People

Dr. Alonso Aguirre is Senior Vice President for Conservation Medicine at Wildlife Trust, New York. He is cofounder and executive committee member of the Consortium for Conservation Medicine. He also serves as Clinical Assistant Professor at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and is Research Professor at Columbia University. Dr. Aguirre's research has been instrumental in revealing the impact of emerging diseases of marine wildlife populations. His international experience brings applied solutions to field practitioners of conservation medicine accomplished through transdisciplinary teams, innovative research, scientific excellence, and long-term monitoring of sentinel species. Dr. Aguirre currently is Chairman of the World Association of Wildlife Veterinarians. He has been technical advisor to governments of several countries in the Americas, Southeast Asia and Western Europe. Dr. Aguirre has briefed the Mexican and US Congress, Administration, and federal agency leaders. He authored the book Conservation Medicine: Ecological Health in Practice, has published over 160 professional papers in peer-reviewed journals and is co-editor of the new Springer journal EcoHealth. He is a winner of the Harry Jalanka Memorial Medal from Finland, the most prestigious award in zoological and wildlife medicine for his contributions to the field.

Dr. Alonso Ricardo is a post-doctoral fellow at the Szostak Lab at Harvard University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is currently working with Jack Szostak in unnatural genetic systems and self-replicating polymers.

**Alonzo Jinwright** is a representative of Changing Tracks and a high school senior at University High.

Alora Thomas-Lundborg, J.D., is a Senior Staff Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, Voting Rights Project. A graduate of Columbia Univerrsity Law School, Ms. Thomas-Lundborg practiced law in New York City, joining the ACLU in 2017. In spring 2019, she successfully argued Ohio A. Philip Randolph Institute v. Householder. The U.S. Court for the Southern District of Ohio struck down the [Ohio Congressional map as an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander](https://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/gerrymandering/why-ohios-congressional-map-unconstitutional/) .

Altha J. Stewart, M.D., is the executive director of the National Leadership Council on African-American Behavioral Health. Dr. Stewart has served in several executive positions nationally, managing large public mental health programs and systems in Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan. Dr. Stewart is also past president of the Association of Women Psychiatrists and the Black Psychiatrists of America.

Growing up on the border while being both a Mexican and United States citizen has allowed Alvaro Diaz to gain a valuable perspective on the challenges and opportunities of political and civic participation. After moving to the U.S. at the age of 19, Alvaro recognized the importance of youth civic involvement in southern Arizona. During the pandemic, he became part of the first cohort of Public Allies in Tucson, Arizona. While serving for a local non-profit, he had the opportunity to learn about the dynamics of the nonprofit world and the importance of collaboration among non-governmental actors as a fundamental part of democracy development. Motivated by this experience, Alvaro participated in a local program, developed by Greater Tucson Leadership, to meet the change agents of my community. The 10-month program brings together different actors from business, government, nonprofit, and public sectors. As a student at the University of Arizona, he had the opportunity to serve as the Undergraduate Representative for the Latin American Studies Student Association, as well as part of the Aspiring Latino Lawyers Club. He also participated in a seminar by the Washington Center, learning about current issues related to National Security. As he continues his education, Alvaro has come to the realization much of the changes we want as young citizens start at the local level and civic engagement plays a huge role in moving our agenda forward.

**Alvaro Lima** is the Director of Research for the Boston Planning & Development Agency. Originally from Brazil, he recently served as Senior Vice President and Director of Research of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a non-profit organization founded by Harvard Professor Michael Porter. Prior to the ICIC, Alvaro was the Director of Economic Development at Urban Edge, a Boston-based community development corporation. He has also worked as Chief of the Economic Development Department of the Ministry of Industry and Energy in Mozambique. In his work in Brazil, he was the Coordinator of Regional Development Projects at the Institute for Social and Economic Research – IPARDES. Alvaro holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the New School for Social Research.

Alvin Buyinza is a reporter for MassLive.

Alvin Poussaint is Director of the Media Center of the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry and Faculty Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School. He is co-author of Raising Black Children, and Lay My Burden Down. Poussaint is an expert on race relations in America, the dynamics of prejudice, and issues of diversity as our society becomes increasingly multicultural. He was a script consultant to NBC's The Cosby Show and continues to consult to the media as an advocate of more responsible programming.

Alysia Abbott is the author of Fairyland, A Memoir of My Father, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and an ALA Stonewall Award winner and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards. She grew up in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, the only child of gay poet and writer, Steve Abbott.

Alyssa Johl is an international environmental and human rights lawyer, campaigner and organizer. Alyssa’s practice focuses on human rights and climate change, working to protect the rights of those most vulnerable to climate change and to develop new legal strategies to accelerate action on climate change.

Alán Aspuru-Guzik is a professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. The Aspuru-Guzik Research Group focuses on a wide range of modern needs, including computation, information, energy, and other fields where scientists are exploiting the power of quantum mechanics.

Amadou L. Ba earned his undergraduate degree and his doctorate in biology from Ohio State University. Ba hopes to spearhead student exchanges between America and Senegal. Ba was previously an associate professor at Bunker Hill Community College.

Amala Mahadevan is a leading researcher in the fields of physical oceanography and climate, the oceanic carbon cycle, and biogeochemical distributions. Dr. Mahadevan and members of her WHOI lab have developed advanced models and analytics to investigate physical ocean processes and their implications for the productivity and distribution of phytoplankton, and the transport and mixing of properties. She has developed a non-hydrostatic ocean model suited to modeling limited domains in order to capture meso- and sub-mesoscale phenomena.