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Arline Isaacson is co-chair of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. She is a political and legislative strategist with high success rate. Lobbyist with extensive marketing, public relations and media expertise. Advocacy and organizing background with emphasis on message development. Isaacson has worked with African leaders and International Ethical Leadership program. Extensive experience with labor, environmental and energy issues. Lead strategist on legislative issues for GLBT community in MA.

The 2008-09 season marks the second year at MIT for Holly Metcalf. She returned to the collegiate ranks last year after establishing several successful non-profit organizations. Metcalf was a six-time member of the U.S. National Team and won five World Championship and Olympic medals. At the 1984 Olympics she captured the Gold medal in the women's eight. She has coached extensively at the club, college, and national team levels, including stints at Radcliffe College and Mount Holyoke College. Metcalf also coached the Silver-medal winning crew at the 1990 World Championships. More recently, Metcalf used rowing to enrich the lives of hundreds of women and girls through a variety of non-profit programs. In 1994, she founded the Row As One Institute, which provides masters women with top-level coaching. Metcalf was among the first to take older women seriously as rowing athletes and provided the support they needed to reach their athletic potential. She extended this concept to inner-city girls in 1996 with her G-ROW program in Watertown, Massachusetts. Six years later Metcalf established WeCanRow, a wellness and rehabilitation organization for female cancer survivors. Due to its success, it has recently evolved into WeCanRow National, which will assist the development of similar programs throughout the country.

Nikki Giovanni is a world renowned poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. Over the past 30 years, Giovanni's outspokenness, in her writing and in lectures, has brought much attention. She is committed to the fight for civil rights and equality and has maintained a prominent place as a strong voice of the Black community.

Iris Chang is one of the nation's leading young historians. Her many accolades include the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and International Cooperation Award, the Woman of the Year award from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and two honorary doctorates (from the College of Wooster in Ohio, and California State University at Hayward). Chang has written for numerous publications, such as The New York Times, Newsweek and The Los Angeles Times, and has been featured by countless radio, television and print media, including Nightline, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, Charlie Rose, Good Morning America, C-Span's Booknotes, and the front cover of Reader's Digest. Chang also lectures frequently before business, university and other groups interested in human rights, World War II history, Cold War history, the Asian-American experience, Sino-American relations, and the future of American civil liberties. She worked briefly as a reporter for The Associated Press and The Chicago Tribune before completing a graduate degree in writing from the Johns Hopkins University and launching her career as a full-time author and lecturer.

Ambassador Han is a graduate (1979) of the Economic Faculty of Kim Il Sung University and he began his career with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1980-1992). From 1993 through 1997, he was minister counselor of the DPRK UN Mission. Then, he became deputy director general of American Affairs Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998-2002). Since 2003, he has been ambassador and deputy permanent representative of DPRK UN Mission.

Aleksandr Ilitchev received an MA in International Relations and Journalism from the Moscow State Institute for International Relations in 1974.He wasa career diplomat, with the United Nations Secretariat since 1992. The areas of responsibility include Northeast Asia, as well as the ASEAN Regional Forum and regional security issues. Aleksandr accompanied the current Secretary-General and his predecessor on many trips to Asia, and was advisor to the Personal Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Korean Peninsula (2003-2005). Prior to joining the United Nations, he served continuously in the Russian Foreign Ministry from 1974 with the assignments at the Permanent Mission to the United Nations (Alternate Representative to the Security Council and Senior Counsellor) (1990-1992); Personal Assistant to Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze (1986-90); USA Department of the Foreign Ministry (global and regional security issues) (1985-86); Embassy in Washington, DC (1979-1985) and the US Department of the Foreign Ministry (1978-1979), as well as in Syria (1974-77).

Donald P. Gregg is chairman of the Board of The Korea Society in New York City. Following graduation from Williams College in 1951, he joined the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and over the next quarter century was assigned to Japan, Burma, Vietnam and Korea. Gregg was seconded to the National Security Council staff in 1979, where he was in charge of intelligence activities and Asian policy affairs. In 1982, he was asked by the then Vice President George H. W. Bush to become his national security advisor. He then retired from the CIA, and was awarded its highest decoration, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. During his six years with Vice President Bush, Gregg traveled to 65 countries, and also was a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University, where he taught a graduate level workshop entitled Force and Diplomacy. From September 1989, Gregg served as ambassador to Korea. Prior to his departure from Korea in 1993, Mr. Gregg received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, an honorary degree from Sogang University, and a decoration from the Prime Minister of Korea.

Jeffrey Ravel studies the history of French and European political culture from the mid 17th through the mid 19th centuries. He is the author of The Would Be Commoner: A Tale of Deception, Murder, and Justice in Seventeenth Century France in 2008, and The Contested Parterre: Public Theater and French Political Culture, 1680-1791 in 1999. He was Editor for volumes 35 and 36 of Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, an annual publication of the American Society for 18th Century Studies.

Jean E. Jackson received her B.A. from Wellesley College in Sociology/Anthropology in 1965, and her M.A. (1966) and Ph.D. (1972) from Stanford University. She began teaching at MIT in the fall of 1972. Her earlier Latin American research interests included small-scale societies, kinship and marriage, gender, and anthropological linguistics. During the past 20 years she has examined indigenous mobilizing in Colombia. She is currently conducting archival research on how Colombia's indigenous communities have been represented in the two national newspapers, 1988-present. She is the author of several books and essays including: *The Fish People: Linguistic Exogamy and Tukanoan Identity in Northwest Amazonia* which was published in 1983. In 2002 she and co-editor Kay B. Warren published *Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation and the State in Latin America*. Recent essays include "Indigenous movements in Latin America, 1992-2004: Controversies, ironies, new directions" co-authored with Kay B. Warren (2005 Annual Review of Anthropology). She has also published various pieces on the Colombian conflict. "Colombia's Indigenous Peoples Confront the Armed Conflict" came out in 2005, as well as "Update on the Colombian Crisis" for the American Anthropological Association Committee for Human Rights.