People

Colleen Mone Hardy is a field epidemiologist with the International Rescue Committee, a non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian assistance, protection and resettlement services to refugees and victims of armed conflict. In this position, she provides technical support to International Rescue Committee's health programs in a number of countries. Colleen has worked in a variety of humanitarian settings with the IRC, the World Food Program (WFP) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Africa and S.East Asia. She represented IRC on an interagency assessment team, which included US military, UN and Non-governmental agencies, off the west coast of Sumatra Island, following the tsunami. She is currently working in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a five member IRC team, assisting with a number of assessments.

Dr. Colleen J. Shogan, currently CEO of In Pursuit, served as the 11th Archivist of the United States, the first woman appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lead the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). A noted author and political scientist committed to civics education, she prioritized expanding public access to NARA’s records and led numerous strategic initiatives to enhance services and make its holdings more accessible, both in person and online, in support of public participation and American democracy. Prior to becoming Archivist, Colleen held several cultural heritage leadership roles: Senior Vice President and Director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association, positions in the U.S. Senate, and senior executive roles at the Library of Congress and its Congressional Research Service. She was Vice Chair of the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the United States Capitol Historical Society and the Board of Advisers for Historiq, a company combining technology and archival tools to improve public access.

**Collin Murray** is a drone pilot with recreational drone use experience and a private pilot’s license. DARTdrones Flight Academy is one of the only FAA Certified drone flight schools in the country. Its mission is to provide the highest quality training on Unmanned Aerial Systems for businesses, emergency services teams, and hobbyists. Collin is from Sea Cliff, NY, received a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northeastern University, and is currently located in Belmont, MA. He worked as a medical device research and design engineer for 10 years developing products used in eye surgery. Collin is looking forward to the expansion of drone use in the search and rescue area of public safety services.

Collique Williams is a long-time Boston-area community organizer, who comes to CLU from the youth organizing sector. Collique began his change-work as a youth organizer at the Boston-area Youth Organizing Project in 2001 and most recently at The City School, where he cut his teeth building a strong base of young folks shaping their communities. It was there that he first began working on transportation with the successful Youth Pass campaign, making the connection between accessible transportation for youth and a broader fight for more equitable communities for working-class families. He embodies the mantra “change is made by those most affected”, and hopes to carry on this legacy at Community Labor United, making sure that true coalition is built.

Colm Toibin was born in Enniscorthy, in the southeast of Ireland in 1955. His first novel *The South* was finished in 1986 but not published until 1990, being turned down in the meantime by most English publishers. His first book, *Walking Along the Border* with photographs by Tony O'Shea, was published in 1987. In September 1987 he began work on his second novel *The Heather Blazing*. In 1988 he spent a year in Barcelona where he wrote *Homage to Barcelona* and renewed his acquintance with the city and with certain villages in the Pyrenees where *The South* is set and where he has spent a great deal of time since then. In Ireland, during these years he wrote regularly for 'The Sunday Independent', first as drama critic and television critic and later as political commentator. In 1994 he began to write for The London Review of Books and has since then been a regular contributor. His 'Love In a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovar' ( Picador, March 2002) is made up mainly of pieces from the London Review of Books. In 2000 he became a Fellow at the Center for Scholars and Writers at New York Public Library, working mainly on the Lady Gregory papers there. This resulted in 'Lady Gregory's Toothbrush', a section of which appeared in The New York Review of Books in August 2001. Colm Toibin has given workshops and masterclasses at Listowel Writers Week, The Arvon Foundation and The American University at Washington DC. He has also taught at the MFA program at the New School in Manhattan. His books have been translated into eighteen languages.

Colman M. Herman is a Boston-based freelance reporter.

Colson Whitehead was born in New York City. His first novel, *The Intuitionist*, won the QPB New Voices Award and was an Ernest Hemingway/PEN Award finalist. His second novel, *John Henry Days*, was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award. Whitehead lives in Brooklyn, New York.

**William Gross ** is the City of Boston's first African American Commissioner. Gross is a 33-year veteran of the Boston Police Department. As a Patrol Officer he spent many years in the Gang Unit and Drug Control Unit, as well as serving as an Academy Instructor. He rose through the ranks, achieving the ranks of Sergeant and Sergeant Detective, and was promoted to Deputy Superintendent in 2008, where he became a member of the Command Staff of the Department. Throughout his career, Superintendent Gross has maintained a strong connection with the community, and has been awarded numerous awards for bravery, meritorious service and community partnership.

Condoleezza Rice is a professor of business and political science at Stanford University and the Thomas and Barbara Stephenson Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution. From January 2005 to 2009, she served as the 66th secretary of state of the United States. Before serving as America’s chief diplomat, she served as assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security advisor) from January 2001 to 2005. Rice joined the Stanford University faculty as a professor of political science in 1981 and served as Stanford University’s provost from 1993 to 1999. She was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution from 1991 to 1993 and returned to the Hoover Institution after serving as provost until 2001. As a professor, Rice won two of the highest teaching honors: the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. She has authored and co-authored several books, including Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft (1995), with Philip Zelikow; The Gorbachev Era (1986), with Alexander Dallin, Uncertain Allegiance: The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army (1984) and Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Family (October 2010). Rice served as a member of the boards of directors for the Chevron, Charles Schwab and Transamerica corporations. She was a founding board member of the Center for a New Generation, an educational support fund for schools in East Palo Alto and East Menlo Park, Calif., and was vice president of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula. She currently serves on the board of the Boys and Girls Club of America. Rice has been involved in a number of humanitarian pursuits, most notably with PEPFAR (The President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) and in creating and serving on the board of the Millennium Challenge Corporation. Both endeavors increased aid to developing countries and the world's poorest, most disadvantaged populations. PEPFAR was the largest commitment of funds from any single nation to combat a single disease at any time in history and the Millennium Challenge Corporation promotes sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction. She currently serves as a member of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In addition, she is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974; her master’s from the University of Notre Dame in 1975; and her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981.

Connie Crowley Ganser is the President of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors and Corporate Director, Performance Improvement and Compliance at Children's Hospital, Boston.

Connie Merigo’s current leatherback research project is on the health of wild caught and disentangled leatherbacks.

Connie Schultz is a nationally syndicated columnist based at *The Plain Dealer* newspaper. She won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for commentary. Schultz was also a 2003 Pulitzer Prize finalist in feature writing.

**Connor Sheets** is an investigative reporter with an eye on criminal justice & civil rights for the Alabama Media Group and part of the 2019 ProPublica Local Reporting Network. Follow Connor on Twitter [@ConnorASheets](https://twitter.com/connorasheets "").

Conor Walsh, winner of a competition to be the IDEAS from the Next Generation speaker at the conference, is a Ph.D candidate in mechanical engineering at MIT. His winning idea is a high-tech medical device called Robopsy, a robotic surgical aid for doctors performing biopsies that could make the procedure safer and more accurate. It has already received $80,000 in prize and development money and a provisional patent. Walsh's goal to develop practical engineering technologies that directly help humanity is realized in the lightweight, disposable plastic structure that holds and manipulates a biopsy needle.