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  • Kendall Wallace is chairman of Lowell Publishing Co. He has 50 years of newspaper experience, starting as a reporter at *The Sun* in 1959.
  • Dr. Osterholm has been an international leader on the critical concern regarding our preparedness for an influenza pandemic. His recent invited papers in the journals *Foreign Affairs*, *the New England Journal of Medicine*, and *Nature* detail the threat of an influenza pandemic and steps we must take to better prepare for that event. Dr. Osterholm has also been an international leader on the growing concern regarding the use of biological agents as catastrophic weapons targeting civilian populations. In that role, he served as a personal advisor to the late King Hussein of Jordan. Dr. Osterholm is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), director of the NIH-supported Minnesota Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance (MCEIRS) within CIDRAP, a professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, University of Minnesota. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Osterholm provides a comprehensive and pointed review of America's current state of preparedness for a bioterrorism attack in his *New York Times* best-selling book, *Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe*. The author of more than 300 papers and abstracts, including 20 book chapters, Dr. Osterholm is a frequently invited guest lecturer on the topic of epidemiology of infectious diseases. He serves on the editorial boards of five journals, including *Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology* and *Microbial Drug Resistance: Mechanisms, Epidemiology and Disease*, and he is a reviewer for 24 additional journals, including *the New England Journal of Medicine*, *the Journal of the American Medical Association*, and *Science*.
  • As a former restavec, I came to the United States at the age of fifteen to resume my restavec status in the home of my former "masters." When they realized that the restavec system was not conducive to American society, I was shown the door to fend for myself in the streets of New York. In *Restavec*, my autobiography, published by the University of Texas Press, I show the faces of the restavec children behind the mask. I vividly describe my childhood in restavec servitude as well as my subsequent life in the Unites States, where, despite American racism, I put myself through college and found success in the United States Army and in business. Today I am a high school teacher in Ohio.
  • Regina Abrami is a senior fellow and faculty chair of the HBS Immersion Experience Program (IXP). In addition, she is an executive committee member of Harvard University's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies and a faculty associate of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Her primary area of expertise is comparative political economy, with special focus on China and Vietnam. Abrami's research is broadly concerned with institutions of accountability and their impact on patterns of economic organization and change. At HBS, Abrami has taught courses in the M.B.A., executive education, and doctoral programs, all focused on issues of international business, including most recently the 2nd year MBA course Doing Business in China and a doctoral course on Political Economies of Business in the Developing World. In addition, she has consulted to the World Bank, the UNDP, and business on strategic issues related to corporate diplomacy, private sector development in emerging markets, and doing business in Vietnam and China. Abrami earned her PhD. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she was both a Reinhard Bendix and John L. Simpson Memorial Fellow.
  • Benaree Pratt Wiley was born on May 13, 1946 in Washington, D.C. Her mother, Mildred Petticord Pratt, died when she was two years old, and her father, Carlisle Pratt, was an attorney and judge before his death in 1993. Wiley grew up in Washington, D.C., raised by her paternal grandmother Hazel and her aunt, Aimee Pratt. She is also the sister of Sharon Pratt Kelly, who served as the mayor of Washington, D.C. from 1991-1995. Wiley attended the public schools of Washington and graduated from Howard University in 1968 with a B.A. degree in marketing. After receiving her M.B.A. from Harvard's Business School, she served as a consultant with such corporations as Abt Associates, Contract Research Corporation and Urban Systems Research and Engineering. As an independent consultant, Wiley worked with non-profit organizations to build their capacity and refine their program delivery. She then combined her interests in business and child development with the establishment of a high-end toy store, Giocatolli, on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts. In 1991, Wiley became the president and CEO of The Partnership, Inc., in Boston. The Partnership's goal is to assist businesses in the Boston area to attract, retain and develop professionals of color, to increase the number of black professionals at all levels of leadership in the corporate sector of Boston and to help these professionals navigate the complex corporate structure of Boston. Under Wiley's leadership, The Partnership became a major force in Boston's corporate world, helping over 1,300 African Americans integrate themselves into the corporate community and stimulated more than 200 corporate partners to open doors for black professionals. Wiley is highly active in the Boston community. In 2003, Wiley was selected as one of Boston's most powerful women by *Boston Magazine*
  • Mary Renner is currently serving a three-year term as Chair of the Board of Overseers of the New England Aquarium. She also serves as an ex-officio trustee, member of the Executive Committee and is past President of the Aquarium Council. She has been actively involved at the Aquarium since 1991. She is particularly passionate about this Boston institution because of the Aquarium's commitment, worldwide, to protecting the world of water. In addition to her involvement at the New England Aquarium, Mary is a trustee and Vice President of the Board of Crossroads for Kids, a non-profit organization for homeless and at-risk youth in the greater Boston area. She is also actively involved at Trinity Church in Boston and Dartmouth College. Her professional experience includes eight years in advertising account management at Leo Burnett in Chicago and Young & Rubicam in San Francisco. She also had her own children's clothing manufacturing company.
