What matters to you.
0:00
0:00
NEXT UP:
 
Top

Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

All Speakers

  • Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez proudly represents California's 47th Congressional District, which includes the cities of Anaheim, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Fullerton in Orange County. She began her congressional career in November 1996 and is currently serving her seventh term in the U.S. House of Representatives. Sanchez is Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Vietnam and a member of the Blue Dog Democrats, the New Democratic Coalition, and the Congressional Human Rights Caucus. A product of public schools and Head Start, Sanchez is a graduate of Chapman University and American University's MBA program. Prior to serving in Congress, she was a financial manager at the Orange County Transportation Authority, an assistant vice president at Fieldman, Rollap and Associates, and an associate at Booz, Allen, and Hamilton. A recognized leader on national security, intelligence, and counterterrorism issues, Sanchez serves as the Vice Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and Chair of the Subcommittee on Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism. She is also a member of the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology. In the 111th Congress, Sanchez is a leader in securing America's border with Mexico. A strong advocate for Southwest border security, she frequently appears on CNN, C-SPAN, FOX News, and MSNBC to discuss the importance of economic development and trade along the U.S.-Mexico border and ports of entry. Sanchez is also the ranking female member on the House Armed Services Committee and sits on the Oversight and Investigations, Strategic Forces, and Military Personnel Subcommittees. In Congress, she is a longtime advocate for service members, fighting for pay raises, improved health care, child care services, and housing and education benefits for military families. Sanchez works especially hard to prevent rape and sexual assault in America's armed services, successfully revising the Uniform Code of Military Justice to create a zero-tolerance policy for sexual abuse. She also focuses on the weaponization of space, missile defense and nuclear non-proliferation.
  • Mae Jemison was born in Decatur, Alabama on October 17, 1956, the youngest of three children. The Jemison family moved to Chicago when Mae was only three. It was in Chicago that an uncle introduced her to the world of science. At a very early age, Mae developed interests in anthropology, archaeology, and astronomy that she pursued throughout her childhood. Mae Jemison enrolled at Stanford University at the age of 16 and in 1977 graduated with degrees in both chemical engineering and Afro-American studies. She received a Doctor of Medicine degree from Cornell University in 1981. Dr. Jemison has practiced medicine as a volunteer in a Cambodian refugee camp and as a medical officer with the Peace Corps in West Africa. She was working as a general practitioner in Los Angeles, California when NASA selected her and 14 others for astronaut training. Dr. Jemison completed her training as a mission specialist with NASA in 1988. In September of 1992, as a mission specialist aboard the Shuttle Endeavour, Mae Jemison became the first African-American woman to enter space. In 1993, Dr. Jemison resigned from NASA and founded the Jemison Group, Inc. Among her current projects are several that focus on improving healthcare in Africa and advancing technology in developing countries.
  • JOHN SHATTUCK, an international legal scholar and human rights leader, is currently Professor of Practice in Diplomacy at Tufts after a long and distinguished career in academia and government. In the early post-Cold War years, he was responsible for coordinating and implementing U.S. efforts to promote human rights, democracy and international labor rights. The first U.S. official to reach and interview survivors of the genocide at Srebrenica, he helped negotiate the Dayton peace agreement that ended the war in Bosnia and was instrumental in the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He also served President Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 1998-2000.
  • Andrew Kohut is the President of the Pew Research Center, in Washington, DC. He also acts as Director of the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press (formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press) and the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Kohut was President of The Gallup Organization from 1979 to 1989. In 1989, he founded Princeton Survey Research Associates, an attitude and opinion research firm specializing in media, politics, and public policy studies. He served as founding director of surveys for the Times Mirror Center 1990-1992, and was named its Director in 1993. Kohut is a press commentator on the meaning and interpretation of opinion poll results. Kohut received the first Innovators Award from American Association of Public Opinion Research for founding the Pew Research Center. He also was given the New York AAPOR Chapter award for Outstanding Contribution to Opinion Research. Most recently he was awarded the 2005 American Association of Public Opinion Research's highest honor, the Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement. Kohut received an AB degree from Seton Hall University in 1964 and studied graduate sociology at Rutgers, the State University.
