Forum Network

Dr. Suraj Yengde is completing his doctorate at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. He is the author of the bestseller, Caste Matters (2019) and a co-editor of the award-winning anthology, The Radical in Ambedkar: Critical Reflections (2018). Caste Matters was listed as the “Best Non-fiction Book of the Decade” by The Hindu.

Chellamal Keshavan, BS, is a dedicated and fervent advocate for racial equity and systemic change. She is the former chair of the Medford Human Rights Commission, and a certified doula and lactation counselor.

Billy Costa, an Emmy award-winning radio and television personality, is host of High School Quiz Show. Costa has been entertaining radio audiences on KISS 108 weekday mornings for the past 30 years and currently co-hosts “Billy & Lisa in the Morning”. He is also co-host of “Dining Playbook”, a televised restaurant review and lifestyle show on NESN. In 2017, Billy was inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

Dr. Lombardo is currently employed at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer in Electrical Engineering. His teaching focuses on electronics, engineering design, and the intersection of engineering and human centered design with a focus on low resource settings.

Boris Martin believes that every engineer today can play a role in helping humanity heal and adapt to climate change, and that profound impact happens when engineers embrace their own acts of generosity as a journey of personal transformation.

Odie "Odienator" Henderson is the chief film critic of the Boston Globe and runs the blogs Big Media Vandalism and Tales of OdieNary Madness.

Candace McDuffie is the Senior Writer at The Root who focuses on the intersection of race, gender and entertainment.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. is Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus and former Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. Nye has held numerous government positions serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense and Chair of the National Intelligence Council, as well as Deputy Under Secretary of State, and won distinguished service awards from all three agencies. He is a world-renowned authority on American power in the modern era whose work has influenced generations of scholars and policy-makers.

Emily Cleveland Manchanda, MD, MPH is the Director for Social Justice Education and Implementation within the Center for Health Equity at the American Medical Association (AMA), and an emergency physician at Boston Medical Center. At the AMA, she leads and oversees the AMA Center for Health Equity’s education portfolio. Her work focuses on coordinating effective action across sectors to promote social justice and equity in health, pushing health systems to address social and structural drivers of health, and creating a pipeline of leaders equipped to effectively advance justice in healthcare for patients, families, staff, communities and populations.

Charles Harvey is internationally recognized for outstanding research in multiple areas of the field of environmental engineering. He has received numerous awards and has appeared in PBS (Frontline) and BBC productions. He is a Fellow of both the American Geological Society the American Geophysical Union.

Vincent Stanley is Patagonia’s Director of Philosophy and has been with the company on and off since its beginning in 1973, for many of those years in key roles as head of sales or marketing. More informally, he is Patagonia’s long-time chief storyteller.

ROYA HAKAKIAN is a writer whose work often deals with the topics of exile, displacement, political and religious persecution, and the struggle of people, especially women, against authoritarianism. Her memoir, Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran (Crown, 2005) details the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in her birth country in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. The book quickly captured the attention of readers and reviewers alike and was Barnes & Noble’s Pick of the Week, Ms. Magazine Must Read of the Summer, Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year, Elle Magazine’s Best Nonfiction of the year, and the Best Memoir by the Connecticut Center for the Book and has been translated into several languages including German, Dutch, and Spanish. In 2008, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction.