Matthew Edmundson

Matt Edmundson is the Co-Founder and Co-President of Violet Health, a social enterprise based in Bangalore, India, focused on creating nutritional products for malnourished populations. He was previously Operations Officer at RefugePoint, founded by Sasha Chanoff. 

Matt was a member of the EPIIC colloquium in 2003-2004, and a founder member of Exposure. He graduated from Tufts in 2005 with a degree in Economics, and has an MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business.  With the critical support of the Institute for Global Leadership, Matt travelled to Hargeisa, Somaliland, as part of his undergraduate thesis looking at the costs to lack of international recognition for the northern Somali statelet.

Matt was one of the most active, influential and impactful members of the Institute. His energy  was extraordinary, as befitted the rugby player he was, and yet it always amazed me, as it was expended in an almost effortless, and consistently in a modest manner.

His photography with Exposure was brilliant, whether is was in Kakuma Camp in Kenya, or Tehran. As an alum he advised our PNDP’s students.  This profile speaks to his  seminal work addressing Iron deficiency in India.

Ezra Friedman

 Ezra Friedman is the Chair of the International Student Young Pugwash network.

He is the Policy Adviser for the regional and security portfolio at the British Embassy in Tel Aviv (BETA), working as a local based staff member for the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office of her Majesty’s Government. He serves as BETA’s subject matter expert on regional, national security and political climate change issues. As the chair of International Student Young Pugwash, Ezra facilitates, organizes and leads a diverse, broad based network of students and young professionals who engage on a plethora of topics, such as disarmament and non-proliferation, conflict resolution, regional cooperation, sustainable development, and the societal and ethical impacts of science and technology. At BETA, Ezra’s policy work directly contributes to high-level bilateral political, security and civil society engagement on a host of issues; Ezra is specifically leading on the normalisation and Eastern Mediterranean portfolios, advising on complex, security, diplomatic, environmental and energy issues.

Previously, he worked as a research assistant to Sima Shine, director of the Iran Programme at the Institute for National Security Studies, and former director of the Research and Analysis Division of the Mossad and deputy director of the National Security Council (Israel). Additionally, he was the project manager and creator of the regional portfolio for the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Jerusalem Office, managing nearly 500,000 Euros and 19 partnerships with universities, government ministries and civil society organizations.

Ezra holds degrees from IDC Herzliya (B.A.), and the London School of Economics and Political Science (MSc). He has published nearly three dozen articles across a range of academic and political risk platforms, including the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, The Jerusalem Post, Global Risk Insights, Fathom Journal, Georgetown Public Policy Review, MGIMO University, and the Institute for National Security Studies amongst others

I met thoughtful Ezra in the context of my desire to augment ISYP’s presence in the U.S. and globally. It soon became evident that our vision was simpatico, and that we could easily work together. Ezra is remarkable for his breadth of interests and knowledge, and his intelligence, energy and determination as international Chairman have already moved ISYP forward significantly. With him I was fortunate to successfully nominate a brilliant young physicist, Talia Weiss who was elected as the Board’s new member from the United States. (Link) I am privileged now to advise ISYP on its strategies.

Gwythian Prins

Gwythian Prins MA, PhD (Cantab) FRHist, is the Emeritus Research Professor at the London School of Economics, Director of the Cambridge Security Initiative Research Unit (CSIRU) and Visiting Professor at the HRI, University of Buckingham. He is a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Statecraft in London, Academic Board Member of Veterans for Britain and on the Editorial Boards of Briefings for Britain, History Reclaimed (from 'woke' misrepresentations) and the Advisory Boards of the Henry Jackson Society and the Global Warming Policy Foundation. He was previously Alliance Research Professor jointly at Columbia University in New York and the London School of Economics but for most of his university career he was a Fellow and the Director of Studies in History at Emmanuel College and University Lecturer in Politics, University of Cambridge. For a decade, he helped George Weidenfeld’s benefaction to conduct courses in moral philosophy for young leaders at the University of Oxford.  Since the 1980s he has taught at every level of British military education, for all services. He was the first British Senior Academic Visiting Fellow at the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de St Cyr from June 2016-2019.

Banned from South Africa for thirty years, he re-opened Cambridge's links with South Africa in 1995 and assisted President Mandela's "Seminar of All the Talents", has served in the Secretary General of NATO’s Special Adviser’s office at the end of the Cold War, as Adviser to the Czechoslovakian government, was Senior Visiting Fellow in MoD's DERA where, with full security clearances, he served as internal scrutineer of all types of defense project having input into multi-billion pound investments, and directed an exploratory research group on strategic assessment methods on which he also advised the Swedish government. He was the first Security Consultant to the Hadley Centre for Climate Policy & Research within the Met Office. In New York he advised and assisted Kofi Annan’s (unsuccessful) High Level Panel on UN reform. 2007-17 he advised the Japanese government on energy and environmental issues, a task which he resumed in 2019-20. He was founding coordinator 2010-17 of the Hartwell Group on climate and energy policy.

