Forum Network

Larissa Brown PhD, AICP provides leadership and management for public and private clients in a broad range of communities, including city comprehensive and strategic plans, visioning, neighborhood and downtown revitalization plans, and open space plans. She has served as chief planner for a regional council of governments and as director of community planning for a municipal government. She is also a founding member of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, a statewide smart growth advocacy collaborative.

Peter Smith is the Clerk on the board of Communities Without Borders, was formerly the Co-chair of the Coalition for a Strong United Nations and currently is a member of their board of directors and sits on their executive committee. He is on the Advisory Council of the United Nations Association of Greater Boston and served as a Delegate to the National Summit on Africa in Washington, D.C. Peter has been active with the First Unitarian Society in Newton having served for three years as Co-chair of the Social Action Committee and three years on the Board of Trustees. He is the Massachusetts Bay District Envoy to the Unitarian Universalist United Nations Office. He was active in his neighborhood association and is the Past President and a member of the Board of Directors of the Green Decade Coalition/Newton, a grassroots environmental group. He is the Coordinator of the core group for 20/20 Vision in the Fourth Congressional District in Massachusetts, a national environmental and peace legislative lobbying organization. Smith has also been active with the Architects for Social Responsibility Committee of the Boston Society of Architects. He has attended the United Nations Habitat for Humanity Conference in Istanbul in 1996 representing the Boston Society of Architects. He was active with Beyond War, and served on the Bioregional Council of the Foundation for Global Community and on the Administrative Team for Peace Child Boston.

Derrick Z. Jackson was a 2001 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary. A *Globe* columnist since 1988, he is a two-time winner and three-time finalist for commentary awards from the National Education Writers Association and a 5-time winner and 12-time finalist for political and sports commentary from the National Association of Black Journalists. He was the 2003 recipient of Columbia University's "Let's Do It Better," commentary awards and a 2004 winner for commentary from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Jackson is also a three-time winner of the Sword of Hope commentary award from the New England Division of the American Cancer Society and a five-time winner of Unity journalism awards from Lincoln University in Missouri. Prior to *the Globe*, Jackson also won several awards at *Newsday*, including the 1985 Columbia University Meyer Berger Award for coverage of New York City and the 1979 award for feature writing from the Professional Basketball Writers Association. Jackson, born in 1955, is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a 1976 graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Jackson was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University in 1984. He holds honorary degrees from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Salem State College, the human rights award from Curry College.

Kristina Egan serves as the director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, a new coalition between housing, community development, planning, environment, and transportation interests. Before joining the Alliance, she was the founding director of Odyssey, a statewide transportation choices coalition in California that forged an ongoing alliance between business, labor, community advocates and transit agencies promoting sustainable transportation choices through state policy reform and "on-the-ground" transit service improvements. Kristina also spent three years as an energy policy analyst for the International Institute of Energy Conservation in Thailand where her work resulted in new energy efficiency standards adopted by the Thai government and the formation of an independent international organization to harmonize energy efficiency testing procedures in the Asia Pacific region. Ms. Egan has published in the *Far Eastern Economic Review*, *World Transport Policy and Practice* and the *SAIS Review*. Ms. Egan holds a M.A. in International Economics and International Relations from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a B.A from Wesleyan University.

Roland S. Martin worked as a reporter for black-owned and white-owned newspapers; his voice was heard on radio news programs; he held editorial positions at a major magazine and a high-traffic black-oriented Web site; his syndicated column ran in newspapers nationwide; he was a frequent guest on radio and television talk shows of all political stripes; he ran a multimedia company of his own; and he wrote books. In 2004, Martin took on perhaps his greatest challenge: the revitalization of the *Chicago Defender*. Born around 1969 in Houston, Texas, Martin was inspired to follow a career in journalism by his father, an avid newspaper reader and fan of television news. In 1987 Martin graduated from Houston's Jack Yates High School in a magnet program devoted to communications. He went on to study journalism at Texas A&M University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1991. Martin landed a job at the Austin American-Statesman and started his journalism career at a basic level, covering county government and neighborhood news. In 1992 he covered the Republican National Convention for the paper and was sent to Louisiana to file reports from the area devastated by Hurricane Andrew.

