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David A. Wilson, Professor in the Celtic Studies Program and the Department of History at the University of Toronto, is the author of several books, including *Ireland*, *A Bicycle and a Tin Whistle*, and *Thomas D'Arcy McGee: Passion, Reason and Politics*. He has recently edited a book on the Orange Order in Canada, the subject of his current lecture.

Diplomat, foreign policy expert, and political writer Janusz Reiter is ambassador of Poland to the United States. From 1990 to 1995 he served as Polish Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1996 he founded the Warsaw-based Center for International Relations and was its president until October 2005. He has written extensively on the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in Rzeczpospolita and other publications; and he was a commentator for Polish public television.

John McCaslin, Senior Commercial Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, completed his three year tour in Poland on July 14, 2009. After leaving Warsaw, McCaslin will spend a year in the United States and then travel to Moscow, Russia, to serve as Senior Commercial officer.

Charlie Pierce covers sports for The Boston Globe Magazine. A long time sportswriter and columnist, Pierce has written for nationally recognized publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and Esquire and GQ magazines. Hes is a frequent guest on NPR's nationally syndicated shows Only A Game, and Wait, Wait Dont Tell Me. He has also been a guest on ESPN's Around the Horn. Pierce has been a member of the Globe staff since 2002.

Elisabeth (Beth) D. Babcock, MCRP, PhD, is the President and CEO of Crittenton Women's Union (CWU). In this role, she oversees the growth and development of the $10 million organization with the mission to help low-income women and their families attain economic self-sufficiency. In 2008-2009, Beth served as the chair of the Cliff Effects Working Group of the Massachusetts Asset Development Commission, a group charged with making recommendations to ensure all Massachusetts residents have the opportunity to achieve economic security. Her academic and professional work focuses on strategic leadership of mission-driven organizations. Two of her most recent articles have appeared in the *Stanford Social Innovation Review* (SSIR), "Your Nonprofit Construction Manager: Complex Solutions Need Dedicated Project Managers", summer 2009, and "Achieving Breakthrough Performance", summer 2008, named top SSIR article of the year. Prior to her position at the Crittenton Women's Union, Beth was the President and CEO of Hearth, a nonprofit organization that she developed into a nationally-recognized model of supported housing, advocacy and research for homeless elders. She received a master's degree in city and regional planning, with a concentration in health and human services policy and planning, from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and holds a PhD in nonprofit strategy from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Carole Berotte Joseph moved to the United Sates as a child in 1957. She speaks four languages: Haitian, French, Spanish and English. Dr. Joseph has been active in the State University of New York Teacher Education Advisory Council, a group developed by SUNY Chancellor Robert King, in which she worked to create new teacher education templates for the SUNY system. She has also been active on the SUNY Professional Development Task Force, where she initiated discussions on the creation of a Distinguished Professorship Award for faculty members at SUNY's community colleges. Locally, Dr. Joseph has served on the boards of the Dutchess County Chapter of the American Red Cross, the United Way of Dutchess County, the Family Partnership Center, and the Hyde Park Recreation Commission.

Shirley Leung is the assistant managing editor of business news for *the Boston Globe* and its business editor. She oversees the daily business section, as well as the Real Estate, Careers, and Autos sections. Previously Leung was a senior assistant business editor, overseeing the Sunday Business & Money section as well as daily coverage of consumer, retail and travel news. As Sunday editor, Leung launched a redesigned section in 2004 that emphasizes consumer news and issues. Among the changes she introduced were new personal finance features, as well as columns on shopping and business etiquette. Prior to the Globe, Leung spent nearly six years at *the Wall Street Journal* as a reporter in the Boston, Chicago, and Los Angeles bureaus. She covered a variety of topics, including development, small business, transportation, and the restaurant industry. Leung grew up in Bel Air, Md. and began her career as a metro reporter at The Baltimore Sun and the Globe. She is a 1994 graduate of Princeton University with a degree in East Asian Studies and is a proficient speaker of Mandarin. Leung sits on the New England Media Group's Diversity Council, as well as *The New York Times* Co.'s Diversity Council. She currently is president of the New England chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association, which will host its 2009 national convention in Boston.

Pam Durban's books include a collection of short stories, "All Set About with Fever", "Trees", and two novels, *The Laughing Place*, and *So Far Bac*k. Her short story, "Soon," appeared in *The Best American Short Stories of the Century*, edited by John Updike, and her work has been anthologized in *The Best American Short Stories 1997* . She has received a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Whiting Writer's Award as well as a James Michener Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of Iowa. Her novel *So Far Back* received the 2001 Lillian Smith Award for Fiction. Her short story "The Jap Room" received the 2008 Goodheart Prize from Shenandoah. She was a founding editor of *Five Points* magazine and served for five years as fiction editor of that publication. She is the Doris Betts Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Universities of North Carolina.

Daniel Wallace is author of four novels, including *Big Fish* (1998), *Ray in Reverse* (2000), *The Watermelon King* (2003) and most recently *Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician* (2007). He has written one book for children, *Elynora*, and in 2008 it was published in Italy, with illustrations by Daniela Tordi. *O Great Rosenfeld!*, the only book both written and illustrated by the author, has been released in France and Korea and is forthcoming in Italy, but there are not, at this writing, any plans for an American edition. His work has been published in over two dozen languages, and his stories, novels and non-fiction essays are taught in high schools and colleges throughout this country. His illustrations have appeared in *the Los Angeles Times*, *Italian Vanity Fair*, and many other magazines and books, including *Pep Talks*, *Warnings*, and *Screeds: Indispensible Wisdom and Cautionary Advice for Writers*, by George Singleton, and *Adventures in Pen Land: One Writer's Journey from Inklings to Ink*, by Marianne Gingher. *Big Fish* was made into a motion picture of the same name by Tim Burton in 2003, a film in which the author plays the part of a professor at Auburn University. He is in fact the J. Ross MacDonald Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which is also his alma mater (Class of '08).

As a child, Jean Sasson was fascinated by stories of countries and cultures different from her own. This curiosity continued into her adult years, ultimately propelling her to find work in a foreign country. In 1978, she took a job as an administrative coordinator at the King Faisal Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. When Sasson first arrived in Saudi Arabia, little of Western civilization had penetrated Saudi culture. At that time, as a guest of the country, she chose not to question the obvious secondary status of females in the Kingdom, where women were forced into marriage, sent into isolation for small infractions, and even sentenced to death at their husband's command. During her ten years of living in a Saudi neighborhood in the Kingdom, Sasson developed a strong network of friendships with Saudi women. Through them, she began to understand the day-to-day reality of being a female in a male-dominated society where Arab women are without legal recourse from individual acts of violence and cruelty. Although she reacted with horror, Sasson still did not feel that as a single Western woman, she was in a position to bring about change in a rigid social system that has been in place for the last two thousand years. At an Italian embassy function in 1983, Sasson met an extraordinary Saudi princess, the Sultana of her books. Establishing an instant rapport, they began a friendship that has grown and strengthened over the years. Although they were from diverse cultures, they found themselves to be true soul mates. In 1985, Sultana requested that Sasson write a book about the injustice of life for women in Saudi Arabia. The author was initially reluctant to take such a step, although she ultimately revealed it to the world with *Princess*, (1992) and *Princess Sultana's Daughters*, (1994).