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Simon Jenkins, *the Guardian* columnist and former editor of the *London Evening Standard*, is returning to the evening title to write a weekly column. Jenkins, who edited *the Evening Standard* between 1976 and 1978, wrote a column on London issues in *the Evening Standard* until three years ago.

As fourth Executive Director of UNICEF, Carol Bellamy led the agency from 1995 to 2005. During her tenure, Ms. Bellamy focused on five major priorities: immunizing every child; getting all girls and boys into school, and getting all schools to offer quality basic education; reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS and its impact on young people; fighting for the protection of children from violence and exploitation; and introducing early childhood programmes in every country. Under Ms. Bellamy's leadership, UNICEF became a champion of global investment in children, arguing that efforts to reduce poverty and build a more secure world can only be successful if they ensure that children have an opportunity to grow to adulthood in health, peace and dignity. She challenged leaders from all walks of life to recognize their moral, social, and economic responsibility to invest in children - and to shift national resources accordingly. Ms. Bellamy earned her law degree from New York University in 1968. She is a former Fellow of the Institute of Politics at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and an honorary member of Phi Alpha Alpha, the U.S. National Honor Society for Accomplishment and Scholarship in Public Affairs and Administration. Ms. Bellamy graduated from Gettysburg College in 1963. She was born and raised in the New York area.

Although Hal Whitehead is normally based in the Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, he likes best to be at sea.

For over forty years, Elaine Wolfensohn has been involved in the field of education and arts education while raising her family. Her work in Australia and the United States has included teaching in private schools, creating teen tutoring programs in inner city schools, and training adult volunteers to tutor high school students. Mrs. Wolfensohn was educated at Wellesley College, where she received her B.A. She went on to receive her M.A. in French Literature from Columbia and her M.Ed in counseling psychology from Teacher's College. Mrs. Wolfensohn's commitment to education also extends into her community advisory work. She sits on several boards, including Young Audiences and American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic, where she is President of the Board of Directors. In addition, she serves on the board of the Graduate School of Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary, as well as the advisory committees of the Park City Mathematics Oversight Board at the Institute of Advanced Study and Teachers College at Columbia University. During her husband's presidency of the World Bank, Mrs. Wolfensohn worked closely with the Bank on issues of education, early child development and gender equity.

Monty Neill, Ed.D., is currently Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). He has led FairTest's work on testing in the public schools since 1987. He has initiated national and state coalitions of education, civil rights, religious and parent organizations to work toward fundamental change in the assessment of students and in accountability. He currently chairs The Forum on Educational Accountability. This alliance is working to develop alternatives for use in overhauling federal education law (the No Child Left Behind Act, in particular) based on the Joint Organizational Statement on NCLB, signed by more than 80 national groups.

Gene Sperling is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. He was President Clinton's National Economic Advisor and Director of the National Economic Council from 1997 to 2001 and Deputy National Economic Advisor from 1993 to 1997. Mr. Sperling recently served as a top economic advisor to the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign. He is a columnist and commentator for *Bloomberg Business News* and a contributing editor for the DLC's *Blueprint Magazine*, serves as director of the Center for Universal Education at the Council of Foreign Relations, and has been a contributing writer and consultant to the television show *The West Wing*. He has appeared on *Meet the Press*, *Face the Nation*, *This Week*, *Good Morning America*, *Nightline*, and CNN's *Late Edition*, and is a frequent contributor to NPR. His articles have appeared in *The Atlantic*, *Foreign Affairs*, *The New York Times*, *The Washington Post*, *Inc.* magazine, *Financial Times*, *Foreign Policy*, and others.

Kevin Phillips is an American writer and commentator on politics, economics, and history. Formerly a Republican Party strategist, Phillips has become disaffected with his former party over the last two decades, and is now one of its harshest critics. He is a regular contributor to The Los Angeles Times and NPR, and is a political analyst on PBS' NOW with Bill Moyers.

BA, magna cum laude, University of Michigan; J.D., DePaul. Professor Lederer is senior advisor on human trafficking for the US Department of State. Professor Lederer is the founder and former director of the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. As director of the project, she oversaw research on the trafficking of women and children, including foreign and national laws on trafficking and surrounding activities, country-by-country human rights reports on trafficking, and survivor stories. Professor Lederer originally founded the Projection Project as a Research Fellow for the University of Minnesota Law School. She then directed the Project from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government before going to Johns Hopkins. Professor Lederer has written several articles regarding the trafficking of women and children and is a frequent speaker on the issue as well.

Brigitte Cazalis-Collins founded the Friends of Maiti Nepal as the official representative of Maiti Nepal in the United States in 2001. She and her husband, Joseph H. Collins, have lived and worked in Nepal intermittently for more than twenty years. In 2001, Cazalis-Colins devoted her efforts to the struggle against human trafficking, increasing awareness of sex trafficking, and raising funds for Maiti Nepal. She has also directed and implemented major outreach projects assisting refugees and women both in the U.S. and in Nepal. In the U.S. she was a member of the founding board of the Tibetan Resettlement Project, which provided sponsors, housing, employment and counseling to Tibetan families who immigrated to the U.S. under the Immigration Act of 1992.

Carol J. Oja is the William Powell Mason Professor of Music. Professor Oja's research focuses on 20th-century American musical traditions. Her book, *Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920's* (2000), won the Lowens Book Award from the Society for American Music and an ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. Other books include *Copland and his World* (co-edited with Judith Tick, 2005); *Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds*; *A Celebration of American Music: Words and Music in Honor of H. Wiley Hitchcock*; and *American Music Recordings: A Discography of 20th-Century U.S. Composers*. She is at work on a book provisionally titled *Leonard Bernstein and Broadway*, and she is past-president of the Society for American Music. During 2008-09, she is a fellow at the Newhouse Center for the Humanities at Wellesley College.

Ellen Guiney is executive director of the Boston Plan for Excellence, Boston Annenberg Challenge, a local education fund. Since September 1996, the BPE has concentrated over $2 million/year supporting 27 Boston schools (20% of the district) in their transformation of core teaching activities, their use of existing resources, and their accountability to parents and the public. With the reorganization of the Boston Annenberg Challenge in August 1999, Ms. Guiney now also serves as co-director of the Challenge. The Boston Plan has since taken responsibility for managing the reform work in an additional 36 public schools. Prior to her work at the BPE, Ms. Guiney was chief education advisor to the U.S. Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee, and one of the Democratic staff leaders on Goals 2000/ESEA Reauthorization. She has also served as education advisor to the mayor of Boston during the transition to an appointed school board, and is a former high school English teacher.