Minister Donald Muhammad is the Local Representative of the Nation of Islam in St. Louis, Missouri. As the Minister of Muhammad Mosque #28, he is responsible for a wide variety of activities both in the Mosque and across the City of St. Louis and surrounding area. Minister Donald has dedicated his life to helping the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan in the important work of the resurrection and upliftment of the Black Man and Woman in America. He is particularly gifted with delivering the Teachings of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad in a manner that is easy to understand and exciting to experience in person. He is the featured speaker at Muhammad Mosques main lecture, every Sunday at 10:00 a.m. Minister Donald has been blessed to be married for more than 30 years, and is the proud father of two daughters who have recently graduated from college.

Linda Mason, chairman and founder, co-founded Bright Horizons in 1986 and served as president until becoming chairman of Bright Horizons Family Solutions in July 1998. Linda Mason is also the author of *The Working Mother's Guide to Life: Strategies, Secrets, and Solutions*, published in November 2002. Mason co-founded Horizons for Homeless Children, a nonprofit organization that serves the needs of homeless mothers and their children throughout the Boston area. Prior to founding Bright Horizons, Linda Mason managed large-scale relief operations overseas. She served as co-director of Save the Children's emergency program in Sudan, serving 400,000 famine and war victims, and directed a large feeding program for children in Cambodian refugee camps along the Thai border. Mason is a 1998 honoree in Redbook's "Mothers and Shakers" awards for her work to improve the quality of child care, and she was the 1996 recipients of the Ernst & Young/USA Today "Entrepreneur of the Year" award. Linda also was honored by *Working Mother magazine* as one of the "25 Most Influential Mothers in America." Linda Mason serves on the boards of Yale University and Horizons for Homeless Children. She is a graduate of the Yale School of Management, Cornell University, and the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

Rev. Dr. White-Hammond has been the co-pastor of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Boston since 1997 and a pediatrician at the South End Community Health Center since 1981. She has a long history of involvement in community service. Rev. Dr. White-Hammond is the founder of and consultant to the church-based creative writing/mentoring ministry called "Do The Write Thing" for high-risk black adolescent females. In 2003, she became the co-convener of The Red Tent Group with Rabbi Elaine Zecher of Temple Israel, which brings together Christian women and Jewish women for small group Torah/Bible study. Rev. Dr. White-Hammond's work as a humanitarian has achieved global impact. She has worked as a medical missionary in several African countries including Botswana, Cote D'Ivoire and South Africa. Since 2001, she has made seven trips into war-torn southern Sudan where she has been involved in obtaining the freedom of 10,000 women and children who were enslaved during the two decades long civil war. In 2002 she co-founded My Sister's Keeper, a humanitarian women's group that partners with women of Sudan in their efforts toward reconciliation and reconstruction of their communities. My Sister's Keeper has developed two grinding mill projects and supports the Akon School for Girls in Gogrial County. In February 2005, Rev. Dr. White-Hammond traveled into Darfur, western Sudan to listen and learn from female victims of genocide in Internally Displaced Persons camps. She served as the National Chairperson of the Million Voices for Darfur campaign and is co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur. She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Boston University, a Doctorate of Medicine from Tufts Medical School and a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School.

Kenneth A. Sweder graduated from New York University School of Law as an Editor of *the Law Review* in 1968. After serving as the Assistant to the President of Brandeis University and Special Counsel of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, he began practicing law in Boston in 1971. Since that time he has had wide experience and success in handling a variety of complex business litigation matters. Ken was the Chairman of the Litigation Department of the Boston office of a major New York firm before Sweder & Ross was established. When Sweder & Ross was founded, the Boston Business Journal did a Profile on Ken describing him as tackling the "City's high-profile cases" as a "business-savvy litigator." Ken was named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Ken's many community activities include his service as the Founding Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur. He was also the President of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Boston and in 2006 was the recipient of the prestigious Community of Excellence Award presented at a dinner of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies attended by over 650 lawyers and accountants.