Forum Network

Barry Bluestone is the Stearns Trustee Professor of Political Economy, the founding Director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and the founding Dean of the School of Social Science, Urban Affairs, and Public Policy at Northeastern University in Boston. Before assuming these posts, Bluestone spent 12 years at the University of Massachusetts at Boston as the Frank L. Boyden Professor of Political Economy and as a Senior Fellow at the University's John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. In 1982, he published The *Deindustrialization of America *(co-authored with the late Bennett Harrison) which analyzed the restructuring of American industry and its economic and social impact on workers and communities. A sequel published in 1988, *The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America*, also co-authored with Harrison, investigated how economic policies have contributed to growing inequality.

Ganson has been an artist-in-residence at MIT (where the Lemelson-MIT Award Program named him an Inventor of the Week, and where his show "Gestural Engineering" is ongoing) and has shown his work at art and science museums around the world -- including a current, held-over show at the Phaeno in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Dr. Rodney Brooks is a robotics entrepreneur and founder, chairman and CTO of Heartland Robotics, Inc. He is also a founder, board member and former CTO (1991 - 2008) of iRobot Corp and the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (on leave) at MIT. Dr. Brooks is the former director (1997 - 2007) of the MIT Artificial Intelliigence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. He held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has pubished many papers in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life. Dr. Brooks is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a founding fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAAS), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the other AAAS), a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a corresponding member of the Australian Academy of Science (AAS) and a foreign fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE). He won the Computers and Thought Award at the 1991 IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence). He has been the Cray lecturer at the University of Minnesota, the Mellon lecturer at Dartmouth College, and the Forsythe lecturer at Stanford University. He was co-founding editor of the *International Journal of Computer Vision* and is a member of the editorial boards of various journals including *Adaptive Behavior*, *Artificial Life*, *Applied Artificial Intelligence*, *Autonomous Robots* and *New Generation Computing*. He starred as himself in the 1997 Errol Morris movie *Fast, Cheap and Out of Control* named for one of his scientific papers, a Sony Classics picture.

John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. He is the co-author of *Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives* (2008) and *Access Denied: The Practice and Politics of Internet Filtering* (2008). His research and teaching is focused on Internet law, intellectual property, and international law. He practiced intellectual property and corporate law at the law firm of Ropes & Gray. He is a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Outside of Harvard Law School, he is a Venture Executive at Highland Capital Partners and serves on the board of several technology companies and non-profits. John served as a special assistant at the US EPA during the Clinton Administration. He is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School.

Ira Katznelson (Ph.D., Cambridge University, 1969) is an Americanist whose work has straddled comparative politics and political theory, as well a political and social history. He returned in the fall 1994 to Columbia, where he had been an assistant and associate professor from 1969-1974. Professor Katznelson was President of the American Political Science Association for 2005-2006. Previously, he served as President of the Politics and History Section of APSA, President of the Social Science History Association, and Chair of the Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

John McWilliams acquired his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is currently the Director of the Georgia State University School of Art and Design, and has been a part of the GSU faculty since 1969. McWilliams has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. While McWilliams is primarily a photographer, his current work incorporates drawing and bookmaking processes. His artwork is in a number of private and corporate collections including the Modern Museum of Art, New York, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and at the Smithsonian Museum of american Art. In addition, McWilliams has been published in numerous periodicals and books including Land of Deepest Shade: Photographs of the South as well as Sea Change: The Seascape in Contemporary Photography. Besides his personal and professional engagements as a photographer and educator, McWilliams is committed to a number of professional/civic activities. Most recently he was appointed to represent Georgia State University as a member of the Fulton County Arts Council. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the High Museum Photo Forum, Nexus Contemporary Arts Center as well as the Atlanta Photography Group.

Julian Cox was appointed as the new curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in April 2005. Cox comes to the High from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles where he served as associate curator in the department of photographs. He is a co-author of the critically acclaimed publication *Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs* (2003), the first catalogue of her work. He has also worked at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, England, and the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. He received a Master of Philosophy degree in the history of photography from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1990, and a BA in art history from the University of Manchester, England, in 1987.

Manthia Diawara is presently chair of the Africana Studies Department at New York University. Prof. Diawara received his PhD from Indiana University in 1985. His dissertation on the politics and aesthetics of African cinema formed the basis for African Cinema, published in 1985 by Indiana University Press. Since then, Dr. Diawara has edited the volume *Black American Cinema*, published by Routledge in 1993 in addition to publishing widely in journals.

Dr. Taylor's research focus is primarily in the areas of assessment of programs and curricula and the establishment of criteria for the evaluation of two- and four-year college and university academic programs. Reports which he has prepared include Assessing Music Industry Programs, Evaluative Standards in Music Industry Programs and Economic Impact of the Music Industry in Georgia. The focus of Dr. Taylor's research in the area of African-American music is on the elements of African culture that were retained, altered and adapted to New World conditions and that subsequently generated new African-American musical forms. Within this culture-derived context, he examines new theoretical frameworks and applied methodology, and analyzes New World Africanisms in the arts. His research seeks to open the field of African-American music to the testing of analytical and speculative hypotheses and cross-disciplinary studies involving dance, theater, poetry, literature, visual arts and Latin and Caribbean music.

Helene was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. She received her B.A. from Barnard College of Columbia University, New York, her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. Helene is board certified in Pediatrics, completing a residency in Pediatric Medicine at the Children's Hospital National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. After completing her residency, she rose through the ranks at CDC to become the first director of the Director for the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, (NCHSTP), at that time CDC's largest Center. Her work on HIV/AIDS issues has focused on women, children, adolescents, U.S. minorities and international populations. On assignment from CDC, Helene also served as the AIDS Coordinator and Chief of the HIV/AIDS Division for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Helene has published numerous articles on public health, especially related to HIV/AIDS and has received many awards for her scientific and public health contributions. She attained the rank of Rear Admiral (Assistant Surgeon General) in the US Public Health Service. She is also on the boards of the Institute of Medicine and the Council on Foreign Relations.