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Ellen Hume is an Annenberg Fellow in Civic Media at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at Central European University in Budapest. She was also the Founding Editor and Publisher of the New England Ethnic Newswire. Hume is an experienced journalist, teacher, speaker, administrator, conference director and television commentator. As the founding Executive Director of PBS's Democracy Project, from 1996 to 1998, she developed special news programs that encouraged citizen involvement in public affairs. She oversaw PBS's 1996 and 1998 election coverage, creating PBS Debate Night, a nationally televised Congressional leadership debate, as well as local candidate debates on PBS stations across the country. Hume has more than 30 years of experience as a reporter and analyst for US newspapers, magazines and television. She was a White House and political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal from 1983 to 1988, and a Washington based national reporter with The Los Angeles Times from 1977 to 1983.

Robert Siegel, a senior host of NPR's award-winning evening newsmagazine *All Things Considered*, got started in radio news when he was a college freshman in 1964. He's still at it. As a host, Siegel has reported from Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and Israel. He now concentrates on domestic stories. During the fall of 1992, Siegel took a short leave from the show to anchor *Talk of the Nation*, NPR's nationwide live call-in program. A graduate of New York's Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University, Siegel began his career in radio at the college radio station WKCR-FM where he anchored coverage of the 1968 Columbia demonstrations. The station's work received an award from the Writers Guild of America East.

Austin Hoyt was a Producer and Executive Producer at WGBH Boston from March 1965 to March 2003 when he founded his own company, Austin Hoyt Productions. Hoyt won a Peabody Award for his contributions to American Experience's special series of Presidential portraits and biographies of Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower.

Judy Norsigian, executive director and a founder of the Boston Women's Health Book Collective, is a co-author of *Our Bodies*, *Ourselves*, *Our Bodies*, *Ourselves: Menopause and Our Bodies*, *Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth*. Judy speaks and writes frequently on a wide range of women's health concerns, including abortion and contraception, sexually transmitted infections, genetics and reproductive technologies, tobacco and women, women and health care reform, and midwifery advocacy. She has appeared on numerous national television and radio programs, including *Oprah*, *the Today show*, *Good Morning America*, *The Early Show* and *NBC Nightly News* with Tom Brokaw. She served on the board of the National Women's Health Network for 14 years and currently serves as a board member for Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research. Judy is a founder and longtime board member of Community Works, which raises funds for Boston area social change organizations through payroll deduction charitable giving programs. Her personal recognitions include: the Public Service Award from the Massachusetts Public Health Association (1989); Radcliffe College Alumnae Association Annual Recognition Award (1995); Boston YWCA's Academy of Women Achievers (1996); the 2002 Massachusetts Health Council Award; and an honorary doctorate degree from Boston University (2007).

Peggy Dulany is Chair of The Synergos Institute, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to creating effective, sustainable and locally based solutions to poverty. Her career has included heading a Boston area public high school program for drop outs for six years and consulting with the United Nations and the Ford Foundation on health care and family planning in Brazil, the United States and Portugal, and with the National Endowment for the Arts on nonprofit management and planning. She was Senior Vice President of the New York City Partnership for five years, where she headed the Youth Employment and Education programs. Dr. Dulany is an honors graduate of Radcliffe College and holds a Doctorate in Education from Harvard University. She is also Chair of ProVentures, a business development company for Latin America and Southern Africa. She has sat on over 30 nonprofit and corporate boards including Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Africa-America Institute, among others.

Deborah Leff is president of the Public Welfare Foundation, a half-billion dollar philanthropy based in Washington, DC that is dedicated to ensuring fundamental rights and opportunities for people in need. From 2001-2006, Ms. Leff was director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. She has held a variety of leadership positions in the public, private, and non-profit sectors including CEO of Feeding America (formerly known as America's Second Harvest), the nation's largest domestic hunger relief organization, and president of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation. Ms. Leff was Senior Producer at *ABC News Nightline*, *ABC News World News Tonight*, and *ABC News 20/20* from 1983 to 1992, where she won DuPont and Emmy Awards for news coverage such as a week-long *World News Tonight* series. Ms. Leff has also held several positions with the federal government, including Trial Attorney with the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice and Director of Public Affairs at the Federal Trade Commission. Ms. Leff received her undergraduate degree cum laude from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where she was named a University Scholar. She earned her JD from the University of Chicago Law School.

David Grissmer is a senior management scientist at RAND. He holds a PhD in physics from Purdue University. His education research includes teacher supply and demand, teacher compensation and attrition patterns, analysis of national test scores to determine the causes of changing trends, analyzing state test scores to determine causes of state differences, and effects of class size reductions. He is currently working with the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House to assess the federal research and development portfolio on children and methods of improving research on children. His current work also includes developing estimates of the number and location of children at educational risk in the U.S. and analyzing achievement patterns in central city, suburban, and rural schools. He has addressed U.S. senators and representatives at caucus retreats, members of the White House staff, top Cabinet officials, governors as well as legislators and policymakers from most states on the issues of effective use of resources in education.