From 2011 until its closure he served three CDSs on the Strategy Advisory Panel of the British Chief of the Defence Staff. He was a founding member of the Royal Marines Advisory Group.  He is an Honorary Member of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines and for services to it in the 1990s, also of the Army Intelligence Corps.

Upon retirement from his chair, he served from 2012-17 as a Board Member of the Charity Commission of England and Wales. The Commissioners regulate charities with annual income in the region of £70bn.  Since 'lockdown' (2020-21) he has been co-ordinating an informal high level group around the coronavirus virus and vaccines which was the first to discover from molecular mapping (in February 2020) the lab-manipulated origin of the chimera and by forensic analysis the most likely route to its creation (who, how, when, where) as well as the retro-engineered cover-up.

His many publications range from an award-winning history of western Zambia to books and essays on medical anthropology, on energy and environmental policy, on geo-politics, on principles of strategy, the ethics of war, on military history, on naval issues, on assessment methodology for coping with risk and uncertainty and on EU & contemporary security issues. He has recently been guiding the drafting and publication of key papers on the Covid Virus and Vaccines. The common thread of his career is security in all its cultural, historical, philosophical, geo-political and military dimensions. 

I have known Gwyn for decades, and he is my favorite person to fence with. We differ, at times, on very controversial issues from Middle Eastern politics to Brexit, yet he sharpens my edge and challenges me in the very manner that I ask of my students in suspending their preconceptions. He keynoted a great variety of forums over the years, so many that on the 25th anniversary of the Institute we asked him to present his thoughts on the Institute that which he describes as being prescient but apparently much like Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, able to successfully look over the horizon. I first met Gwyn when realizing that we had begun a high school program inquiry and its theme was Water Diplomacy in the Middle East, and he knew that we called the simulation UNWARY (United Nations Water Resource Year). He volunteered to play the convening role of the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutrous-Ghali. He had just published a fascinating book called Top Guns and Toxic Whales. One of his more formidable presentations was on Global Health and Security for EPIIC’s Global Health and Security Year found here. At times, we have to settle for agreeing to disagree, but it has never shaken our friendship. At the time of this posting, Gwyn had written this essay on the US withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Kishore Mandhyan

Sherman Teichman and I met many years ago at Tufts when I was studying at the Fletcher School. He was then launching EPIIC, an epic 360 program as a complement to the more formal study of liberal arts and sciences at the university. For my one dimensional mind it opened up and supplemented my multi/inter-disciplinary education and teaching in international relations, political ecology and contemporary affairs. Over time through seminars, active field engagement, workshops, sterling speakers from the mainstream and alternative policy and academic universe, I witnessed the growth of a live forum of what a life of the mind can be. Through critical thinking and self reflection year after year one witnessed students bring together their inner and outer journey's and realise their potential. This was a seminal encounter for my personal and professional growth while teaching in the Boston area and later in my professional work as a diplomat, international civil servant, activist in politics, and civic life in NGOs and movements. But explicitly it enabled my transition to a full human being - helping me recognize my limitations and possibilities - making me self-aware of what a wholesome person means.

Kishore Mandhyan's work covers peacekeeping and diplomacy; teaching and research in global security, political ecology and social change; civic and political activism in sustainable development; and international administration and governance. Currently, he is Co-Convenor-Maharashtra of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP-Commoner’s Party) and Lok Sabha Prabhari for the Mumbai South Parliamentary Constituency.  He worked on the State Advisory Council to the Maharashtra State Executive, Mumbai Metropolitan Region Working Group, Political Education and Training Committee and Disciplinary/ Grievance Cells, on matters related to party organization, manifesto, policy/ program and election campaign issues, funding and external relations. 

He was Political Director a.i and Deputy Director for Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Human Rights in the Cabinet of the United Nations Secretary General.  He represented the Executive Office of the Secretary General to the International Parliamentary Union, and was responsible for portfolios related to the Alliance of Civilizations, Human Security, Peacebuilding; Protection of Civilians, Coordination of anti-Piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, Restoration of Buddha’s Lumbini Cultural site/ Nepal; North and Horn of Africa (Western Sahara/ Morocco, Libya) and West, Central and South Asia including the Gulf.

