People

Alan Cooperman is the associate director for research at the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life. He came to the Pew Research Center in 2009 after a 27-year career in journalism, the last 10 years of which were at The Washington Post. During his decade at the Post, he worked in many parts of the newsroom, including five years as a national staff writer covering religion. He also served as deputy foreign editor, senior editor of the Post's book review section and national security editor. In the latter capacity, he helped oversee the Post's Pulitzer Prize- winning coverage of the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Before joining the Post in 1999, Alan was foreign editor of U.S. News & World Report, where he oversaw eight foreign bureaus and a staff of Washington- based reporters covering the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and intelligence agencies. He lives with his wife and two sons in Washington, D.C.

**Alan Cumming** is the author of two previous books: \_Tommy’s Tale: A Novel of Sex, Confusion, and Happy Endings\_ and the memoir \_Not My Father’s Son\_. He has also had an exhibition of his photographs, \_Alan Cumming Snaps!\_ His day job is acting, and most recently he was seen on TV as Eli Gold in the CBS drama \_The Good Wife\_, on Broadway in his Tony Award–winning role as the Master of Ceremonies in \_Cabaret\_, and in concert, touring the world with his cabaret show, \_Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs\_, which was also released as a live album. Alan is also a loudmouth—sorry, activist—who believes that knowledge is power and equality is a right, not a privilege. Follow @alancumming on Twitter and @alancummingsnaps on Instagram. Photo: Francis Hills

Professor Alan M. Dershowitz is Brooklyn native. He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg. He has also published more than 100 articles in magazines and journals such as *The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, The Nation, Commentary, Saturday Review, The Harvard Law Review and the Yale Law Journal*, and more than 300 of his articles have appeared in syndication in 50 national daily newspapers.

Ambassador Alan Holmer was appointed Special Envoy for China and the Strategic Economic Dialogue in 2007. Ambassador Holmer leads an Administration team which manages the bilateral economic relationship between the US and China.

Alan Jasanoff is an Associate Member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and an Associate Professor with a primary appointment in the Department of Biological Engineering and additional appointments with the Departments of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Nuclear Science, and Engineering. Prior to joining the MIT faculty in 2004, he was a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT. He received a Ph.D. in biophysics in 1998 from Harvard in the laboratory of Don Wiley, where he was supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute pre-doctoral fellowship. He also earned an M.Phil. in Chemistry at Cambridge University in 1993 and an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard College in 1992. He was named a Raymond and Beverly Sackler Foundation Scholar in 2004, and he received a 2006 McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award for developing methods to apply MRI calcium sensors for cellular-level functional imaging in living animals.

Alan Keyes was one of the U.S. representatives to the United Nations during the Ronald Reagan administration. In the 1990's he became one of the more well-known conservative African-Americans, thanks to his radio talk program, *The Alan Keyes Show*. His career as a political pundit on the TV and lecture circuit included a 2002 program on MSNBC, *Alan Keyes Making Sense*, but has been periodically interrupted by campaigns for elected positions. A Republican, Keyes ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 1988 and 1992, for the Senate in Illinois in 2004 (against Barack Obama), and for U.S. president in 1996 and 2000.

Alan Khazei co-founded City Year in 1988 and served as its CEO until 2006. He is now the Founder and CEO of "Be the Change," an organization committed to building broadbased non-partisan citizen support for systemic solutions to our nation's problems that leverage the experience of social entrepreneurs, civic and communtiy leaders, and national service alumni. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Alan Kotok lived from November 9, 1941 to May 26, 2006. He was an American computer scientist known for his work at Digital Equipment Corporation and at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Steven Levy, in his book *Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution*, describes Kotok and his fellow classmates at MIT as the first true hackers. Alan Kotok was W3C Associate Chair, MIT site manager and head of the W3C Systems Team. A member of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club, he helped to build the legendary computer game Spacewar. He helped create in the Origins of Computer Chess and in Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

Alan L. Berger occupies the Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair for Holocaust Studies, the first Holocaust chair established in the state of Florida, and is Professor of Judaic Studies at Florida Atlantic University where he also directs the Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz. Berger founded and directed the Holocaust and Judaic Studies B.A. Program at FAU (1998-2005). Prior to this, he was a professor in the Department of Religion at Syracuse University where he founded and directed the Jewish Studies Program. While at Syracuse, Berger served as Acting Chair of the Religion Department and Interim Chair of the Fine Arts Department. He also was the Visiting Gumenick Professor of Judaica at the College of William and Mary. Berger chaired the Annual Scholars Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches in 1989 and in 1990, and was guest chair of the Lessons and Legacies of the Holocaust Conference in 1998. He was series editor of *Religion, Theology, and the Holocaust*, Syracuse University Press.

Alan Lightman was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1948 as son of Richard Lightman, a movie theater owner, and Jeanne Garretson, a dancing teacher and volunteer Braille typist. From an early age, he was entranced by both science and the arts and while in high school, he began independent science projects and writing poetry. He won state-wide science fairs and was the state winner of the National Council of Teachers of English literary award. In 1966, he graduated from White Station High School in Memphis. Lightman received his AB degree in physics from Princeton University in 1970, Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude, and his PhD in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1974. He has received three honorary degrees.