sound art. She has performed at major festivals worldwide and as a musician and performer has contributed to various international theater productions.

Juliane Baruck studied philosophy and political science. Since 2019, she has led political participation projects in cooperation with the think & do tank Es geht LOS. Among other things, she designed and implemented the first sortition-based formats at German universities. Since 2023, she has directed the project Hallo Bundestag, where randomly selected residents in an election district meet their Bundestag representatives to discuss pressing national policy issues.

Cornelius Borck is professor of the history, theory, and ethics of medicine and science and has served as director of the Institute for the History of Medicine and Science Research at the University of Lübeck since 2007. He has been spokesperson of the Lübeck Center for Cultural Studies and Research (ZKFL) since 2011. After studying medicine, philosophy, and neuroscience, his career path led him to the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Bauhaus University Weimar, and McGill University in Montreal.

The internationally performing Sheng virtuoso Wu Wei has appeared as a soloist with almost all leading orchestras worldwide, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He worked with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Gustavo Dudamel, and Susanna Mälkki, and performed world premieres of more than 400 works, including 20 concerts for Sheng and orchestra by composers such as John Cage, Toshio Hosokawa, and Huang Ruo. In addition, he composes commissioned works for Sheng. He has performed internationally at Royal Albert Hall, Concertgebouw, Théâtre du Châtelet, and many more. Wu Wei has won many awards at competitions and for his recordings, including the International Classical Music Award. As an innovative soloist, he combines East and West and ranges across a wide musical field spanning classical music, jazz, improvization, and contemporary music.

Ufuk Topkara is a junior professor at the Berlin Institute for Islamic Theology. He studied history and philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin and Harvard University and received his doctorate from the Graduate School of Islamic Theology at the University of Paderborn. He was subsequently a postdoctoral fellow in the "Humility & Conviction in Public Life Program" at the University of Connecticut and a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Study of Religion at the University of Virginia. As a visiting scholar, Ufuk Topkara spent research stays at the University of California in Los Angeles and at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies (AICGS) at Johns Hopkins University, among others.

Mira Sievers is a Professor of Islamic Theology at the University of Hamburg. She studied Islamic Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and Islamic Studies and Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. She completed her doctorate in Islamic Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2018 with a dissertation on "Creation between Quran and Kalām. Approaches to a Quranic theology". This was followed by a position as a postdoctoral researcher and academic coordinator in the long-term research group "Linked Open Tafsīr" at the Institute for Studies in the Culture and Religion of Islam at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Before her appointment to Hamburg, she had been a junior professor for Islamic Foundations of Faith, Philosophy and Ethics at the Institute for Islamic Theology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin since 2020.