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Alisa Solomon teaches at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where she directs the MA concentration in Arts and Culture. A long-time dramaturg, theater critic, and political and cultural journalist, she has written, among other places, for the Nation, New York Times, GuardianAmerica.com, WNYC radio, the Forward, American Theater, nextbook.org, killingthebuddha.com, and the Village Voice, where she was on the staff for 21 years, covering such subjects as theater, immigration policy, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, electoral politics, and women's sports. She is a contributor to the weekly WBAI radio program, Beyond the Pale: Jewish Culture and Politics and she is the author of Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theater and Gender, winner of the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and co-editor (with Tony Kushner) of Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. As a dramaturg, Alisa's most recent project was working with Anna Deavere Smith on Let Me Down Easy.

Anna Deavere Smith is an actress and playwright who is said to have created a new form of theater. She has won numerous awards, among them two Obies, two Tony nominations, a Drama Desk Award, the Susan V. Berresford Fellowship from United States Artists, and a MacArthur fellowship. She was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for her play Fires in the Mirror. Her work, in a series called "On The Road: A Search for American Character," combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through performance. She currently plays hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus, a series regular, on Showtime's hit series Nurse Jackie. Additional screen credits include The West Wing, The American President, Rachel Getting Married, Life Support, and others. Honorary degrees include those from Juilliard, John Jay College of Criminal Justice at CUNY, Northwestern, Haverford, and Radcliffe. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also been the inaugural artist in residence at the Ford Foundation, MTV Networks, and the Aspen Institute. She is a professor at New York University. She is founding director of Anna Deavere Smith Works, Inc., a center that convenes artists whose work addresses the world's most pressing problems.

Bobby Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege. He served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include two books under contract with Oxford University Press, one concerning the evolution of detention law and policy and the other examining the judicial role in national security affairs.

David M. Rubenstein is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. Mr. Rubenstein co-founded the firm in 1987. Since then, Carlyle has grown into a firm managing more than $90 billion from 19 offices around the world. Mr. Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, is a 1970 magna cum laude graduate of Duke, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa. He is the Chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, a Regent of the Smithsonian Institution and on the Board of Directors or Trustees of Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Chicago, the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins Medicine, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution, the Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Asia Society, the American Academy in Berlin, American Council on Germany, and Ford’s Theatre. Mr. Rubenstein is President of the Economic Club of Washington and is also a member of The Business Council, Visiting Committee of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Dean’s Council at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, the Advisory Board of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution, Advisory Board of School of Economics and Management Tsinghua University, the Trustees’ Council of the National Gallery of Art, the Madison Council of the Library of Congress, the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum, the Council of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Harvard Business School's Board of Dean’s Advisors.

Monika Griefahn is a German politician of the SPD (since 1992) from Mülheim. Since 1998 she has been a member of the German Bundestag. Griefahn co-founded Greenpeace Germany in 1980, leading its Hamburg office for ten years. From 1984 through 1990 she was a member of the board of directors of Greenpeace International. She studied math and social sciences in Göttingen and Hamburg and graduated with a diploma in 1979. She is married to chemist Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart and has three children.

Brooks Rainwater is the American Institute of Architecture's director of Local Relations. As director, Brooks is responsible for advancing the Institute's and the architecture profession's goals at the local level by promoting the AIA's public policies and empowering local components to effectively manage their legislative, regulatory, and legal efforts. Previously Brooks worked as a research associate for the Artemis Group LLC. Prior to that, he interned with the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance in the area of rural development policy. Brooks earned the Bachelor's degree in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also holds a Master's of Public Administration degree from the George Washington University.

Knut Panknin joined the FES as a Program Officer in June 2004. He received his M.A. in Political Science - focusing on U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Linguistics, and Philosophy from the Georg August University in Göttingen, Germany. Prior to his position at the FES, he worked in a European study program at the Center for European and North American Studies at the University of Göttingen.

Jack Matlock is a former U.S. diplomat who held several high ranking positions during his 35 year career with the Foreign Service, including U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 until 1991, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for European and Soviet Affairs on the National Security Council Staff from 1983 until 1986, and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1981 to 1983. Before his appointment to Moscow as Ambassador, Mr. Matlock served three tours at the American Embassy in the Soviet Union, as Vice Consul and Third Secretary (1961-63), Minister Counselor and Deputy Chief of Mission (1974-1978), and Chargé d'Affaires ad interim in 1981. His other Foreign Service assignments were in Vienna, Munich, Accra, Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam, in addition to tours in Washington as Director of Soviet Affairs in the State Department (1971-74) and as Deputy Director of the Foreign Service Institute (1979-80). Before entering the Foreign Service Mr. Matlock was Instructor in Russian Language and Literature at Dartmouth College (1953-56). He is the author of *Reagan and Gorbachev: How the Cold War Ended* (Random House, 2004, paperback edition 2005); *Autopsy on an Empire: The American Ambassador's Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union* (Random House, 1995); and a handbook to the thirteen-volume Russian edition of Stalin's Collected Works (Washington, D.C. 1955, 2nd edition, New York, 1971). Mr. Matlock was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on October 1, 1929, and was educated at Duke University (AB, summa cum laude, 1950) and at Columbia University (MA and Certificate of the Russian Institute, 1952).

Kempton Jenkins is a retired U.S. State department official who was a major figure in Ukrainian, Eastern European, and Russian trade and political affairs. As Deputy Assistant Secretary for East-West Trade, he coordinated U.S.-Soviet trade policy and the delegation that resulted in the first U.S. China trade agreement. As Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Congressional Relations, he worked with the U.S. Congress on important trade bills and on ratification of the Panama Canal Treaties. Earlier in his career, Mr. Jenkins served as Assistant Director of the U.S. Information Agency for Soviet and Eastern European Affairs; Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Caracas; and political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, where he assisted Ambassador Lewellyn Thompson in Berlin negotiations with the Soviets. From 1980-1990, Mr. Jenkins took his extensive government experience to the private sector, where he became the Corporate Vice President for international government affairs of the integrated steel manufacturing company Armco. From 1990-2002, he was senior consultant to APCO Worldwide. Mr. Jenkins also served as an adjunct professor on East-West Trade at Georgetown University. He received his undergraduate degree in history from Bowling Green University, a Master’s in International Law from George Washington University, and a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, and was awarded an honorary Ph.D. in Public Affairs by Bowling Green University. Mr. Jenkins speaks German, Russian, and Spanish.

Rachel Goslins is a documentary director/producer and arts administrator. Her feature films include *'Bama Girl*, an award-winning documentary following a black woman running for Homecoming Queen at the University of Alabama, and *Besa: The Promise*, a film about Albanian Muslims who saved Jews during World War II. She has worked on productions for National Geographic, Discovery, PBS, A&E and the History Channel, as well as serving as the Programming Director for the Impact Film Festival, and as the Director of the Independent Digital Distribution Lab, a joint PBS/ITVS project focused on distributing independent films online. Prior to her film career, Goslins was an international copyright attorney in the office of Policy and International Affairs in the U.S. Copyright Office and for the law firm of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.

Kristina Hasenpflug is a curator of photographic competitions at the Wüstenrot Foundation in Ludwigsburg, Germany. The Foundation is active in many areas of German cultural life, especially in the arts and humanities, education, and historic preservation.

Rachel Wiederhoeft is the treasurer for Join the Impact Massachusetts, a grassroots organization in Boston fighting for full federal equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning or Queer citizens. She has been interested in activism and education since organizing with her high school Gay/Straight Alliance in Madison, WI.