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Byron Hurt is an award winning documentary filmmaker, a published writer, and an anti sexism activist. His most recent documentary, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. It was later broadcast nationally on the Emmy award winning PBS series Independent Lens, drawing an audience of more than 1.3 million viewers. As an activist, Byron has served as a long-time gender violence prevention educator. The former Northeastern University football quarterback was also a founding member of the Mentors in Violence Prevention program, the leading college based rape and domestic violence prevention initiative for college and professional athletics. Hurt is also the former Associate Director of the first gender violence prevention program in the US Marine Corps.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Frances Shrand had lived on three continents, finally settling back in the United States in the Boston area. Her acting career started when she won a performance award as a 13-year-old in Cape Town, South Africa. Graduating from the University of Cape Town, she was heralded as a rising star, and her career included working with stage actors including Susan Sontag, Robert Brustein, Peter Sellars and Toby Armour. She was best known as Frances Shrand of The Spider's Web, the WGBH radio show for which she won two Armstrong Awards. Whether riding bareback on a bull in a WGBH television show about strong and remarkable American women or her performances of a Pinter character, she portrayed dozens of the greatest literary characters in theater. In addition, she became well known for her readings of Sufi tales and was a renowned teacher of elocution to lawyers in the Boston area. She also started an etiquette course at the Parker House Hotel to teach children manners needed for polite conversation at a fancy restaurant.

Bob Lyons oversees web and streaming services for WGBH's radio, television, and cable outlets, in addition to satellite radio initiatives and national radio projects. His recent projects include launching public broadcasting's first podcasts (October 2004), and the creation of the WGBH Forum Network. He is currently developing blogs and podcasts for WGBH, working on meta-data standards for public radio's digital broadcast service, and serving on a national consortium of public broadcasters to develope new platforms for downloadable distribution on public radio and television content. Lyons also teaches music production for radio and the web at Northeastern University. His background includes award-winning radio work as a producer and executive producer. He was co-creator and executive producer of NPR's word-quiz radio show *Says You* and developed national radio companions for several PBS series including *Martin Scorsese presents The Blues*, *Africans in America*, and *Rock and Roll*, along with numerous music specials for NPR, PRI, and Warner Reprise.

Marita Rivero oversees the programming, marketing, and administration of WGBH's TV and radio stations and Web site. On the radio side, this includes WGBH 89.7 in Boston; WGBH's Cape and Islands NPR(R) station WCAI; and All-Classical WGBH. WGBH's television services include WGBH 2 and 44, WGBH World, WGBH Create, 'GBH Kids, WGBH HD, WGBH On Demand, and Boston Kids & Family TV. Rivero also oversees WGBH's national radio production activity; its local television production unit, Boston Media Productions; and its Web site, wgbh.org. Rivero was named manager of WGBH Radio in 1988. Award-winning radio productions developed under her leadership include the daily global news program *The World*, *the Marketplace Health Desk*, *Sound & Spirit*, and the international music service *Art of the States*. She also served as Executive-in-Charge of WGBH's Peabody Award-winning multimedia project *Africans in America*. Rivero has developed wgbh.org's WGBH Forum Network; WGBH's podcasting efforts and satellite radio services; and a substantial community partnership program with media, arts, and education partners. Rivero began her broadcast career at WGBH in 1970 as a producer of public affairs television, including *Say Brother*, one of the nation's oldest weekly series by, for, and about African Americans. She served as general manager of WPFW, Washington, DC's Pacifica radio station, from 1981 to 1988. Rivero has been honored with several awards for her achievements, among them, a 2007 Pinnacle Award from the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, for Achievement in Arts & Education; the first Image Award for Vision and Excellence from Women in Film and Video/New England; and induction into the YWCA's Academy of Women Achievers. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for NPR.