SESSION TYPE: Plenary SESSION TITLE: Opening Plenary STRAND: STEM DAY: Friday TIME: 10:00 - 11:00 am LOCATION: Chase Center Grand Ballroom, 3rd floor

Since its earliest years as part of the team behind “Sesame Street,” The Jim Henson Company has created characters that inspire children everywhere to discover, explore and learn about their world. Lisa Henson, the Company’s CEO, will talk about how the company’s history has informed its most recent projects for PBS KIDS, “Sid the Science Kid” and “Dinosaur Train,” and how the shows’ curricula are contributing to achieving today’s academic goals.

BIOGRAPHY

Lisa Henson is Chief Executive Officer of The Jim Henson Company. Henson serves as an executive producer of “Sid the Science Kid” and “Dinosaur Train,” both currently airing each day on PBS KIDS®; and “Pajanimals,” a short-form musical puppet series airing daily on Sprout. Other television credits include “Muppets’ Wizard of Oz” for ABC, the animated series “Frances” and the direct-to-DVD animated series “Unstable Fables,” a collection of feature-length irreverent retellings of popular fairy tales released by The Weinstein Company. She also produced “The Skrumps,” an animated production featured exclusively at Yahoo! Kids.

Henson has produced the films “Five Children and It,” “MirrorMask” and “Good Boy.” Features in current development include Edward Gorey’s “Doubtful Guest,” Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere,” “Happytime Murders” and the highly anticipated films “Power of the Dark Crystal” and “Fraggle Rock.”

As an independent producer, Ms. Henson produced feature films including “High Crimes” and “Zero Effect.” Prior to that, Henson was President of Columbia Pictures, in charge of all creative business affairs, administrative and production-related matters for the company. Before joining Columbia Pictures, Henson served 10 years as an executive at Warner Bros., working on such blockbusters as “Lethal Weapon” and “Batman.”

Henson graduated in 1983 with a degree in folklore and mythology from Harvard University, where she was the first female President of “The Harvard Lampoon.” She currently serves on the advisory boards of Innerkids, the UCLA Lab School and MARC (The Mindful Awareness Center) at UCLA. She has previously served on the Board of Overseers for Harvard University, Tibet House and The Jim Henson Foundation for Puppetry.

Craig Bartlett, Creator and Executive Producer – DINOSAUR TRAIN

A native of Seattle, Craig Bartlett began his career in Portland, Oregon at Will Vinton Studios, where he learned the art of 3-D stop-motion animation working on feature films and commercials including the “Noid” and “California Raisin” spots. Bartlett relocated to Los Angeles in 1987 to work on CBS’ “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” as the Director/Animator of the show’s “Penny” cartoon segment. Bartlett continued to create clay animated films – three of which starred a kid with a football-shaped head named Arnold.

A stint as Story Editor and Director for the first season of “Rugrats” introduced him to Nickelodeon, where he pitched the pilot of “Hey Arnold!” in 1994. “Hey Arnold!” went into production in 1995 and ran for 103 episodes until 2002, the series culminating in “Hey Arnold! The Movie” for Nick Movies/Paramount. “Hey Arnold!” reached over 40 million viewers a month in over 80 countries. Since then, Bartlett has written and directed “Party Wagon,” a TV movie for Cartoon Network, and several other feature scripts and pilots, including “The Jinx” for Nick Movies/Paramount and “Unstable Fables: The Three Little Pigs” for The Jim Henson Company. Bartlett is currently writing a feature “Skrumps” script and developing television and movie projects for Henson.