Forum Network

Johnny Miller is a photographer, journalist, and founder of africanDRONE – a pan-African organization of drone operators. He is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and has networks and knowledge of contemporary African and world issues, specifically inequality, urbanization, tech, and art. He has received worldwide acclaim for his project “Unequal Scenes”, an exploration of inequality around the world using a drone. africanDRONE produces content for major international news organizations, develops new and socially aware storytelling methodologies, supports drone mapping and survey operations, and hosts educational drone camps across the continent. africanDRONE recently co-organized the Lake Victoria Challenge with the World Bank, a drone delivery competition in Tanzania. Johnny is an Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the London School of Economics and a News Fellow at Code For Africa. Image: [LinkedIn](https://za.linkedin.com/in/johnny-miller-a50aab15 "LinkedIn")

Kaitlyn Greenidge is the author of We Love You, Charlie Freeman (Algonquin Books), one of the New York Times Critics' Top 10 Books of 2016. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Glamour, Elle.com, Buzzfeed, Transition Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, American Short Fiction and other places. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute and other places. She is a contributing editor for LENNY Letter and a contributing writer to the New York Times. Image: Twitter

Kirsten is currently artist in residence at Company One Theatre in Boston with support from the Mellon Foundation’s National Playwright Residency Program administered in partnership with HowlRound, where she co directs Company One’s playwriting program, Playlab. She is the author of BALTIMORE (New Repertory Boston Center for American Performance at Boston University, University of Maryland, University of Iowa), a commission from the Big Ten Consortium at the University of Iowa, BUD NOT BUDDY, an adaptation of the children’s novel by Christopher Paul Curtis, with music by Terance Blanchard (Kennedy Center), THE LUCK OF THE IRISH (Huntington Theatre Company and LCT3), and MILK LIKE SUGAR (La Jolla Playhouse and Playwrights Horizons), which was nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award and received an Independent Reviewers of New England Award, a San Diego Critics Award, and a Village Voice Obie Award, among others. Other plays include LITTLE ROW BOAT: OR, CONJECTURE (commissioned by Yale Rep), BOSSA NOVA (Yale Rep) and SANS-CULOTTES IN THE PROMISED LAND (Humana Festival/Actor’s Theatre of Louisville). She’s enjoyed development experiences at the Family Residency at the Space at Ryder Farm, the Huntington’s Summer Play Festival, Cleveland Playhouse as the 2016 Roe Green New Play Award recipient for LITTLE ROW BOAT, The Goodman, Denver Center, Sundance, Bay Area Playwright’s Festival, Sundance at Ucross, the O’Neill and San Francisco Playhouse’s Sandbox Series with ZENITH. Kirsten is currently working on commissions from the Huntington (COMMON GROUND with Melia Bensussen and MOIRA SPINS), Company One (FOR THE GREATER GOOD), La Jolla Playhouse (TO THE QUICK), Oregon Shakespeare American Revolutions Project (ROLL, BELINDA, ROLL), and Playwrights Horizons (BEACON). She is an alum of New Dramatists, and has proudly graced the Kilroys list of New Plays by women and women identified playwrights several years running. She attended the Playwright’s Workshop at the University of Iowa and Wesleyan University. Image: [Boston University](http://www.bu.edu/cfa/profile/kirsten-greenidge/)

Matthew Bell is a reporter for PRI’s The World. He is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Andrew Myers is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Northeastern University and a registered professional engineer in the state of California. He and his colleagues at NEU are involved with an international project that will advance the engineering of wind turbines for ocean wind farms.

John Cameron Urschel is a Canadian-American mathematician and retired professional American football guard and center. He played college football at Penn State and was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fifth round of the 2014 NFL Draft.

Peter Airasian is the owner of Patriot Chimney in Watertown, MA and the founder of the group Watertown Overcoming Addiction, which aims to raise awareness about addiction, erase the stigma associated with addiction, and put a face and a voice to addiction and recovery in the area.

Lily is a native of Boston's Chinatown and Quincy, Massachusetts. Her commitment to social justice was formed early, as a child of immigrant parents and low-wage workers in the local restaurant, hotel, and health care industries. She studied Political Geography at Vassar College and spent two years abroad at the US-Mexico borderland where she deepened her passion for migrant justice. For three years, Lily was a volunteer organizer with the Student Immigrant Movement (SIM), recruiting and developing immigrant youth leaders across the state. In the summers of 2010 and 2011, Lily led two-week vigils in front of the MA State House against proposed anti-immigrant amendments. She also built a coalition of more than 40 community organizations for the DREAM Act. Lily joined Mass JwJ as an Organizer in 2012. She helped the organization expand its geographic reach and develop educators, parents, and students into movement leaders. When Holyoke schools were being taken over by the state, Lily trained public high school students in organizing skills and political education in order to take action. Along with educators of color and immigrant parents and students, Lily led a winning campaign to implement bilingual education in Spanish and Portuguese for newcomers in Framingham's Fuller Middle School. In 2016, Lily played a key role in the "No on Question 2" victory to stop the charter school industry's privatization agenda in Massachusetts. Lily is on the Massachusetts Education Justice Alliance (MEJA) steering committee. She has deep organizing experience in the cities of Boston, Framingham, New Bedford, Fall River, Taunton, Worcester, and Fitchburg. Lily speaks Spanish, Toisanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Image: [Massachusetts Jobs with Justice](http://www.massjwj.net/about/our-staff)

D. Farai Williams, Founder & Facilitator with, Dynamizing Equity (dEQ) & Idjeli Theater Works (ITW), is an artist, theater of the oppressed facilitator, racial equity strategist and cultural organizer. “I use theater and culture-based tools, as a method of personal and social inquiry; to synergies the head, heart & body for radical healing. By acting and dramatizing personal stories, our reflective minds begin to shape stronger ideas against racial oppression and inequity [particularly the racial oppression we have internalized]”. The result-invigoration to rebuild healthy, equitable communities. Farai holds a master’s of fine arts degree from the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University and Moscow Theater Arts School. Farai currently serves as a, partner and racial equity strategist with The Disruptive Equity Education Project (DEEP). She is also the Core-Coordinator for the Network of Immigrants and African Americans building Solidarity and a faculty member with Southern Jamaica Plains’, Racial Reconciliation and Healing Project. Image: [Dynamizing Equity](http://www.dynamizingequity.com)

Lawrence is a communications strategist, connector, and systems thinker. He loves quotes, facilitating groups and processes, baking bread, feeding his worms, and cooking/eating good food with good friends. His current work includes communications and narrative strategy at the Community Innovators Lab at MIT and running a productivity coaching practice. His previous work includes food systems & food justice research and consulting, web design, and graphic design. He plays a lot of volleyball, keeps busy with a million side projects, writes daily, and has a weekly newsletter. He has an undergraduate and graduate degree, both in City Planning, from MIT. Image: Instagram / [@lqb2](http://www.instagram.com/lqb2/?hl=en)

Muhammad Ali is a Ph.D. student at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences. His research revolves around the novel area of algorithmic auditing — where he measures how large-scale data-driven algorithms could be exhibiting biased or discriminatory behavior against certain demographic groups. He works to measure, as well as find ways to curtail such behavior. He has a MS in computer science from Saarland University, and experience working at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems in Germany. When not working, he likes to nerd over indie video games and South Asian food. He’s on Twitter as @lukshmichowk.

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is assistant professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley.