Forum Network

Barbara Haber is the author of *From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals*. Praise for the book came from *Julia Child*, *Gourmet Magazine*, and other food notables as well as academic historians, and a chapter appeared in Best Food Writing 2002. Haber has also written on food topics for *Harvard Magazine*, *Yankee Magazine*, the *Los Angeles Times*, the *Dictionary of American History*, *Notable American Women* and many other popular and professional publications, including *Through the Kitchen Window: Women Explore the Intimate Meanings of Food and Cooking* and *From Betty Crocker to Feminist Food Studies*, which she co-edited with Arlene Avakian. Barbara Haber currently serves on the awards board of the James Beard Foundation where she initiated and serves as curator for Beard on Books, a speaker series featuring notable food writers and cookbook authors.

Lewis H. Lapham is a national correspondent for *Harper's Magazine*. He is also the editor of *Lapham's Quarterly*, a journal of history which debuted spring of 2007. Mr. Lapham is the author of numerous books, including* Waiting for the Barbarians, Theater of War, Gag Rule,* and *Pretensions to Empire*. *The New York Times* has likened him to H.L. Mencken; *Vanity Fair *has suggested a strong resemblance to Mark Twain, and Tom Wolfe compared him to Montaigne. Mr. Lapham currently writes *Notebook*, a bi-monthly essay for *Harper's* that won a National Magazine Award in 1995 for exhibiting an exhilarating point of view in an age of conformity. He has also written for *Life, Commentary, the National Review, the Yale Literary Magazine, Elle, Fortune, Forbes, the American Spectator, Vanity Fair, Travel and Leisure, Golf, Golf Digest, Parade, Channels, Maclean's, the London Observer, the New York Times*, and *the Wall Street Journal*. Lewis H. Lapham was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame in February of 2007. A native of San Francisco, Mr. Lapham has studied history at Yale College and Cambridge University.

Margaret A. McKenna is the president of The Wal-Mart Foundation and the former president of Lesley University. She received her undergraduate degree from Emmanuel College and her law degree from Southern Methodist University. McKenna was a civil rights attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and held a variety of positions with the U.S. government from 1976 to 1981, including deputy counsel in the White House and deputy under secretary of education. Margaret McKenna has been a Director since 2000.

Gora is Indiana's representative to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities board and is one of the 57 presidents and chancellors on The New York Times/Chronicle of Higher Education higher education cabinet. She chairs the Mid-American Conference Presidents' Council and co-chairs the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, where she previously chaired the governance committee. She serves on the boards of First Merchants Bank, Ball Memorial Hospital, and the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, where she co-chairs the Business-Higher Education Forum. Gora was named one of 2007's most influential women in Indiana by the Indianapolis Business Journal and one of 15 Women of Wonder in the spring 2008 issue of Indiana Minority Business Magazine. In 2005, she received a Torchbearer Award from the Indiana Commission for Women for her commitment to higher education. The award is the highest honor given by the state of Indiana to Hoosier women who have overcome or removed barriers to equality or whose achievements have contributed to making the state a better place in which to live, work or raise a family. She also received a Sagamore of the Wabash, Indiana's highest civilian honor, in 2005. In 2008, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Yeungnam University in South Korea. Gora came to Ball State from the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she had been chancellor since 2001. Previously, she served for nine years as provost and vice president for academic affairs at Old Dominion University in Virginia. She earned her bachelor