 Prior to the UN secretariat in New York, through the nineties until 2007, he led political and civil operations (annex 1 - select list attached) in UN peacekeeping missions and transitional administrations in conflict zones. These included countries which emerged out of the former Yugoslavia - Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Kosovo in Europe; Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Cyprus, Jordan in West Asia, Gulf and the Middle East.

 In the eighties, he taught International Relations/ Organization, Comparative Politics and Environmental Policy at Boston College, Tufts and Harvard and served as a panelist on public and foreign affairs in various national and global forums (annex 2 - select list attached).  He was recognized for Excellence in Teaching at Harvard, at Tufts by the Institute for Global Leadership and Jai Hind College (Bombay University) for his international service, and as a thought leader at the World Vision Institute.

 At the World Bank in the Office of Science and Technology he researched and co-wrote the Strategy for Renewable Energy Technologies.  And as member of the Save Mumbai Committee he co-drafted the Citizen’s Urban Regional Environmental Approach in response to the Municipal Development Master Plan of 1981-2001. He has reviewed and drafted several reports of the UN Secretary General to the General Assembly and the Security Council on peace, security and sustainable development.

 His professional administrative career began with the Government of India in the Central Civil Services in the early seventies holding assignments with the Ministry of Communications in Maharashtra. Educated in the Physical Sciences and Law at Bombay University, his advanced graduate study in international political economy of security and development, global policy and governance, and diplomatic history was at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in Boston. He was trained in public administration at the National Academy of Administration/ India, the Program on Negotiation/ Harvard, and the Sloan Workshop on Nuclear Arms Control/ MIT.

 Associations he is a part of include the Triglav Circle (France), Transnational Futures Foundation (Sweden), Global Dialogue Forum (Australia), TITLI (Teacher’s Institute for Transformative Learning in India). He was also a member of the Greenpeace Advisory Board/ New England Chapter, and produced and ran a cultural radio show ALMANAC on FM 91.5 geared to the South Asian migrant community in Boston. His interests are in travel and comparative research on Indian states, South Asian and Indian foreign policy, governance of UN peace operations; poetry; architecture, permaculture gardens, community sustainable agriculture and slow food (Terra Madre).

Kishore’s Recent Publications/ Appearances:  Ecological Economics: An Institutional Perspective/ NMMS Journal of Management and Policy - 2019; Redefining Perspectives: TedX KCCSR – 2019; Reflections on Indian Elections 2019/ Young Entrepreneurs Club35 – March 2019 (annex 3 – select list attached).

Key UN HQ Field Assignments

Director of Political Affairs/ United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI) – 2004/ 2007

Core Mandate:  *Stabilisation   *State and Nation Building   *Constitution Making   * Conduct of Elections   *Delivery of Services   *Humanitarian Coordination   *Planning of Census   *Mediation of Internal Disputed Boundaries (Kurdistan)   *Regional Reconciliation (West Asia, Gulf, Middle East) *Restoration of damaged Samarra Mosque with UNESCO

Representative of the Secretary General and Designated Security Coordinator/ United Nations Liaison Office in Croatia (UNLO) – 1999/ 2002

Core Mandate:  *Representation and Liaison post peacekeeping phase   *Oversight of post-Dayton Erdut Agreement   *Co-Chair/ UN-US Article 11 Commission  *Sustaining Croatia-UN peace agreements   *Inputs pertinent to Croatian candidacy to the EU in  Stabilization and Association Process   *Political support to International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (UNICTY)   *Coordination of UN Funds, Agencies and Programs   *Safety and Security of UN staff

Political Advisor/ United Nations Mission in Prevlaka (UNMOP) – 1999/ 2002

Core Mandate:  *Advice and support to multinational UN Observer Group deployed in the disputed Prevlaka peninsula between Croatia and Montenegro   *Facilitation of territorial transfer agreement

Head of Civil Affairs/ United Nations Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNMIBH) – 1998/ 1999

Core Mandate:  *Implementation of Annex 11 of the Dayton Agreement and Bonn-Petersburg Agreement on effective law enforcement  *Political Advice to International Police Task Force (IPTF)  *Formation of Border Control Mechanism and Freedom of Movement protocols  *Establishment and execution of Legislative, Judicial and Penal System Assessment and Reform Program  *Training, Audit, Accreditation and Governance of criminal justice institutions  *Handover to EU High Representative for follow up to UN mandate  *Support, safety and security of refugees and displaced persons  *Restoration of damaged bridge in Mostar with UNESCO

Co-Chair/ United Nations-European Union Joint Commission on Civil Administration and Public Records – United Nations Transitional Administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES) - 1996/97

