People

Dr. Ashton Carter, is a nominee for Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Department of Defense. Carter, a physicist and current chair of the International & Global Affairs faculty at the Kennedy School, served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1993 to 1996. He directed military planning during the 1994 crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons program; was instrumental in removing all nuclear weapons from the territories of Ukraine, Kazakstan, and Belarus; directed the establishment of defense and intelligence relationships with the countries of the former Soviet Union when the Cold War ended; and participated in the negotiations that led to the deployment of Russian troops as part of the Bosnia Peace Plan Implementation Force. Dr. Carter managed the multi-billion dollar Cooperative Threat Reduction (Nunn-Lugar) program to support elimination of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of the former Soviet Union, including the secret removal of 600 kilograms of highly enriched uranium from Kazakstan in the operation code-named Project Sapphire. Dr. Carter also directed the Nuclear Posture Review and oversaw the Department of Defense's (DOD's) Counterproliferation Initiative. He directed the reform of DOD's national security export controls. In 1997 Dr. Carter co-chaired the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group with former CIA Director John M. Deutch, which urged greater attention to terrorism. From 1998 to 2000, he was deputy to William J. Perry in the North Korea Policy Review and traveled with him to Pyongyang. In 2001-2002, he served on the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Technology for Countering Terrorism and advised on the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Dr. Carter was twice awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award given by the Department.

Ashwat is the executive director of Our Streets Minneapolis, an organization dedicated to improving walking, biking and rolling infrastructure in the city. He is a nationally recognized expert on building more just, sustainable and resilient transportation infrastructure. He represents District 8 (much of Minneapolis) on Metropolitan Council’s Transportation Advisory Board (TAB). He was appointed to Minnesota Department of Transportation’s Sustainable Transportation Advisory Committee (STAC). Ash has authored or co-authored numerous reports, including The Road to Clean Transportation: A Bold, Broad, Strategy to Cut Pollution and Reduce Carbon Emissions in the Midwest, and Arrive Together: Transportation Access and Equity in Wisconsin. He also authored the transportation section of St. Paul’s Climate Action Plan. Ash serves on the advisory board of Move Minneapolis, the steering committee of the Twin Cities Shared Use Mobility Center and on the Board of Directors of The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.

Askia Muhammad Abu Bakr el Touré is one of the founding members of the black arts movement of the 1960s and 1970s. As a poet, editor, and activist, Touré helped define a new generation of black consciousness that sought to affirm through the arts the community's African heritage as a means to create an uplifting and triumphal identity for the modern black experience. Touré is the author of several books of poetry and has been published in numerous anthologies.

Askold Melnyczuk is Associate Professor for Creative Writing at UMass Boston. His publications include Ambassador of the Dead (Counterpoint Press, 2001), What Is Told, Blind Angel (novella, 2002); Short Fiction, Poems and Reviews in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Nation, The Partisan Review

Asra Q. Nomani is an Indian-American journalist, author and activist known for her controversial work in the Islamic feminism and reform movements. She currently co-leads the Pearl Project at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., investigating the murder of Daniel Pearl, a close friend and colleague her's. There she teaches investigative journalism while working with students to uncover the full truth behind Pearl's kidnapping and murder. The project's findings will be published by the Center for Public Integrity in early 2010. Nomani worked for 15 years as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of two books, Tantrika: Traveling the Road of Divine Love and Standing Alone: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam, and her work and life are featured in the documentary The Mosque in Morgantown. Nomani was born in Bombay, India and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia. She graduated from West Virginia University with a degree in journalism.

**Athena Z. Peters** is an Executive Producer at Warner Bros. Games-Turbine running Lord of the Rings Online. She has been in the online games business for over fifteen years contributing to multiple games such as City of Heroes, Guild Wars, and Dungeons and Dragons Online, as well as many others. She has a BFA in Directing Theatre from Texas State University. Her passion is telling truly immersive and connected stories and the tech space is the perfect place to push the boundaries of those experiences.

Atossa Soltani is the Founder and President of Amazon Watch, a nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin. Atossa served as Amazon Watch’s first Executive Director for 18 years and continues to support the organization’s mission. Currently Atossa is leading the development of an Amazon Watch and Pachamama Alliance joint-initiative to secure permanent protection for the most biodiverse rainforest in the world, a vast region on the Ecuador-Peru border in the headwaters of the Amazon River. She's also the Director Global Strategy, Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, which is building a shared vision among indigenous peoples, NGOs, the philanthropic community, social entrepreneurs and governments towards establishing a bi-national protected region – off-limits to industrial scale resource extraction, and governed in accordance with traditional indigenous principles of cooperation and harmony that foster a mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship. [More info](https://sacredheadwaters.org/)

Atul Gawande is a surgeon and writer based in Massachusetts. From 1992 to 1993 he served as senior health policy advisor to the Clinton campaign and the Clinton White House. Since 1998 he has been a staff writer for *The New Yorker*. He is on the currently faculty of Brigham and Women's Hospital as a general and endocrine surgeon, and is a staff member of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He is also an Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Research Director for the Brigham and Women's Center for Surgery and Public Health. He has written two best-selling books, *Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science* and *Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance*.

**Dr. Atyia Martin** was appointed by Mayor Martin J. Walsh as the Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Boston as part of the 100 Resilient Cities pioneered by the Rockefeller foundation. She is adjunct faculty at Northeastern University in the Master of Homeland Security program. She is the former Director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness at the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC). She has a variety of experiences working in emergency management, intelligence, and homeland security.

Audacia Ray is a media maker and activist with a focus on sexual rights. Presently, Ray is the Program Officer for Online Communications and Campaigns at the International Womens Health Coalition and an adjunct professor of Human Sexuality at Rutgers University. She is the author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing In on Internet Sexploration and is the award winning director and producer of the porn feature, The Bi Apple, as well as the producer and star of the comedic film short, Dacia's Love Machine. Ray is a former sex worker who was an executive editor at $pread magazine for three years and is now on the board of advocacy organization Sex Work Awareness, for which she edits the public education blog, Sex Work 101.

Audra Parker is Chief Operating Officer/Executive Director of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Audra has been with the Alliance since early 2003. She has 20 years of experience in strategy and business management, has consulted to a wide range of industries, and is active in local community affairs. She holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics and Economics from Brown University. She lives in Osterville with her four children.

Audrey Falk is a production intern for Boston Public Radio.