Forum Network

Kirk is the Managing Editor and Correspondent for higher education at GBH News. Questions? Feedback? Story ideas? Reach out to Kirk at kirk_carapezza@wgbh.org.

Azhar Chougle is the Director of Transit Alliance Miami. Since joining the organization, Transit Alliance has reversed $15 million in transit budget cuts through grassroots advocacy, created the world's first real-time transit audit for Miami's rail system, and launched a campaign designed to fix Miami's ailing bus system. Azhar comes from a creative background with expertise in branding, design, and coding and moved to Miami from New York City. [LiveableStreets](https://www.livablestreets.info/8th\_annual\_streettalk\_10\_in\_1?utm\_campaign=giving\_tuesday\_email\_1&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=livablestreetsalliance "Liveable Streets")

Peter is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in traffic engineering, public transportation planning, and bicycle transportation. He teaches regularly in the Netherlands and is familiar with Dutch practices in sustainable transportation including transit priority, Vision Zero traffic safety, and cycle track design. His research team has been mapped and analyzed the low-stress bike networks of several US cities including Boston. This presentation will address the questions, How many people have a low-stress bike route from home to work? How about home to a supermarket, or to high schools? How does accessibility differ by neighborhood? What bike network improvements will it take so that every neighborhood has good bike accessibility to destinations like work, school, shopping, and regional parks? [LiveableStreets](https://www.livablestreets.info/8th\_annual\_streettalk\_10\_in\_1?utm\_campaign=giving\_tuesday\_email\_1&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=livablestreetsalliance "Liveable Streets")

Kris Carter, Co-Chair of the Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics in Boston, is a non-practicing engineer, an optimistic urban planner, and a self-taught filmmaker. New Urban Mechanics is the City of Boston's human-centered civic R&D lab, working collaboratively with research institutions, civic entrepreneurs, and government agencies to explore and prototype what's new and next in cities. With the Mechanics, Kris oversees a wide portfolio of prototypes while also leading the City's mobility and public realm work, including the management of Boston’s autonomous vehicle research efforts. Prior to leading the Mechanics, Kris ran the City's bicycle program, served as an advisor to Mayor on the creation of the Innovation District, and helped operationalize One Fund Boston in response to the Marathon bombings. He has won awards from the Federal Labs Consortium, American Planning Association, and was recognized as one of Boston’s ‘50 on Fire for his work. He is a two-time AmeriCorps alum, amateur filmmaker, firmly believes in bagging his own groceries, and has yet to find a role more rewarding and exhausting than raising twins. [LiveableSteets](https://www.livablestreets.info/8th\_annual\_streettalk\_10\_in\_1?utm\_campaign=giving\_tuesday\_email\_1&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=livablestreetsalliance "Liveable Streets")

Tony Lechuga is the Program Manager for the Emerald Network at LivableStreets Alliance, managing all aspects of the program including advocacy, project oversight, and technical assistance. As someone who often uses multiple modes to travel Boston's streets and greenways, Tony tries to recognize the lived experience of spaces from all angles. Previously, Tony worked with the Boston pedestrian advocacy group WalkBoston, while completing a Master of Arts in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University. Before that he worked as a public school teacher for five years in his hometown of Denver, Colorado. Teaching middle school social studies taught Tony the value of patience, creativity, and varied perspectives, which he sees as necessary to work with and across diverse groups. [LiveableStreets](https://www.livablestreets.info/8th\_annual\_streettalk\_10\_in\_1?utm\_campaign=giving\_tuesday\_email\_1&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=livablestreetsalliance "Liveable Streets")

**James Lindsay** is senior vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the the Council on Foreign Relations, where he oversees the work of more than six dozen fellows in the David Rockefeller Studies Program. Dr. Lindsay holds an AB in economics and political science from the University of Michigan and an MA, MPhil, and PhD from Yale University.

DeFronzo is the Executive Director of Piers Park Sailing Center, which offers 100 percent accessible recreational, educational, and personal growth opportunities for people of all ages and abilities in Boston Harbor. Piers Park empowers participants to become stewards of a stronger community, advocates for a healthy Boston Harbor, and leaders of individual and family wellness.

Thiruvengadam founded Eastie Farm to improve food access and community resilience by developing interactive urban agricultural spaces, where residents of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to learn and take part in the production of healthy, locally grown, and culturally relevant foods.

**Dr. Emilie M. Townes**, an American Baptist clergywoman, is a native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University. Dr. Townes is the Dean and Carpenter Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, becoming the first African American to serve as Dean of the Divinity School in 2013. She is the former Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University Divinity School and in the fall of 2005, she was the first African American woman elected to the presidential line of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and served as president in 2008. She was the first African American and first woman to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Yale Divinity School. She is the former Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Social Ethics at Saint Paul School of Theology. Editor of two collection of essays, A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering and Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation; she has also authored Womanist Ethics, Womanist Hope, In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, and her groundbreaking book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. She is co-editor with Stephanie Y. Mitchem of the Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life. Her most recent co-editorship is Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader done with Katie Geneva Cannon and Angela Sims was published in November 2011. She continues her research on women and health in the African diaspora in Brasil and the United States. Townes was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. She served a four-year term as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012 to 2016.

Davis is the host of Ministry of Ideas and a producer at HarvardX.

**Ciprian S. Borcea, Ph.D.** Professor of Mathematics and Applied Sciences, Rider University (New Jersey) Elizabeth S. and Richard M. Cashin Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2018-2019

Liz Covart is a historian of early America who practices scholarly history, public history, and digital humanities, primarily as the Digital Projects Editor for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture. She also is host of the history podcast Ben Franklin's World.