As Secretary of Education of Massachusetts, Paul Reville directs the Executive Office of Education. The Secretary oversees the three education agencies of the Commonwealth Department of Early Education and Care, Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and Department of Higher Education. Prior to becoming Secretary, Governor Patrick appointed Paul as the chairman of the Massachusetts State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. He also served on Governor Patrick's Transition Team and was chair of the Governor's Pre-K-12 Task Force on Governance. Until his appointment as Secretary of Education, Paul was the president of the Rennie Center for Education Research & Policy. Paul was also the Director of the Education Policy and Management Program and a lecturer on educational policy and politics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Paul is the former executive director of the Pew Forum on Standards-Based Reform, and was the founding executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE). From 1991-96, he served on the Massachusetts State Board of Education. From 1996 - 2002, he chaired the Massachusetts Commission on Time and Learning as well as the Massachusetts Education Reform Review Commission, the state body that provided research and oversight for the state's implementation of education reform in the Commonwealth. In 1985, Paul was the founding executive director of the Alliance for Education, a multi-service educational improvement organization serving Worcester and Central Massachusetts. Prior to his work at the Alliance, Paul was the principal/education director and a teacher in two alternative secondary schools. He is a graduate of Colorado College and holds a Master's degree from Stanford University.

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper '41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and chair of Harvard's History and Literature Program. She is also a staff writer at *The New Yorker *. Her most recent book, *New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery and Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan* (Knopf, 2005), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History; winner of the New York City Book Prize and the Anisfield-Wolf Award; and an ALA Notable Book. She is also co-author with Jane Kamensky of the novel, *Blindspot* (Spiegel and Grau, 2008). Photo courtesy of Nina Subin.

Huston Smith, Ph.D., has spent his career attempting to distill the essence of wisdom from the world's religious traditions. He is visiting professor at U. C. Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union and a former professor at Syracuse, Washington University and M.I.T. His book *The Religions of Man* has sold over 1.5 million copies and has recently been revised and updated as *The World's Religions*.

Diana Eck's academic work has a dual focus, India and America, and in both cases she is interested in the challenges of religious pluralism in a multireligious society. Her work on India includes the books *Banaras*, *City of Light and Darsan*, and *Seeing the Divine Image in India*. Since 1991, she has headed the Pluralism Project, which explores and interprets the religious dimensions of America's new immigration; the growth of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and Zoroastrian communities in the United States; and the new issues of religious pluralism and American civil society. Her book *Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey From Bozeman to Banaras* is in the area of Christian theology and interfaith dialogue. It won the Grawemeyer Book Award in 1995 and a 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2003. She received the National Humanities Award from President Clinton and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1996, the Montana Governor's Humanities Award in 2003, and the Melcher Lifetime Achievement Award from the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2003. In 2005 and 2006 she served as president of the American Academy of Religion. Diana Eck has worked closely with churches on issues of interreligious relations, including her own United Methodist Church and the World Council of Churches. She is currently chair of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches.

Jeb Sharp has been reporting for *The World* since 1998. Her assignments have taken her to Africa, Europe and the Middle East. She covers foreign policy and human rights and is currently working on a historical series about how wars end. Her radio stories have been honored by the Overseas Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists. Jeb was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 2006. She learned how to do radio at the Graduate School of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley and began her career at KCAW-FM in Sitka, Alaska. She has also worked at WBUR in Boston.

Jefferson W. Tester received a Ph.D. from MIT in 1971 and did post-doctoral research at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Tester served as director of MIT's Energy Laboratory for 12 years and was director of MIT's School of Chemical Engineering Practice Program for 10 years. His research focuses on energy and environmental issues. Specific topics include kinetics and phase equilibria in hydrothermal and supercritical water, molecular thermodynamics in water-hydrocarbon-salt systems, chemical synthesis in supercritical solvents, advanced rock drilling methods, and fuel upgrading and biomass conversion. He has co-authored more than 180 scientific papers and 9 books including major textbooks on graduate-level thermodynamics and sustainable energy and has received five awards for outstanding teaching. Tester is a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Chemical Society, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, and the Geothermal Resources Council. He has served as an advisor to the United States Department of Energy, Defense Science Board, and the National Research Council. He is the chair of the National Advisory Council of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and chair of the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust. Tester also serves on scientific advisory boards for the American Council on Renewable Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. He is on the editorial board of *the Journal of Supercritical Fluids*.