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Anne Zeiser is an award-winning strategist whose background as a broadcast journalist, marketing executive, and social advocate uniquely positions her as the architect of successful, outcomes-driven media campaigns. Before founding Azure Media to provide strategy to media companies, Anne was Executive Director of Marketing, Publicity & Media Platforms/Director of National Strategic Marketing at PBS/WGBH where she oversaw strategy, marketing and publicity, impact campaigns and affiliate relations for PBS icons including *Masterpiece Theatre*, *Mystery!*, *NOVA*, *American Experience*, *FRONTLINE*, *Antiques Roadshow*, *This Old House*, *Arthur*, *Curious George*, *Zoom*, and *Design Squad*, as well as numerous groundbreaking multi-media special projects. Zeiser began her career in government. Her work in journalism, marketing communications, and public affairs has received top industry honors and she is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and a Board Member of the Filmmakers Collaborative.

Bryan Windmiller, holds a PhD in biology and a Master's degree in Environmental Policy, both from Tufts University. He has worked as a consulting wildlife ecologist since 1987. Bryan's research interests include: assessing the impacts of residential construction on vernal pool amphibian populations, the conservation of Blanding's turtles in Concord, Massachusetts, and the ecology of amphibian populations exposed to the emerging fungal disease, chytridiomycosis.

Gina B. Nahai is a best-selling author, and a professor of Creative Writing at USC. Her novels have been translated into 18 languages, and have been selected as One of the Best Books of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. They have been finalists for the Orange Award, the IMPAC Award, and the Harold J. Ribalow Award. She is the winner of the Los Angeles Arts Council Award, the Persian Heritage Foundation's Award, the Simon Rockower Award, and the Phi Kappa Phi Award. Her writings have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Magazine, and Huffington Post. She writes a monthly column for the The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, for which she has been twice a finalist for an L.A. Press Club award. Nahai's first novel, Cry of the Peacock (Crown, 1992) told, for the first time in any Western language, the 3,000-year story of the Jewish people of Iran. It won the Los Angeles Arts Council Award for Fiction. Her second novel, Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (Harcourt, 1999), was a finalist for the Orange Prize in England, the IMPAC award in Dublin, and the Harold J. Ribalow Award in the United States. A #1 L.A. Times bestseller, it was named as One of the Best Books of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. Her third novel, Sunday's Silence (Harcourt, 2001), was also an L.A. Times bestseller and a Best Book of the Year. Her fourth novel, Caspian Rain was published in September 07, was also an L.A. Times bestseller, was named One of the Best Books of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, and won the Persian Heritage Foundation's Award. Nahai is a frequent lecturer on the contemporary politics of the Middle East, has been a guest on PBS, CNBC, as well as a number of local television and radio news programs, and has guest-hosted on NPR affiliate KCRW (The Politics of Culture). A judge for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards (Fiction, First Fiction), she has lectured at a number of conferences nationwide, and served on the boards of PEN Center USA West, The International Women's Media Foundation, and B'nai Zion Western Region. Nahai holds a BA and a Master's degree in International Relations from UCLA, and an MFA in Creative Writing from USC. She lives in Los Angeles, where she's at work on a new novel.

Grover J. (Russ) Whitehurst was appointed by President George W. Bush to a six-year term as the first Director of the Institute of Education Sciences. As director, Whitehurst administers the Institute, including the activities of the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance and the National Center for Education Research. He coordinates the work of the Institute with related activities carried out by other agencies within the Department and the federal government. He advises the secretary on research, evaluation and statistics relevant to the work of the Department. During his career as a researcher, Whitehurst was the author or editor of five books and published more than 100 scholarly papers on language and pre-reading development in children. Throughout his academic career, his research focused on the development of knowledge and programs that might have a direct influence on the lives of children and families. Those goals continue in his role as Institute director. Whitehurst was born and reared in Washington, North Carolina. He was educated in the public schools of Washington, received his undergraduate degree at East Carolina University, and obtained a Ph.D. in experimental child psychology in 1970 from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is married with two children.

Kent McGuire is the dean of the College of Education at Temple University. He also serves as director of the Center for Research in Human Development and Education, a university-based research organization focused on the study and demonstration of effective strategies for educating poor and minority children. Dr. McGuire is a tenured professor in the Educational Administration Program, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Temple University. Prior to joining Temple University, Dr. McGuire was senior vice president at MDRC, where his responsibilities included leadership of the education, children, and youth division. From 1998 to 2001, Dr. McGuire served in the Clinton administration as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, where he was the senior officer for the department's research and development agency. As the education program officer for the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts from 1995 to 1998, he managed Pew's K-12 grants portfolio. From 1991 to 1995, Dr. McGuire served as education program director for the Eli Lilly Endowment. Earlier in Dr. McGuire's career, he was an assistant professor at the University of Colorado in its school of education. Prior to this, Dr. McGuire worked for the Education Commission of the States, where he rose from policy analyst to senior policy analyst and director of the School Finance Collaborative. Dr. McGuire's current research interests focus on the areas of education administration, and policy and organizational change. He has been involved in a number of evaluation research initiatives on comprehensive school reform and education finance and school improvement.

Timothy Shanahan is a Professor of Urban Education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Director of the UIC Center for Literacy. He has served as Director of Reading for the Chicago Public Schools, and is a former first grade teacher. His research focuses on the relationship of reading and writing, the assessment of reading ability, family literacy, and school improvement. He has published more than 100 articles, chapters, and books on these topics. Professor Shanahan is Vice President of the International Reading Association, and is a member of the Board of Advisors for the National Family Literacy Center. He served on the National Reading Panel, a group convened by the National Institute of Child Health and Development at the request of Congress to determine what research says about reading. The report that resulted became the basis of federal education policy (Reading FIRST). He is chair of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children and Youth and the National Early Literacy Panel. He co-developed Project FLAME, a family literacy program for Latino immigrants that received an Academic Excellence Award from the U.S. Department of Education. His research and service efforts have garnered more than $4 million in funding. Dr. Shanahan received his Ph.D. in Education from the University of Delaware in 1980.

Dr. Joseph Marr Cronin has been a professor and dean at Harvard and Lesley Universities and President of Bentley College. He was the first Massachusetts Secretary of Education. Now President of an Education Advisor Services company called Edvisors, Dr. Cronin was president of Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation. He has held numerous other positions in his work as an educator over the last 43 years, including teaching in the Braintree, MA and Palo Alto, CA public schools in the late 1950s, later holding positions as high school principal, university professor, and state superintendent of Education in Illinois. Recently he has taught at Boston University and been Senior Fellow at the New England Board of Higher Education and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Dr. Cronin earned his bachelor's degree at Harvard College, his masters at Harvard University and his Ed.D. at Stanford University. He is the author of *Reforming Boston Schools, 1930-2006: Overcoming Corruption and Racial Segregation*.

Mr. Leroy Johnson, Executive Director, Holmes County, MS, is one of the co-founders of Southern Echo. Mr. Johnson also serves as Chief Financial Officer and principal resource developer for Southern Echo. He is also a founder of the Southeast Regional Economic Justice Network and the Southern Partners Fund, of which he is a past President and current member of the Board. Mr. Johnson served on the Board of New World Foundation and Rural Schools and Community Trust.