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Robert Schwartz held a wide variety of leadership positions in education and government before joining the HGSE faculty in 1996. From 1997 to 2002, Schwartz also served as president of Achieve, Inc., an independent, bipartisan, nonprofit organization created by governors and corporate leaders to help states improve their schools. From 1990 to 1996, Schwartz directed the education grantmaking program of The Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the nation's largest private philanthropies. In addition to his work at HGSE, Achieve, and The Pew Charitable Trusts, Schwartz has been a high-school English teacher and principal; an education advisor to the mayor of Boston and the governor of Massachusetts; an assistant director of the National Institute of Education; a special assistant to the president of the University of Massachusetts; and executive director of The Boston Compact, a public-private partnership designed to improve access to higher education and employment for urban high-school graduates. Schwartz has written and spoken widely on topics such as standards-based reform, public-private partnerships, and the transition from high school to adulthood.

Robin Galas attended Mills College from 1995 - 1997 and was a member of the crew team for nearly her entire tenure. During her first year, she served as co-captain of the novice team. The following year, she was awarded the Arthur Ashe Scholar Award recognizing combined excellence in academics and athletics by students of color. She began working at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) two and a half years ago in order to further justice and equal rights for all LGBT people. She is currently the Director of Operations at NCLR. She identifies as a bisexual, biracial (half Thai, half Polish-American) woman and understands the barriers that LGBT athletes of color often face both within the LGBT sports movement and athletics at large.

Helen Carroll is the coordinator of the Homophobia in Sports project at the NCLR. Carroll's long career as a basketball coach and college athletic director gives her credibility when examining complaints. She speaks the language of the locker room and the coach's office. Her 1984 University of North Carolina-Asheville team won the NAIA women's national college basketball championship, making her the first woman to win an NAIA title. From 1988-2000 she was the athletic director of Mills College in the Bay Area. In dealing with schools and sports organizations Carroll's goal is always the same: no athlete should be harassed or discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. The NCRL, a small nonprofit based in San Francisco, will cajole, educate and, if necessary, threaten legal action to create a tolerant atmosphere.

Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland's Fifth Congressional District was first elected to serve as House Majority Leader in November 2006 and again in 2008 by his colleagues in the Democratic Caucus, after serving as the Democratic Whip in the previous two Congresses. As the Majority Leader, Congressman Hoyer is charged with scheduling legislation for consideration on the House Floor, as well as building unity among House Democrats and delivering the Democratic Party's message. Congressman Hoyer's service as Majority Leader makes him the highest ranking Member of Congress from Maryland in history. Now serving his 15th term in Congress, he also became the longest serving Member of the US House of Representatives from Maryland in history on June 4, 2007.

Jean Ann Kennedy, the eighth child and youngest daughter of Rose and Joseph Kennedy, was born on February 20, 1928 in Brookline, Massachusetts. She attended Sacred Heart schools in England and the United States, and graduated from Manhattanville College, where she majored in English. After her brother Joe was killed in 1944 in World War II, Jean was chosen in 1945 to christen the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a newly commissioned Navy destroyer named for her brother. Jean Kennedy Smith's first experience in national politics came in 1960, as she traveled around the country for her brother, Sen. John F. Kennedy, in his campaign for the presidency. She became a political figure in her own right three decades later, when President Clinton nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to Ireland on March 17, 1993. After confirmation by the Senate, she assumed her duties that June, serving until 1998. Mrs. Smith had accompanied President Kennedy on his famous visit to Ireland in 1963, and the Irish Government and the Irish people enthusiastically welcomed her return as America's Ambassador. She took an active interest in encouraging a peaceful settlement in the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland, and one of her principle achievements was in persuading the Clinton Administration to grant a visa to Gerry Adams, President of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army, to visit the United States in 1994. The visit is widely regarded as a key step in the success of the peace process in the years that followed. Since 1964, Jean Smith has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Foundation, which provides grants to promote awareness and advocacy in the field of mental retardation. She has also served on the boards of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In 1974, Jean Smith founded Very Special Arts, an educational affiliate of the Kennedy Center that provides opportunities in the creative arts for persons with disabilities. Her book, Chronicles of Courage: Very Special Artists, written with George Plimpton, was published by Random House in April 1993. In addition to a number of honorary degrees, Ambassador Smith has received various awards, including the Jefferson Award for Outstanding Public Service from the American Institutes for Public Service and the Margaret Mead Humanitarian Award from the Council of Cerebral Palsy Auxiliaries.

Combining her skills as a journalist with an advanced degree in physics, Marcia Bartusiak (pronounced MAR-sha Bar-TOO-shack) has been covering the fields of astronomy and physics for three decades. Currently, she is an adjunct professor with the Graduate Program in Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bartusiak is the author of *Thursday's Universe*, a layman's guide to the frontiers of astrophysics and cosmology, *Through a Universe Darkly*, a history of astronomers' centuries-long quest to discover the universe's composition, and *Einstein's Unfinished Symphony*, about the on-going attempt to detect gravity waves, the last experimental test of Einstein's theory of general relativity. All three were named notable science books by *The New York Times*. She also co-authored *A Positron Named Priscilla*, a National Academy of Sciences book on cutting-edge science. Her research, while getting her master's degree at Old Dominion University, involved the effects of radiation on materials sent into space as parts of orbiting astronomical observatories, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Ultraviolet Explorer.

Pamela Constable has covered South Asia for *The Washington Post* since April 1999, with extensive coverage of Afghanistan as well as both India and Pakistan. Prior to joining *The Post*, Constable worked for *The Boston Globe* as deputy Washington bureau chief and foreign policy reporter from June to September 1994. Previously, from 1983 until 1992, she was *The Globe's* roving foreign correspondent, Latin America correspondent and diplomatic correspondent. During this time she reported from Haiti, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Cuba, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines, the Soviet Union and Brazil, as well as in Washington. She is the co-author with Arturo Valenzuela of *A Nation of Enemies: Chile Under Pinochet*. She was awarded an Alicia Patterson Fellowship in 1990 and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for coverage of Latin America in 1993. Constable is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She received a B.A. from Brown University.

Ilan Stavans is the Lewis-Sebring Professor in Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College and a native of Mexico City. His best-selling memoir, *On Borrowed Words*, recounts the way various periods in his life have been shaped by languages: Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, and English.