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  • In 1993, when Elaine R. Jones took the helm of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund (LDF), she brought with her two decades of experience as a litigator and civil rights activist. As President and Director-Counsel of the nations foremost civil rights organization working for equal rights under the law, she has been able to carry out a childhood commitment to justice. Born in Norfolk, Virginia, Ms. Jones came of age in the Jim Crow South and learned its painful lessons early on. Her mother was a college-educated schoolteacher and her father was a Pullman porter and a member of the nation's first black trade union. Her parents taught her about the realities of racism, but also about the importance of idealism. In 1989, Ms. Jones broke another barrier, becoming the first African American elected to the America Bar Association Board of Governors. Her term ended in 1992; she continues to sit on the ABA's Council on Individual Rights and Responsibilities. She is active in the Old Dominion Bar Association (Virginia) and the National Bar Association (first female recipient of its Founder's Award, C. Francis Stradford-1925), and is a former board member of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund. Ms. Jones is also a member of the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the board of the National Women's Law Center.
  • Moses is an American educator and civil rights activist, known for his work as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee on voter education and registration in Mississippi during the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Since 1982 Moses has developed the nationwide Algebra Project in the United States. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship and other awards for this work, which emphasizes teaching algebra skills to minority students based on broad-based community organizing and collaboration with parents, teachers and students. Moses earned a B.A. from Hamilton College and an M.A. in philosophy at Harvard, and received numerous prestigious awards and recognitions.
  • John Lawrence Seigenthaler is an American journalist, writer, and political figure. He founded the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. Seigenthaler joined *The Tennessean* in 1949, resigning in 1960 to act as Robert F. Kennedy's administrative assistant. He rejoined *The Tennessean* as editor in 1962, publisher in 1973, and chairman in 1982 before retiring as chairman emeritus in 1991. Seigenthaler was also founding editorial director of *USA Today* from 1982 to 1991. During this period, he served on the board of directors for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and from 1988 to 1989 was its president.
  • Since she was first elected to the State Legislature in 1992, Debra Bowen has been a pioneer in government reform, consumer protection and privacy rights, environmental conservation, and open government. She also is a leading women's advocate, fighting for equality in the workplace and in government, child care, health care and civil rights.
  • president, MFS Institutional Advisors
  • Larry Hugick is Chairman of Princeton Survey Research Associates International and is a nationally recognized expert in public opinion, pre election polling, and policy research. Hugick conducts the regular Newsweek poll and advises the magazine on social trends and politics. Since 2000, he has served as a regular exit poll analyst for NBC News. For the past decade at PSRA International, Hugick has conducted surveys on a wide range of health and health care topics for the Kaiser Family Foundation, Harvard School of Public Health, Prevention magazine and other clients. Before joining PSRA International in 1993, Hugick spent 15 years at The Gallup Organization, where he was Managing Editor of The Gallup Poll and led polling efforts for major newspapers, including Newsday and The Chicago Sun Times. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and NPR as a commentator about polling and public opinion.
  • Author, magazine journalist, and historian Garrett Graff is the director of the Aspen Institute’s cybersecurity and technology program. He has written multiple books on politics, technology, and national security and contributed to Esquire and the New York Times. Graff has served as editor for Washingtonian and POLITICO Magazine. His most recent book was published in May 2017 and presents the story of the government's Cold War Doomsday plans.
  • Natalie Jacobson was an anchor and reporter for WCVB-TV's award-winning *NewsCenter 5* from 1972 until July 18, 2007. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Hampshire. Jacobson joined WCVB in 1972 as a reporter and became the anchor for its Midday newscast that same year. She became the first woman to anchor an evening newscast in Boston. Jacobson has been honored over the years by dozens of Boston-area charitable institutions for her untiring efforts on behalf of those less fortunate. In addition, she is involved in numerous community organizations. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Genesis Fund and on the Board of the Scleroderma Research Fund. She is actively involved with the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the Salvation Army. In 1992, she was honored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews as the recipient of the Institute of Human Relations Community Service Award. In 2007, Jacobson was honored with the Centennial Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in journalism by Suffolk University. She is only the second journalist to receive the honor. The New England Regional Chapter of the Radio and Television News Directors Association recognized Jacobson with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
  • Each year, roughly 40,000 people worldwide who suffer from leukemia or certain other disease of the blood receive a bone marrow transplant, necessitating that they first undergo the difficult process of total-body irradiation. Whitehead Fellow Fernando Camargo is engaged in research that may one day make these kinds of procedures far easier on patients and might also pave the way for treating other diseases as well. Camargo focuses on hematopoietic stem cells, those cells in the bone marrow that give rise to mature blood cells. These cells are rare, and they can remain in an early progenitor state while the cells that they spawn go on to develop into highly specialized cells. Of particular interest to Camargo are the molecular mechanisms that enable these cells to remain in such a stage. Using a wide range of laboratory technologies such as microarrays and RNA interference, Camargo is conducting large-scale screenings of these cells in order to find the exact genes that determine their properties. Recently, Camargo and his colleagues discovered the first microRNA shown to play a crucial role in the innate immune response. This finding not only has implications for the treatment of leukemia, it may also be relevant for a variety of inflammatory conditions. Additionally, in collaboration with the lab of Whitehead Fellow Thijn Brummelkamp, Camargo is studying the so-called Hippo signaling pathway, which regulates size and growth of organs and tissues, and influences cell regeneration and possibly cancer. Camargo received his PhD from Baylor College of Medicine in 2004, and became a Fellow at Whitehead Institute that year.
  • Kenji Yoshino is the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at the NYU School of Law. Prior to moving to NYU, he was the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor of Law and Deputy Dean of Intellectual Life at Yale Law School, where he taught from 1998 to 2008. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College, took a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, and earned his law degree at Yale Law School. A specialist in constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, and law and literature, Yoshino has published in major academic journals, such as *the Columbia Law Review*, *the Stanford Law Review*, and *the Yale Law Journal*. He has also written extensively in other popular venues, such as *The Boston Globe*, *The Los Angeles Times*, *The New York Times*, and *The Washington Post*. He has appeared on *The Charlie Rose Show*, *The O'Reilly Factor*," *Washington Journal*, and *The Tavis Smiley Show.* He is currently working on a book on Shakespeare and the Law.
  • Congresswoman Barbara Lee was first elected to represent California's 9th Congressional District in 1998 in a special election to fill the seat of retiring Congressman Ron Dellums. A member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Lee serves on the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, the State and Foreign Operations and the Financial Services Subcommittees. Additionally, she serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee on the subcommittees on Western Hemisphere and Africa and Global Health. Congresswoman Lee was sworn in as the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) on January 6, 2009. The 42-member CBC is one of the longest standing caucuses in Congress and is often referred to as the conscience of the Congress for their willingness to tackle the most serious social and economic issues facing minorities in the United States. Born in El Paso Texas, Congresswoman Lee graduated from Mills College in Oakland and received her MSW from the University of California in Berkeley. She began her political career as an intern in the office of her predecessor, then Congressman Ron Dellums, current Mayor of Oakland, where she eventually became his chief of staff. Before being elected to Congress, she served in the California State Assembly from 1990-1996 and in the California State Senate from 1996-1998.