Forum Network

Yu Yu was born and raised in China and attended Wellesley College for her undergraduate studies. She earned her master’s degree from Boston University and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, with a dissertation focused on paintings from China’s Yuan dynasty. Yu Yu is fluent in Chinese, Japanese and English, and her scholarship on Chinese art has appeared in numerous publications. Yu Yu was selected for the MFA position following an international search. Named director of the USC Pacific Asia Museum in 2014, she led the institution’s transition following a merger with the University of Southern California. In addition to providing a new vision for exhibitions, acquisitions and programs, she spearheaded USC PAM’s first complete inventory and survey of its collection and developed a master plan for a large-scale renovation to transform the museum building from an early 20th-century private residence into a 21st-century public space. Under her tenure, Phase 1, a seismic retrofit, of the master plan, was completed late last year. Yu Yu also led USC PAM’s efforts to advance public programs and broaden local outreach, working to build a bridge between the Pasadena community and students and faculty at USC. Image: [www.twitter.com](https://twitter.com/yuyuchristina?lang=en "Christina Yu Yu")

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. His father's original surname was written Jiang. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Born in 1957, he currently resides and works in Beijing. Image: [commons.wikimedia.org](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ai\_Weiwei "Ai Weiwei")

Part storyteller, part analyst, Dan Carlin looks at subjects from multiple angles, dissects and thinks about them in original ways. He isn’t afraid to go deep or to inject historical context into modern debates. He’ll make you mad too. Carlin has been a professional radio host, and he eventually took his show to the Internet. He hosts three popular, independent podcasts: \_Common Sense, Hardcore History\_, and \_Hardcore History: Addendum.\_

David A. Kaplan is the former legal affairs editor of Newsweek, where he covered the Supreme Court for a decade. His other books include The Silicon Boys (a New York Times bestseller that was translated into six languages), The Accidental President (an account of the 2000 election on which HBO’s Recount was partially based), and Mine’s Bigger (a biography of the largest sailboat in the world that won the Loeb Award for Best Business Book of 2008). He teaches courses in journalism and ethics at NYU. He and his family live in Irvington-on-Hudson, New York.

Ieva Jusionyte is a faculty associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a member of the Policy Committee at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, where she also coordinates the Contemporary Latin American Anthropology Workshop (CLAAW). Jusionyte hold's a PhD and an MA in Anthropology from Brandeis University and a BA in Political Science from Vilnius University. [harvard.edu](https://scholar.harvard.edu/jusionyte "Ieva Jusionyte")

Nancy Gibbs is the visiting Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice of Press, Politics and Public Policy. Until September 2017, she was Editor in Chief of TIME, directing news and feature coverage across all platforms for more than 65 million readers worldwide, as well as Editorial Director of the Time Inc. News Group. Gibbs was named TIME’s 17th editor in September 2013, the first woman to hold the position, and remains an Editor at Large. Under her leadership, TIME's digital audience grew from 25 to 55 million, video streams passed 1 billion a year, and TIME won a primetime Emmy award for its two-part "A Year in Space" documentary, produced with PBS. During her three decades at TIME, she covered four presidential campaigns and is the author of more cover stories than any writer in TIME’s near-100 year history, including the black-bordered "September 11" special issue, which won the National Magazine Award in 2002. Bio from Harvard Kennedy School

Barbara Kellerman is the James MacGregor Burns Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She was the Founding Executive Director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership, from 2000 to 2003; and from 2003 to 2006 she served as Research Director. Kellerman has also held professorships at Fordham, Tufts, Fairleigh Dickinson, George Washington, Uppsala, and Dartmouth. She also served as Dean of Graduate Studies and Research at Fairleigh Dickinson, and as Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Leadership at the University of Maryland. [Harvard.edu](https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty/barbara-kellerman "Barbara Killerman")

Max Page is Professor of Architecture, and Director of Historic Preservation Initiatives at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Professor Page directors the Master of Design in Historic Preservation program, which trains students for careers in historic preservation and related fields. He received his education at Yale University (BA, magna cum laude in History, 1988) and from the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1995).

STEVE LOCKE (b. 1963, Cleveland, OH) is a Boston-based artist, raised in Detroit, Michigan. He received an M.F.A. in 2001 from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and holds Bachelors Degrees from Boston University and MassArt. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture in 2002. He has been artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston (2016) and for the City of Boston (2018). He has received grants from The Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, and The Art Matters Foundation. Solo exhibitions include, there is no one left to blame, curated by Helen Molesworth for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, The School of Love with Samsøñ (Boston, MA), Family Pictures with Gallery Kayafas (Boston, MA and most recently #Killers at YOURS MINE & OURS in New York. He has had solo projects with the Boston Public Library, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Mendes Wood in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at VOLTA 5 in Basel, Switzerland and P.S. Satellites-A Project of Prospect IV in New Orleans. His work has been reviewed in ARTFORUM, Art in America, Art New England, JUXTAPOZ, The Boston Globe, and The New Yorker. He is a Professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston. Image: [massart.edu](https://massart.edu/faculty/steven-locke "Steve Locke")

Ian Taberner has a Master in Design Studies from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Pratt Institute. He is the Director of Master's Thesis at the BAC. Ian believes we teach because we are still eager to know. Ideally he views his role as a professor as one who is a constantly maturing student. The greatest offering a teacher may make available to their students is the example of their own work - the drawings, the models, the unrealized projects with the constructed works.

Skylar Griggs is a registered dietitian specializing in pediatric and family nutrition as well as weight management and cardiology nutrition. Skylar is presently the lead dietitian for the preventive cardiology division at Boston Children's Hospital and the owner of Newbury Street Nutrition, a concierge nutrition practice in Boston's Back Bay. In addition to working with clients Skylar is a lecturer, consultant, spokesperson, and media contributor. Skylar has been a nutrition news contributor for Fox25 News Boston, Boston Magazine Online, Boston Globe and your own WGBH! Skylar received her undergraduate degree in Dietetics from Syracuse University and her Masters of Science in Clinical Nutrition from New York University.

Sam Spaulding is a doctoral student in the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab. With teams at Yale University, Walt Disney Imagineering R&D, and Jibo Inc., he has helped develop some of the world's most advanced interactive social robots, capable of perceiving, understanding, and adapting to human emotions. His research has been presented at numerous international conferences and has been recognized by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, a Human-Robot Interaction Pioneers award, and research grants from the Mellon Fund and Sigma Xi scientific society. Outside of robotics, he is an unrepentant trivia nerd and has appeared on Jeopardy! and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, and likes to spend his free time reading, doing fun physical activities, playing board games, and making lists.