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Providing home enthusiasts nationwide with award-winning programming, Russell Morash has been called the father of "how-to" and "know-how" television. As the founder of *This Old House* in 1979, he introduced the premier home improvement television series to America and continues to inspire a legion of homeowners who never knew they could do it themselves. Prior to tackling home renovation, in 1963 Russ teamed up with a budding cookbook author with an unmistakable accent and a marvelous sense of humor to create *The French Chef* with Julia Child. For the next 30 years Russ and Julia created a number of cooking classics for television, which continue to represent the gold standard of that genre. While Russ stepped down as executive producer and director of *This Old House* and its addition *Ask This Old House* in 2004, he was not content to retire completely from television. Today he still serves as executive producer and director of *The New Yankee Workshop*, now in its 18th season, which features the craftsmanship of host Norm Abram. Russ, whose forebears were carpenters and shipwrights, conceived the idea of *This Old House* in 1976 while remodeling his own home. The first 13-week *This Old House* series, featuring the renovation of a Victorian home in the Dorchester area of Boston, set a new ratings record for WGBH when it was broadcast locally in 1979. The series aired nationally on PBS the following season and quickly became a perennial favorite.

Gabriel Camacho was born and raised in the South Bronx. His parents emigrated from Latin America during turbulent political times. Gabriel was both a union and student activists during his years at State University of NY at Albany. He has his masters in Labor Relations from Cornell University. In the 1990s Gabriel worked for SEIU as a business agent, and later for HERE as an organizer. In 1999 he founded the Massachusetts Chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (an AFL-CIO constituency group). Gabriel is currently the Chair of Eastern Massachusetts Jobs With Justice. He is also on the Board of Directors of U.S. Labor Education of the Americas Project, and United for a Fair Economy. Gabriel works as Regional Organizer of Project Voice, an immigrant rights program for the New England office of the AFSC where he is also an active member of UNITE HERE Local 66L. Complementing Gabriel's work, he serves as the President of the Junta Directiva of Centro Presente, a Central American immigrant community organization.

Anjali Waikar works with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts in Boston. The civil liberties work of the ACLU of Massachusetts ranges from traditional issues of free speech and association, to broader topics of the death penalty, juvenile justice, immigrant rights, racial justice and opposition to profiling, religious freedom, privacy and a woman's right to choose. Anjali's project addresses the effect and patterns of racial profiling used by local and federal law enforcement. Working with the ACLU of Massachusetts, her project places post-9/11 profiling within a human rights framework. Anjali will integrate four components human rights documentation, community organizing and education, policy initiatives and litigation strategies in an effort to help secure the civil rights and liberties of Massachusetts residents. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Anjali served as a legal advocate for low-income, HIV-infected individuals at South Brooklyn Legal Services. She also worked with a community development organization in Guatemala to set up HIV testing for indigenous communities located in the eastern rainforest of the country. After graduating law school, Anjali joined the ACLU of Massachusetts as a Racial Justice Fellow, focusing on the disproportionate impact that certain policies and practices in the juvenile justice system have on youth and youth of color.

Actor, playwright, and teacher, Kate Carney has been captivating listeners from Galway to Chicago with her historical theater pieces. As a storyteller, she's shared stories with children throughout the Northeast since 1993. When it comes to stirring an audience, she's a leading expert. She leads Teacher Trainings and interactive workshops for adults and kids.

Edward Davis is the commissioner of the Boston Police Department.

Gwynn Hughes is the Director of the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership, a public-private partnership dedicated to improving resources and quality for after school programming in the Commonwealth. Prior to heading the Partnership, Ms. Hughes served in the Secretariat of Health and Human Services for Massachusetts, overseeing multi-agency projects to benefit low-income children and families. Ms. Hughes has served in state government in a variety of capacities, including serving as Chief Operating Officer for the former child care agency, the Office of Child Care Services. Ms. Hughes holds a J.D. from Northeastern University, and a masters in music from the University of Virginia. [Source: http://www.pearweb.org/conferences/pear/fourth/panels.html]

Chris Pyle is a teacher, scholar, and political activist whose interests range across history, law, and politics, with an emphasis on civil liberties. Pyle has taught intelligence agents in the army, policemen at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, undergraduates at University College in Dublin, law students at Harvard, and graduate students at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has chaired Mount Holyoke's Department of Politics and the College's programs in complex organizations and American studies. In 2007, he received the College's distinguished teaching award.

Richard Hoffman is author of Half the House: a Memoir, and the poetry collections, Without Paradise and Gold Star Road, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. His work, both verse and prose, has appeared in Agni, Ascent, Harvard Review, Hudson Review,Poetry, Witness and other magazines. He has been awarded several fellowships and prizes, most recently a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in fiction, and The Literary Review's Charles Angoff Prize for the essay. He is currently Writer-in-Resident at Emerson College.

Carole Horne headed the Harvard Book Store buying department from 1978 until July 2007, when she became the General Manager. A booklover since her childhood in Texas, after moving to Boston she went on to get her M.A. in English Literature. She has been active in the bookselling community, having served with the New England Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the Independent Booksellers Consortium. A frequent speaker at regional and national conventions, she has also been on the faculty of ABA Booksellers School since 1988, teaching in the U.S. and in Central Europe. [Source: http://www.harvard.com/events/press\_release.php?id=2426]

Mark Pawlak is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Official Versions in 2006. The Buffalo Sequence, his first full collection of poems was strongly influenced by the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Cesar Vallejo, and the autobiographical writings of Maxim Gorky.

Linda McCarriston has been teaching at the CWLA Department at the University of Alaska Anchorage since 1994. Although a native of Lynn, MA, McCarriston holds dual Irish/U.S.A. citizenship. She has taught at Vermont College, Goddard College and George Washington University and has been a Poetry Fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. McCarriston is the author of three highly acclaimed collections: *Talking Soft Dutch*, an AWP Award Series Selection, *Eva-Mary*, winner of the 1991 Terrence Des Pres Prize, and her most recent collection, *Little River*. McCarriston is featured in Bill Moyers' *The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets*, Linda Hogan's *Intimate Nature* and Robert McDowell's *Cowboy Poetry Matters*.