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Rita Evelyn Freed is the curator of the department of ancient Egyptian, Nubian and Near Eastern Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, She is a professor in the art department at Wellesley College, from which she graduated. She received a PhD in Near Eastern art and archeology from New York University.

Along with his nonfiction work, John Hanson Mitchell is editor of the award winning magazine, Sanctuary, published by the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He was editor of The Curious Naturalist, and a co-author, with Chris Leahy and Tom Conuel, of the coffee table edition of The Nature of Massachusetts (l998), illustrated by the internationally-recognized Swedish painter Lars Jonsson. In 2001 he won a Vogelstein grant for Following the Sun, He was awarded an honorary PhD from Fitchburg State University for his work on the book Ceremonial Time and was given three different grants for his work on Looking for Mr Gilbert. He is also winner of the John Burroughs Essay Award for his Sanctuary piece, Of Time and the River. In 2000, he was given the New England Booksellers

Composer/clarinetist Evan Ziporyn is a founding member of the Bang on a Can All-stars (Musical America's 2005 Ensemble of the Year), with whom he has toured the globe since 1992. He redefined the clarinet with his 2001 solo CD, *This Is Not A Clarinet*, which made numerous Top Ten lists across America. His music provided the soundtrack for the PBS film *Tail-enders*, and his playing was featured in Tan Dun's soundtrack for the film *Fallen*. He has also recorded with Paul Simon, Matthew Shipp, and Ethel. He received a Fulbright in 1987, and in 1990 began composing an ongoing series of groundbreaking cross-cultural works, combining gamelan with saxophones, guitars, electronics, Chinese and African instruments, and full orchestra. His fusion opera, "Shadow Bang," a collaboration with master Balinese dalang Wayan Wija, was the centerpiece of the 2006 Amsterdam GrachtenFest; his works have also been featured at festivals in London, New York, and the Sydney Olympics. He is Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has two children. He is currently working on a opera based on the life of Colin McPhee, to be premiered in Bali with the All-stars in June 2009.

Jeanne Guillemin is professor of Sociology at Boston College and a senior fellow at the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Walter Richard West, Jr. was the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, retiring in 2007. He is also a citizen of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma and a Peace Chief of the Southern Cheyenne. His professional life has been devoted to serving the American Indian community on cultural, artistic, educational, legal and governmental issues. Richard West earned a bachelor of arts degree in American History, graduating magna cum laude in 1965 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Redlands in California. He also received a master's degree in American History from Harvard University in 1968. West graduated from the Stanford University School of Law with a doctor of jurisprudence degree in 1971, where he also was the recipient of the Hilmer Oehlmann Jr. Prize for excellence in legal writing and served as an editor and note editor of the *Stanford Law Review*.

Michael Hintlian is a full time documentary photographer based in Boston. His work has appeared in major US dailies and periodicals internationally. Self taught as a photographer, he studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. In 1996 he was distinguished as a Traveling Scholar from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and was a visiting artist at the Museum School for the following academic year. His work has been widely exhibited and is in the collections of museums and galleries worldwide. Currently he is working on long term documentaries in former Soviet Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh and in Africa. His documentary project on the Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston (the Big Dig) was published by Commonwealth Editions in 2004. He currently directs the Documentary Photography department at the New England School of Photography and is a Graduate Mentor at the Art Institute of Boston.

Lesaux leads a research program that focuses on the reading development and difficulties of children from linguistically diverse backgrounds; her developmental and instructional research has implications for practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers. Lesaux's current research includes a longitudinal study of Spanish-speakers' English reading comprehension and a study evaluating the effects of academic language instruction in urban middle school classrooms with large numbers of struggling readers. Previous research includes a study investigating language-minority learners' reading development from kindergarten through fourth grade and an interdisciplinary study that examines the interaction among kindergartners health and well-being, social competence, socioeconomic status, and language and cognitive processing skills known to be critical for reading development. Lesaux's program of research is supported by research grants from several organizations, including National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, William T. Grant Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation. From 2004-2006, Lesaux was Senior Research Associate of the National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Youth and contributing author to three chapters in that national report.