  • Bennett Freeman is senior vice president for Social Research and Policy for Calvert, a socially responsible mutual fund. For three years prior to this Freeman headed Burson-Marsteller's corporate social responsibility practice group in the U.S. Freeman joined B-Ms corporate social responsibility practice in mid-2003 and sits on the board of directors of the U.S. division of the global aid group, Oxfam America, as well as being a member of the Business and Economic Relations Group of Amnesty International USA. At Burson-Marsteller Freeman led "firms client advisory work on corporate responsibility policy frameworks, risk assessments, stakeholder engagement and communications strategies addressing global issues such as human rights, labor rights, the environment and sustainable development." In 2002, he co-authored an independent Human Rights Impact Assessment of BPs Tangguh project in Papua, Indonesia, the first such assessment conducted of a major energy project in the world." "As U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 1999 to early 2001, Freeman was responsible for conducting the State Departments bilateral human rights diplomacy around the world.
  • Lawrence H. Summers is Charles W. Eliot University Professor. He served as the 27th president of Harvard University from July 2001 until June 2006. From 1999 to 2001 he served as the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury following his earlier service as Deputy and Under Secretary of the Treasury and as Chief Economist of the World Bank. Prior to his service in Washington, Summers was a professor of economics at Harvard and MIT. His research contributions were recognized when he received the John Bates Clark Medal, given every two years to the outstanding American economist under the age of 40, and when he was the first social scientist to receive the National Science Foundations Alan T. Waterman Award for outstanding scientific achievement. He is a member of the National Academy of Science. He received his BS from MIT and his PhD in economics from Harvard. Among his other activities, Lawrence Summers writes a monthly column for the *Financial Times*, coedits *the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity*, and serves as a managing director of D. E. Shaw, a major alternative investment firm. He also serves on a number of not-for-profit and for-profit boards. He is on leave in 2009-10 in government service as Director of the National Economic Council.
  • Gil G. Noam is the Founder and Director of the Program in Education, Afterschool & Resiliency (PEAR) and an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and McLean Hospital. Trained as a clinical and developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst in both Europe and the United States, Dr. Noam has a strong interest in supporting resilience in youth, especially in educational settings. He served as the director of the Risk and Prevention program, and is the founder of the RALLY Prevention Program, a Boston-based intervention that bridges social and academic support in school, afterschool, and community settings. Since the establishment of PEAR, Dr. Noam and his team have been contributing to the effort to establish the field of afterschool education. Dr. Noam has published over 200 papers, articles, and books in the areas of child and adolescent development as well as risk and resiliency in clinical, school and afterschool settings. He has become the editor-in-chief of the journal *New Directions in Youth Development: Theory, Practice and Research*, which has a strong focus on out-of-school time.
  • Ian is a leading education and policy adviser who was recently appointed Deputy Chief Executive of the British Council for School Environments. Formerly the director of Big Picture consultancy and head of policy for the extended schools charity ContinYou, he has been involved in national policy development, social innovation projects and developing leadership and change in the field of education and children's services. With 10 years experience in the voluntary sector, he has led a number of high profile projects for the National College for School Leadership, written publications and resources for the Department for Children, Schools and Families and Welsh Assembly Government, led innovative consultancy projects such as Every Special School Matters and spoken at a number of conferences and seminars in the UK and USA, including the Learning with Excitement Conference at Harvard University.
  • Peter Vanderwarker is an internationally-regarded architectural and editorial photographer. His work appears regularly in *Architectural Record* and *Architectural Digest* magazines, among others. His photography work is found in the collections of the Boston Athenaeum, the MIT Museum, and the Boston University Art Gallery. He is also the author /co-author and photographer of several books, and is a columnist for *the Boston Sunday Globe*'s Cityscapes. Mr. Vanderwarker holds a bachelor's degree in Architecture from the University of California, Berkeley. He was a Loeb Fellow at the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 1996-1997.