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Dr. Paul Watanabe is a member of the Board of Directors of Political Research Associates, the Board of Directors of the Nisei Student Relocation Commemorative Fund, and the National Academic Board of the Asian American Policy Review. His principal research and teaching interests are in the areas of American foreign policy, American political behavior, ethnic group politics, and Asian Americans. He is the author of Ethnic Groups, Congress, and American Foreign Policy and principal author of A Dream Deferred: Changing Demographics, New Opportunities, and Challenges for Boston. His articles have appeared in Asian American Policy Review, Business in the Contemporary World, New England Journal of Public Policy, Political Psychology, PS: Political Science and Politics, Public Perspective, and World Today. He regularly contributes analysis and commentary to national and local television, radio, newspapers, and newsmagazines. Paul was born in Murray, Utah.

Maria Idalí Torres is the current director of the Gaston Institute. She obtained a PhD from the University of Connecticut and a MS in Public Health from the University of Massachusetts. Prior to his current position she spent 17 years as a professor of public health at the UMASS-Amherst campus, and another 15 years practicing health education in community and school settings. Dr. Torres’ research and publications have focused on the promotion, protection and maintenance of reproductive and sexual health among Latinas and their families. Most recently, she has been working on Latino youth sexual health disparities and the prevention of teenage pregnancy. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for her work at the local, state and national levels.

Alex Ross, music critic for *The New Yorker*, is the recipient of numerous awards for his work, including two ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for music criticism, a Holtzbrinck Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, a Fleck Fellowship from the Banff Centre, and a Letter of Distinction from the American Music Center for significant contributions to the field of contemporary music.

Stephen Greenblatt is the John Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He is the author of *Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare*, *Hamlet in Purgatory*, and *Renaissance Self-Fashioning*.

Timother Keller is the Senior Pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian church in New York City. He was born in Pennsylvania, and attended Bucknell University. Keller earned his M.Div from Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary and his D.Min. from Westminster Theological Seminary. In 1999, after serving as a professor, pastor, and director of church planting, Keller was asked by the Presbyterian Church in America to start Redeemer Church in New York City. By 2008, the church had grown from 50 people to 5,000 each Sunday. In 2001, Keller founded a church planting center in NYC and his church is considered one of the most influential in America. Timothy Keller promotes a Reformed Christianity that has a vision that encompasses not only doctrinal statements, but also our piety, evangelistic outreach, and missions of mercy. He has served on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and as Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Westminster Theological Seminary. Keller has authored two books and numerous articles and essays about the Christian faith and its mission of engaging and transforming society.

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, College Park, and non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Before coming to the University of Maryland, he taught at several universities, including Cornell University, and Princeton University. Telhami has served as advisor to the U.S. Mission to the UN (1990-91), advisor to former Congressman Lee Hamilton, and as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Trilateral U.S.-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee, which was mandated by the Wye River Agreements. He also served on the Iraq Study Group as a member of the Strategic Environment Working Group. He has contributed to The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times and regularly appears on national and international radio and television. He has served on the U.S. Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, which was appointed by the Department of State at the request of Congress, and he co-drafted the report of their findings, Changing Minds, Winning Peace. His publications include The Stakes: America and the Middle East and Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords.

Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford. A frequent lecturer, he is the Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow at St Antony's College, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, as well as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the Royal Historical Society, the Royal Society of Arts, and a corresponding fellow of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. His focus is on the late modern and contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe. Ash is the author of nine books of political writing, or "history of the present," which have charted the transformation of Europe over the last 30 years. His essays appear regularly in the *New York Review of Books* and he writes a weekly column in *The Guardian*. He also contributes to *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post* and *The Wall Street Journal*. He was foreign editor of *The Spectator*, editorial writer on Central European affairs for the *London Times*, and a columnist on foreign affairs in the *Independent*. Ash has received honours for his writing, which include the David Watt Memorial Prize, and Commentator of the Year in the 'What the Papers Say.' In 2005, he was featured in a list of 100 top global public intellectuals chosen by the journals *Prospect* and *Foreign Policy*, and in *Time* magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people. In 2006, he was awarded the George Orwell Prize for political writing.

Ordained in 1979, the Rev. Morrison-Reed and his wife, Donna, served as co-ministers for 26 years. His graduate thesis, *Black Pioneers in a White Denomination*, first published in 1984, is still in print. Now retired from active ministry, he is currently working with Meadville Lombard Theological School to organize and build the library’s archive of materials relating to African American involvement in Unitarian Universalism.

Sonny Ochs is the sister of the late folk singer Phil Ochs. Sonny helped start "Helping Hands Concert" series which raises money for non-profits, and the Phil Ochs Song Nights which keep her brother's music alive for a new generation of musicians.

Terry Leonino is half of the husband-wife duo, Magpie. She is a gifted singer of jazz and blues in the tradition of Connie Boswell and Billie Holiday, but is equally comfortable with the subtle beauty of traditional folk and contemporary songs. She has an uncanny ability to find the perfect harmony line, and is also an excellent player of the harmonica, mandolin, fretted dulcimer, and rhythm guitar.

Dr. Tanja Bosak was born in Croatia, where she received her B.Sc. from Zagreb University in 1998. She then received her Ph.D. in geobiology from California Institute of Technology in 2004. Her Ph.D. research investigated the role of microbial processes in the formation of laminated limestone rocks that were common for the first eighty percent of Earth history. That work won her the 2007 Subaru Outstanding Woman in Science Award, which is presented to a woman whose PhD research has impacted the field of the geosciences in a major way. Dr. Bosak spent two years as a Microbial Sciences Initiative Fellow at Harvard University. Bosak joined the faculty at MIT in 2007 where she is now Cecil and Ida Green Assistant Professor. Her research program integrates molecular microbiology, geochemistry, sedimentology and modern analytical tools to address the co-evolution of life and the environment on our planet.

Brad Matsen is the author of *Titantic’s Last Secrets*, *Descent: The Heroic Discovery of the Abyss*, and many other books about the sea and its inhabitants. He was a creative producer for the television series The Shape of Life, and his articles on marine science and the environment have appeared in Mother Jones, Audubon, and Natural History, among other publications. He lives on Vashon Island, off the coast of Washington State.