People

A planner in in OSPCD since 2007, Rawson was instrumental in developing the City's SomerVision Comprehensive Plan and Somerville by Design efforts, setting the stage for Somerville's development future and gathering wide acclaim for the processes, while managing more than $2 million in planning funds for the department. Rawson succeeds former Director Hayes Morrison.

Dr. Spellberg is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and is based in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. His promotion to Associate Professor will become effective July of 2009. He received his BA in Molecular Cell Biology- Immunology in 1994 from UC Berkeley. He then attended medical school at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he received numerous academic honors, including serving as the UCLA AOA Chapter Co-President, and winning the prestigious Stafford Warren award for the topic academic performance in his graduating class. Dr. Spellberg completed his Residency in Internal Medicine and subspecialty fellowship in Infectious Diseases at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, where he received the Department of Medicine Subspecialty Fellow of the Year award. He co-founded NovaDigm Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company, to translate the vaccine from the bench to the bedside. Dr. Spellberg is also developing genetically engineered white blood cells that recapitulate neutrophil functions and can be used to overcome the technical barriers to neutrophil transfusion therapy for neutropenic infections. Finally, Dr. Spellberg established the first auditable, peer-reviewed dataset that confirms the decline in new antibiotic development over the last two decades, underscoring the need for development of new immune-based therapies for infections.

**Bradley Stevens** is an American professional basketball coach and former collegiate player. He is the head coach of the Boston Celtics. Born and raised in Zionsville, Indiana, Stevens starred on the Zionsville Community High School basketball team, setting four school records.

**Brad Swing** advises the Mayor and Cabinet Chief on all local, state, and federal energy issues. Voting member, statewide Energy Efficiency Advisory Council. Boston #1 city for energy efficiency: American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) (2015; 2013)

Brad Timm is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His research interests are focused on gaining an improved understanding of species-environment relationships and movement ecology of wildlife species in order to devise more effective conservation and management strategies for these organisms. For his doctoral research, Brad is investigating the ecology and conservation of the Eastern Spadefoot toad, a species listed as Threatened in Massachusetts, at Cape Cod National Seashore. Specifically, he is assessing breeding habitat preferences of the Eastern Spadefoot toad using results from extensive larval trapping surveys and is assessing the post-breeding movement ecology of adults using radio-telemetry techniques. Prior to his doctoral work, Brad earned his masters degree in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst examining the emigration timing and orientation of juvenile pond-breeding amphibians in western Massachusetts, and as an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island worked on a number of research projects, the majority of which focused on the ecology of pond-breeding amphibians.

Project Leader of Diadromous Fish Biology and Management and Diadromous Fish Passage and Habitat Restoration projects Division biologist for rainbow smelt and American eel

For the past 25 years, Bradley M. Campbell has been at the forefront of shaping the country’s most significant environmental policies and laws. A former White House senior appointee during the Clinton administration, Brad was the Regional Administrator at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Mid-Atlantic Region, and served as Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. In 2006 Brad launched a law firm with a focus on issues involving the environment, energy, entrepreneurship, and science. A year later, he co-founded Swan Creek Energy, which went on to develop several of the largest net-metered commercial solar projects in the United States. Brad has a wide range of experience overseeing large public agencies, developing strategic litigation, and negotiating innovative agreements that have resulted in environmental milestones in New England and across the United States. As Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, a post he held for four years, Brad set the toughest standards in the nation to protect coastal areas, streams, and rivers from stormwater pollution; initiated and negotiated the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants; and developed and secured permanent protection for more than 800,000 acres of watershed lands under threat of development in New Jersey’s Highlands region. Concurrent with his law practice, Campbell founded Swan Creek Energy, LLC, a renewable energy development firm responsible for several of the largest commercial-scale solar projects in New Jersey. Campbell lectures and writes regularly on major legal and policy issues.

Pastor Schmeling is a Lutheran minister who is openly gay. He is in danger of being stripped of his Ordination by the Southeastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

**Brandi Collins-Dexter** is a fall 2019 Joan Shorenstein Fellow and the Senior Campaign Director at Color Of Change, where she oversees the media, culture and economic justice team. She has led a number of successful and highly visible campaigns for corporate and government accountability and has also worked extensively with Silicon Valley companies on key corporate policy changes. Collins-Dexter has testified in front of congress on the issue of online privacy, and is a regular commentator in the media on racial justice and tech. While at the Shorenstein Center, Collins-Dexter will write a paper on the digital ecosystem and how it has forever altered the political, economic, sociological and psychological ways in which we engage offline.

Blaze is a hip-hop artist, activist, self-proclaimed trap feminist. Inspired by Lil' Kim and Missy Elliot, her raw lyrics and dynamic stage presence allows her to compete with the boys and rep for the ladies. Blaze aims to celebrate people that identify as women and femmes through the language of hip-hop. Connect with her on Twitter with @brandieblaze.

Born and raised in Echo Park, California, Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers’ Workshop program at UC Irvine. For the past ten years he has worked in New York as a book editor at *Grove Press* and elsewhere. His debut novel, *The Madonnas of Echo Park*, chronicles the “American-born immigrant” experience. Peter Matthiessen calls *The Madonnas of Echo Park* “altogether a terrific book by a highly accomplished new author” while Daniel Chaon says of Skyhorse, “[he] writes with great compassion and wit (and a touch of magic)… *The Madonnas of Echo Park* is a memorable literary debut.” His next book, Things *My Fathers Taught Me*, forthcoming from *Free Press*, is a memoir about growing up with five stepfathers, four of whom were con men.