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Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of _Deaf Republic_ (Graywolf Press) and _Dancing in Odessa_ (Tupelo Press). He has also co-edited and co-translated many other books, including _Ecco Anthology of International Poetry_ (Harper Collins) and _Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva_ (Alice James Books). His awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writer's Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Metcalf Award, Lannan Foundation's Fellowship and the NEA Fellowship. His poems regularly appear in Best American Poetry and Pushcart Prize anthologies. He has also been awarded Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize. _Dancing In Odessa_ was named the Best Book of the Year by Foreword magazine. Recently, he was on the short-list for Neustadt International Literature Prize. His poems have been translated over twenty languages, and his books have been published in many countries including Turkey, Holland, Russia, France, Mexico, Macedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. Kaminsky has worked as a law clerk for San Francisco Legal Aid and the National Immigration Law Center. More recently, he worked pro-bono as the Court Appointed Special Advocate for Orphaned Children in Southern California. Currently, he holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology and lives in Atlanta. Image: [Writer's Site](https://www.ilyakaminsky.com/)

Bruce T. Martin is an American fine art photographer who uses photography to document the world, explore perceptions, and question our viewpoints. After graduating from Syracuse University in 1977, he began working as a Historical Preservation photographer, using photography to help put endangered buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. His photographs are in a number of private and public collections and have been exhibited throughout the U.S. and Central America. Today, along with exhibiting his fine art photography projects, he is an architectural photographer, making photographs for the nation's foremost architects, designers, and publications.

William A Gavin retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after 28 years. He served as Assistant Director of New York, the Bureau’s largest field office. He was also the Assistant Director of the Inspection Division of the FBI in Washington, DC,Special Agent-in-Charge of the FBI Miami,FL and the Denver,CO offices. He has also served as the VP of a major health care HMO, and as VP of a half billion dollar security services provider. His consulting company, The Gavin Group, Inc., for eight years conducted compliance audits of the Catholic Church. Mr. Gavin received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology from Boston College and a Master of Science Degree from Fordham University. He has also attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government for Senior Managers at Harvard University Mr. Gavin received the (US) Presidential Distinguished Rank Award and the (US) Presidential Meritorious Rank Award. He is a member of the National Executive Institute and the American Society of Industrial Security. He appears on CNN, FOX and MSNBC as an analyst for terrorism and other criminal matters.

Mr. Olbert is an IT professional-turned-political & human rights activist who spends his free time researching issues related to China’s oppression in/of East Turkistan, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Southern Mongolia, and Manchuria. His particular areas of interest include repression of Turkic ethnic groups, militarization of Occupied territories in Western China and of the South China Sea, and other issues related to global security.

Walter Johnson is a historian who has been on the Harvard faculty since 2006. Previously, he was at New York University, after earning a Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College (1988) and a Ph.D from Princeton University (1995). Johnson’s books, Soul by Soul (1999) and River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (2013), are the recipients of numerous awards, including the Francis B. Simkins Award from the Southern Historical Association, the John Hope Franklin Prize from the American Studies Association, the SHEAR Book Prize from the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic, and the Frederick Jackson Turner and the Avery O. Craven Prizes from the Organization of American Historians. He is currently writing a book about the central role of St. Louis in the imperialist and racial capitalist history of the United States, from Lewis and Clark to Michael Brown. Professor Johnson is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship; fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the Radcliffe Institute, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; and a Mellon Fellowship in Cultural Studies at Wesleyan University.

Premilla Nadasen is an associate professor of history at Barnard College, Columbia University, and is the author of several books, including the award-winning Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the United States.

Executive Director of South Boston Neighborhood Development Corporation, a non profit developer and manager of affordable housing. SBNDC has created over 200 units of affordable housing in South Boston, including housing for the elderly, families and Veterans. Donna has more than 25 years of experience in the community development field, serving as a project manager at the City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development and President of the board of SBNDC. In addition to her work at South Boston NDC, Donna has volunteered at a variety of non-profits. She served as the Clerk of the South Boston Community Development Foundation, managing the distribution of $400,000 in grants to South Boston charities. She is Treasurer of the South Boston Association of Non Profits and a member of the board of Medicine Wheel Productions. Donna is an avid gardener and became a Certified Master Gardener through the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

Tatiana Schlossberg is a journalist writing about climate change and the environment. She previously reported on those subjects for the Science and Climate sections of the New York Times, where she also worked on the Metro desk. Her work has also appeared in The Atlantic, Bloomberg View, Yale Environment 360, The Record (Bergen County), and the Vineyard Gazette. SHe is the author of _Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have._

Christine Clements is a licensed architect in Massachusetts with more than 15 years of experience in design and construction. She’s done laboratory design work for university clients including Boston University, Vassar, Tufts, and MIT. She then grew into project management for clients including Harvard Law School; international mega projects in healthcare and office buildings; state transportation projects; and the industrial sector. Most recently she’sconcentrated on pro bono work, including historic preservation at the Old North Church, policy engagement with elected representatives, and serving as treasurer on a couple of boards. Since 2016 she’s been a member at Bay State Commons Cohousing and co-chair of their Design Committee. BSC is a group of owner/investors developing their own neighborhood, doing all the work that a traditional developer would do: site search and acquisition, architect and contractor selection, hiring legal and other consultants, member recruitment, pursuing permit approvals, securing bank financing for both land purchase and construction contracts.

Angie Liou has worked in the community development and affordable housing field since 2004. Before assuming the position of Executive Director of Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) in Boston, she served as ACDC’s Director of Real Estate, overseeing the asset management of ACDC’s portfolio of 300+ units, shepherding projects in development, and was responsible for developing a pipeline of new projects. She previously worked as a consultant and project manager in Seattle and Philadelphia assisting nonprofits in creating affordable housing and community spaces. She has served as the project lead on over $150 million worth of projects. Angie received a Master of City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Community Development. She received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

**Vivien Schmidt, Ph.D.** is Jean Monnet Professor of European Integration, Professor of International Relations in the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Professor of Political Science at Boston University, as well as Founding Director of BU’s Center for the Study of Europe. She received her B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and her Masters and PhD from the University of Chicago. Schmidt’s research focuses on European political economy, institutions, democracy, and political theory—in particular on the importance of ideas and discourse in political analysis (discursive institutionalism). Schmidt is a Visiting Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome and at the Copenhagen Business School. She has also been a visiting professor or visiting scholar at the Free University of Berlin, the Free University of Brussels, Sciences Po in Paris, the European University Institute, and Oxford University, among others. She is past head of the European Union Studies Association (EUSA) and sits on a number of advisory boards, including the Wissenschaft Zentrum Berlin, the Vienna Institute for Peace, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (Brussels), and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute. She has published a dozen books, over 200 scholarly journal articles or chapters in books, and numerous policy briefs and comments, most recently on the Eurozone crisis. Her current work, supported by a Guggenheim fellowship, focuses on the ‘rhetoric of discontent,’ through a transatlantic investigation of the populist revolt against globalization and Europeanization.

Rocío Calvo, PhD, is Associate Professor of Global Practice at the Boston College School of Social Work. She is also the Founding Director of the Latinx Leadership Initiative (LLI), and co-leads the Grand Challenge Initiative Achieve Equal Opportunity for All of the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare. Her work focuses on the role of public services on the integration of immigrants and their children. She also studies how socioeconomic and cultural factors optimize or jeopardize the life satisfaction of immigrants throughout their immigration careers.