  • Mariel Gonzales serves as chief financial officer and vice president for Finance and Administration, overseeing the services that support the delivery of YouthBuild programs and the fulfillment of YouthBuild's mission. Prior to joining YouthBuild, she was vice president and chief operating officer for Boston After School & Beyond, an intermediary working to build the availability and quality of out-of-school time programs, and executive director of Bird Street Community Center, a youth program in Dorchester's Uphams Corner. She has a degree in Asian Studies from Dartmouth College and an MBA from the University of California Haas School of Business.
  • Edmund C. Toomey is President and Chief Executive Officer of the New England Aquarium in Boston, Massachusetts. In this role, he leads the Aquarium in implementing the institutional mission to present, promote and protect the world of water. The Aquarium is a recognized leader in exhibit development, community-based educational programming, and international conservation and research projects. An accomplished and respected administrator, Mr. Toomey spent 15 years at the University of Massachusetts Boston, most recently in the position of Associate Chancellor. Prior to that he served as Vice President at the Boston Committee, Inc. He has held leadership positions at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, the Abbey School in Canon City, Colorado, St. Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Mr. Toomey serves on numerous civic and non-profit advisory boards. A South Boston native, Mr. Toomey is a summa cum laude graduate of Boston College and was a National Woodrow Wilson Fellow at St. Louis University where he was a candidate for a Ph.D. in philosophy.
  • Irene Smalls' first children's book, *Irene and the Big, Fine Nickel*, was inspired by her fond memories of Harlem. Her second book, *Jonathan and His Mommy*, is a love song for her son. *Louise's Gift* tells the story of how an unappreciated gift changes a young girl's view of herself. *Irene Jennie and the Christmas Masquerade: The Johnkankus* is the tale of a slave girl's Christmas. *Because You're Lucky*, coming in fall 1997, is a simple story of how families can change and grow in ways that they are lucky to discover. Irene Smalls graduated from Cornell University with a degree in black studies and from New York University with an M.B.A. in marketing and behavioral science. She lives in Boston with her three children: Dawn, Kevin Logan, and Jonathan.
  • Jennifer Davis is the co-founder and president of Massachusetts 2020, a nonprofit foundation founded in 2000 with a goal of expanding educational and economic opportunities for children and families across Massachusetts. Massachusetts 2020 currently focuses chiefly on efforts to expand and improve learning opportunities for Massachusetts' children during out-of-school time. In 2004, Massachusetts 2020 launched its most ambitious initiative to date, a research and policy effort to restructure public schools to extend their day. In 2005, the Massachusetts Legislature passed a budget that included funding to support this policy reform. From 1989 to 1992, Jennifer was the special assistant to the executive director of the bi-partisan National Governors' Association (NGA), and advised the director on education and health policy, management, and political issues. In 1988 and 1992, Jennifer managed presidential campaign operations in several East Coast states, overseeing press strategy, field organization, volunteer operations, constituency groups and candidate visits. Jennifer began her career as a consultant to the youth organization Communities in Schools and developed case studies on their innovative program to support at-risk youth in Houston, Atlanta, Columbia, South Carolina, and Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1998, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino appointed Jennifer Davis to serve as the executive director of the Boston 2:00-to-6:00 After-School Initiative. Also, Jennifer Davis served in the Clinton Administration as deputy assistant secretary, Office of Intergovernmental and Interagency Affairs, at the US Department of Education. Jennifer also worked as the special assistant to Secretary of Education Richard Riley from March 1993 until March 1997. Jennifer Davis has a master's degree in public policy from the Claremont Graduate School in Claremont, California, and a bachelor's degree with a concentration in government and sociology from Connecticut College. She was named a Coro Fellow in public policy in 1984 and participated in this leadership training program in St. Louis, Missouri.