People

Billy Bean was born in Santa Ana, California in 1964 and graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1986 with a degree in Business Administration. He played major league baseball from 1987 through 1995, breaking into the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers. Bean tied a major league record with 4 hits in his first major league game. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the San Diego Padres. Billy came out publicly in 1999 on the front page of The New York Times, and subsequently on a nationally televised story with Diane Sawyer. He is the only living former major league baseball player to acknowledge his homosexuality. Bean is the author of, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball. (Avalon Publishing Group, NYC.)

Billy Bragg is a singer-songwriter and activist inspired by the Clash and politicized by the 1984 miner’s strike. He has released 13 studio albums, authored books on Englishness and lyric writing. Bragg is a regular contributor to the British national debate as a television and radio commentator, and newspaper columnist. Photo: ABC

Billy Collins distinguishes himself through his clear, accessible poetry–and by reinterpreting many traditional poetic forms. His poem "Sonnet" begins "All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now." Collins speaks out against the over-interpretation of poetry, as well as the writing of poetry strictly for an academic audience. As United States Poet Laureate (2001-03), he created a poetry collection called "Poetry 180," a project whose aim was to increase poetry's popularity among teens by exposing them to a meaningful contemporary poem each day of the school year. Although its accessibility is in part responsible for the popularity of Collins's work, humor, irony, and ambiguity also play an important role. The poet Stephen Dunn once wrote of Collins's appeal, "We seem to always know where we are in a Billy Collins poem, but not necessarily where he is going."

Binnie Kirshenbaum is the author of two short story collections and six novels. She is a professor of fiction writing at the Columbia University Graduate School of the Arts.

Binyavanga Wainaina (born 1971) is a Kenyan author, journalist and winner of the Caine Prize. He attended Moi Primary School in Nakuru, Mangu High School in Thika, and Lenana School in Nairobi. He later studied commerce at the University of Transkei in South Africa, after which he worked in Cape Town for some years as a freelance food and travel writer. In July 2002 he won the Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story "Discovering Home". He is the founding editor of *Kwani?*, the first literary magazine in East Africa since *Transition Magazine*. Since its founding, *Kwani?* has since become an important source of new writing from Africa; with several writers having been nominated for, and having won, the Caine Prize subsequently. In 2003, he was given an award by the Kenya Publisher's Association, in recognition of his services to Kenyan Literature. He has written for *The EastAfrican*, *National Geographic*, *The Sunday Times *(South Africa),* Granta*, *the New York Times* and *The Guardian* (UK). In January 2007, Binyavanga Wainaina was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a "Young Global Leader" - an award given to people for "their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world." He subsequently declined the award.

N. Bird Runningwater is the programmer for Native American Initiatives at the Sundance Institute and the Sundance Film Festival in Los Angeles, California. Before joining the Sundance Institute, Runningwater was based in New York City and served as executive director of the Fund of the Four Directions, the private philanthropy of a Rockefeller family member. Prior to joining the Fund, Runningwater served as program associate in the Ford Foundation's Media, Arts and Culture Program. He is a recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation's National Fellowship in Public Policy and International Affairs and an alumnus of Americans for Indian Opportunity's Ambassadors Program and the Kellogg Fellows Program.

Blackford Middleton is Director of Clinical Informatics Research & Development, and Chairman of the Center for Information Technology Leadership at Partners Healthcare System, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health. As Director for CIRD, he leads product management for the Partners EMR, patient portal, enterprise clinical decision support and knowledge management services, supports enterprise clinical systems strategy development, and conducts clinical informatics research. He was a founder of CITL at Partners in early 2002, and leads its research in value-based technology assessment. In 2004, CITL and CIRD joined the NLM sponsored Boston-area Informatics Research and Training Fellowship Program, where Dr. Middleton serves as Fellowship Program Director for CIRD and CITL NLM Fellows. Dr. Middleton serves on the National Committee of Vital and Health Statistics and also on the Steering Committee of Connecting for Health at the Markle Foundation, the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Aligning Forces for Quality, and several Editorial Boards. Dr. Middleton is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, the American College of Medical Informatics, and the Healthcare Information Management and Systems Society.

A nationally known speaker on higher education policy issues, Wilson served as the first president and chief executive officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation from 1999 to 2006. The foundation, established in 1998, is New Englands largest public charity dedicated to improving academic achievement for underserved communities. During Wilson's seven-year tenure, the foundation distributed more than $80 million in grants to educational institutions and non-profit organizations to improve access to college. She is also a former chair of the American Association of Higher Education and was the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she served on the board of directors from 2003 to 2006. Wilson currently serves on the boards of trustees of Boston College and Union Theological Seminary, the board of directors of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, the board of directors of Higher Education Resource Services, and the boards of Boston After School and Beyond, Boston College and Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses. She is a director of Medco Health Solutions. Wilson earned a bachelor's degree in English and secondary education at Cedar Crest College, a master's in education at Seton Hall University, and a Ph.D. in higher education administration at Boston College.

**Blythe Robertson** most recently executive produced \_Love Is Strange\_, Ira Sach’s highly acclaimed film starring John Lithgow, Alfred Molina and Marisa Tomei, which premiered at Sundance 2014, was distributed by Sony Pictures Classics and nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards. She also co- produced the revival of Broadway’s \_Side Show\_ directed by Bill Condon. Previously, Robertson produced \_About Sunny\_, starring Lauren Ambrose, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at Boston IFF 2012. Blythe was line producer on the PBS series, \_God In America\_, an American Experience/FRONTLINE co-production. Other projects include \_The People v. Leo Frank\_, winner of the Special Jury Award at History Makers 2010 and The History Channel’s Emmy-nominated, \_Desperate Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower\_. Robertson is currently developing writer/director Emily Abt’s next feature \_Audrey’s Run\_ starring Paula Patton and Mike Epps which will shoot in Boston in 2016. Blythe is a member of the Producer’s Guild of America and the Massachusetts Production Coalition.

Bob and Denise love to cook and eat great food. Denise, the former Education Director at WGBH, is an educational consultant. Bob is an award-winning jazz author and journalist and a former columnist for the Boston Globe and the Boston Phoenix. Wherever they go, whether in their hometown of Newton, Massachusetts or on their travels in the US or abroad, they are always on the prowl for the perfect meal.

Bob Blumenthal began his career as a jazz critic in 1969 for *Boston After Dark*, later known as *The Boston Phoeni*x, while in college, and continued to contribute to that paper through 1989. After serving as guest critic for *The Boston Globe* during its jazz festival for a decade, he became a regular Globe contributor in 1990 and a weekly columnist in 1993, and continued in both roles until 2002. Throughout these years, during which he worked as an attorney, primarily for the Massachusetts Department of Education, Blumenthal was also contributing to such publications as *The Atlantic Monthly*, *Rolling Stone*, *The Village Voice*, *Down Beat* and *JazzTimes*, and writing numerous album notes. He also provided radio and television commentary and served as a panelist for the National Jazz Service Organization, the New England Foundation for the Arts, and the Jazz Composers Alliance. He also received Grammy awards for best album notes in 1999 for *Coltrane: The Classic Quartet/Complete Impulse!*.