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**D.M. Aderibigbe** was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He graduated with a BA in History and Strategic Studies from University of Lagos in 2014. His chapbook, In Praise of Our Absent Father was selected by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani for the APBF New Generation African Poets Chapbook Series. He is the recipient of 2015 and 2016 fellowships and honours from Oristaglio Family Foundation, Entrekin Foundation, Dickinson House, Callaloo and Boston University where he is currently an MFA candidate in creative writing.

**Frank Meeink** is a former white supremacist skinhead gang member in the United States. After a three-year stint in prison, he left the racist skinhead movement and now lectures against it. Born in South Philadelphia, Meeink lived a violent and unpleasant childhood with a lack of a structured family. In his early life, he had no relationship with his biological father and had an abusive stepfather. Meeink's mother abused drugs and alcohol. As a teenager, Meeink was constantly bullied and taunted at school because his peers considered him to be an outcast. At age thirteen, Meeink discovered the Neo-Nazi Movement. By the age of eighteen he was a well-respected Neo-Nazi leader and recruiter. After Meeink served his prison sentence, he went back to where he had spent his childhood in South Philadelphia and by helping with the local hockey team, the Philadelphia Flyers, he created Harmony Through Hockey. This organization was created to give young kids a chance to stay out of the way of violence and have fun while participating. He also visits schools and gives lectures on his life and how to avoid falling into violence and crime. Follow him on Twitter at[ @frankiemeeink](https://twitter.com/frankiemeeink "")

**Tony McAleer** is a former organizer for the White Aryan Resistance (WAR). He served as a skinhead recruiter, proprietor of Canadian Liberty Net (a computer operated voice messaging center used to disseminate messages of hatred), and manager of the racist rock band, Odin’s Law. It was love for his children that finally led Tony on a spiritual journey of personal transformation. Now Tony is the executive director of [Life After Hate](www.lifeafterhate.org/ "") and shares his practice of compassion as an inspirational speaker.

Neely Steinberg is a dating coach, image consultant, and founder of her multi-service dating coaching company The Love TREP (www.thelovetrep.com). She is author of Skin In the Game: Unleashing Your Inner Entrepreneur to Find Love and the accompanying workbook, both available for purchase on Amazon. She has been featured in hundreds of media outlets, given seminars for Match.com, and hosted fashion shows for Macy's and Neiman Marcus. Neely has a Masters degree in Counseling from Boston University. She lives outside Boston with her loving husband Dave and their two children.

**Damon Rich** is a partner at Hector, an urban design, planning, and civic arts practice whose recent projects include designing a neighborhood park in one of Philadelphia's most diverse neighborhoods, constructing a housing crisis learning center at the Queens Museum, and creating a memorial for eco-feminist Sister Carol Johnston. Damon previously served as planning director and chief urban designer for the City of Newark and is the founder of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), an internationally recognized nonprofit organization that uses art and design to increase meaningful civic engagement. His work has been recognized by the MacArthur Fellowship, American Planning Association National Planning Award, Cooper Hewitt National Design Award, Loeb Fellowship in Advanced Environmental Studies at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, MacDowell Colony, and the 11th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. 

Krisztina “Z” Holly, MIT-trained engineer, tech entrepreneur and adventurer, is the host of The Art of Manufacturing podcast and Founder & Chief Instigator of MAKE IT IN LA, a non-profit launched out of LA Mayor Garcetti’s office. Z is known for curating and hosting the first ever TEDx (TEDxUSC) in 2009 and founding two innovation centers at MIT and USC. She has an instinct for finding and amplifying undiscovered talent and ideas, whether it’s helping dozens of faculty spin out new venture-backed startups, or curating nearly a hundred different speakers whose talks have garnered 14 million views online; ten have appeared on TED.com. Early on, Z played key roles at tech startups, such as Stylus innovation (acquired by Artisoft), Direct Hit Technologies (acquired by Ask Jeeves), and Jeeves Solutions (acquired by Kanisa). She started her career as an undergraduate researcher at the MIT Media Lab and a member of the Space Shuttle Main Engine advanced manufacturing team. She served as Vice Provost for Innovation at USC and has been advisor to nearly two dozen companies and organizations, including the River LA, World Economic Forum, and the Obama Administration. She is an avid traveler, backcountry skier, mountain biker, rock climber, and the quartermaster of the Black Rock City airport logistics team in her spare time. Z has two engineering degrees from MIT and currently lives and plays in Los Angeles.

A planner in in OSPCD since 2007, Rawson was instrumental in developing the City's SomerVision Comprehensive Plan and Somerville by Design efforts, setting the stage for Somerville's development future and gathering wide acclaim for the processes, while managing more than $2 million in planning funds for the department. Rawson succeeds former Director Hayes Morrison.

Ocean Vuong was born in Saigon, Vietnam, and currently resides in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he serves as an Assistant Professor in the MFA Program for Poets and Writers at Umass-Amherst. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Night Sky With Exit Wounds, a New York Times Top 10 Book of 2016, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Whiting Award, the Thom Gunn Award, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. His debut novel, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous will be published by Penguin Press in 2019.

Shoshana Zuboff joined the Harvard Business School faculty in 1981. One of the first tenured women at the school, she was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration. In 2014 and 2015 she was a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Her career has been devoted to the study of the rise of the digital, its individual, organizational, and social consequences, and its relationship to the history and future of capitalism. She also founded and led the executive education program, Odyssey: School for the Second Half of Life.

Matt Dursin is the founder and host of the League of Ordinary Gentlemen Comic Book Podcast. Spanning over 350 episodes and covering comics, movies, TV and other elements of pop culture, Matt and his colleagues have interviewed writers, artists, gamers and even Nerdcore rappers. He also writes and self-publishes his own comic, Robin Hood: Outlaw of the 21st Century. Most importantly, he has a huge collection of Jokers.

Derrick Z. Jackson is a UCS Fellow in climate and energy and the Center for Science and Democracy. His posts for UCS and ESPN's The Undefeated won a 2018 first prize in online commentary from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. As a 2016 Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University"s Kennedy School of Government, he published a paper on the failed national media coverage of the Flint Water Crisis. He is co-author and photographer of “Project Puffin: The Improbable Quest to Bring a Beloved Seabird Back to Egg Rock,” published by Yale University Press (2015). Formerly of the Boston Globe and Newsday, Jackson is a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a 10-time award winner from the National Association of Black Journalists, a 2-time winner from the Education Writers Association, a commentary winner from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and co-winner of Columbia University's Meyer Berger Award. In photography, he is a 2-time finalist in Outdoor Photographer's The American Landscape contest and a 2018 semifinalist in Nature's Best Photography Windland Smith Rice Awards. A native of Milwaukee, Wis., and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Jackson was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. He holds three honorary degrees and the UW-Milwaukee Distinguished Alumni Community Service award.

Evan Lieberman is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT. Previously, Lieberman was a member of the faculty at Princeton University for 12 years, and a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at Yale University, and was an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA from Princeton. Lieberman is the author of two scholarly books, Race and Regionalism in the Politics of Taxation (Cambridge 2003) and Boundaries of Contagion: How Ethnic Politics Have Shaped Government Responses to AIDS (Princeton 2009). Description via [WorldBoston](https://www.worldboston.org/events-calendar/2018/12/12/great-decisions-south-africas-fragile-democracy "WorldBoston")