Core Mandate:  *Interim governance of the disputed territory of Eastern Slavonia between Serbia and Croatia   *Facilitation of merger and integration of the people, territories and institutions of Baranja and Srem into the Croatian constitutional system

Co-Chair/ United Nations-Council of Europe Joint Commission on Education and Culture – United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAES) – 1996/97

Core Mandate:  *Convening and facilitating negotiations including transitional governance of public education and culture regimes within framework of the European Convention on Minorities  *Design and implement options for merger of education and culture structures, teacher accreditation, language, recognition of curricula, and governance of minority (Hungarian, Serbian, Slovak, Gypsy) education and cultural requirements in accordance with international human rights standards

Political Advisor/ United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation in Croatia (UNCRO)/ 1995-1996

Core Mandate:  *Develop and implement real time observation, monitoring, reportage, prevention, and diplomatic engagement on human rights violations, crimes against humanity, mass atrocities, war crimes post military action (Operations Flash and Storm) in United Nations Protected Areas (UNPAs).

Member – Task Force/ United Nations Protection Force in the Former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR)/ 1993-94

Core Mandate:  *Political advice to UN military forces, civil society, international non-governmental organizations on humanitarian protection and human rights matters *  Interpretation of security council mandates related to cease-fires, rules of engagement, economic and political agreements between parties to conflict  *Confidence Building measures and Peacebuilding initiatives in Zones of Separation  *Support of Demining projects

Kishore is, simply put, a unique talent, a man of extraordinary courage and integrity, whom I am honored to call a friend. I first worked with him in the context of preparing and placing my students and alumni in the sensitive circumstances of post-Dayton Former Yugoslavia.

What is very exciting for me is that he will be integral to the unique educational incubator of Sai University in Chennai. His breadth of knowledge and experience will continue to inspire the next generation of Indian generations.

Jack Blum

Jack Blum is a Washington lawyer who has had a unique career spanning government service,  international work for the UN and for various governments, and work for private companies in controlling money laundering fraud and corruption. 

He is a graduate of Bard College and Columbia Law School. At Bard he studied with Heinrich Bluecher, a  philosopher, and the husband of Hannah Arendt. After he died Blum got to know her and visited with her in New York up to the time of her death in 1975. 

Almost immediately after law school Blum went to work for the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly  Subcommittee under Senator Philip Hart of Michigan. In that capacity he led investigations into the  newspaper industry, real estate title insurance, the petroleum industry, housing redlining and mortgage  fraud. Among notable firsts he organized the first senate hearings on ocean pollution, uncovered a map  produced by an association of Boston bankers with a red line showing where blacks could get mortgages, The mortgage fraud investigation previewed the savings and loan crisis that came 20 years later. 

He also worked with Senator Hart on campaign finance reform legislation focused on the rates charged  to candidates. 

He then went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where he worked on the role of ITT in  attempting to overturn the election of Salvador Allende as president of Chile. In a closed session he asked the questions about the CIA’s role in the affair which led to the indictment of Richard Helms, the former Director for lying under oath. 

The work of the Subcommittee on Multinational Corporations then moved to investigations of international banking, international oil, and ultimately to the question of corruption. The disclosure of Lockheed Aircraft’s bribes to foreign governments led to the conviction and imprisonment of Prime Minister Tanaka of Japan and the abdication of Prince Bernhardt and Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.  In response to the disclosure Congress passed the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. 

After leaving the Senate staff in 1976 Blum work as a consultant to the United Nations on drafting an  convention on controlling corruption – an effort that failed miserably. He then turned his attention to private practice representing victims of crime and fraud and gasoline retailers in their struggles with major oil companies. 

In 1985 Blum became aware of the role General Manuel Noriega was playing in supporting the drug  cartels in Columbia and testified about the issue in a closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee. The following year he returned to the Committee staff to lead the investigation of the relationship of the  Contra war in Nicaragua to the drug trafficking problem. 

The investigation focused on the role of money laundering and the criminal activity of the Bank of Credit  and Commerce International – then the world’s twentieth largest privately owned bank. When the Justice Department declined to deal with the case, Blum took the evidence to the New York County  District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, who had the bank closed and indicted many of its officers. 

In 1990 Blum ran in the Democratic Primary for Congress from Maryland. He lost to election but focused  attention on his opponent who had raised more than $1 million from various bankers, sat on the House  Banking Committee, and at the time of his fund raising was unopposed. 

Blum then began consulting for the Internal Revenue Service on the prevention of offshore tax evasion. He ran multiple training programs for IRS personnel, testified on offshore evasion issues, and help various news organizations develop stories of the problem of offshore. In 1994 he did an undercover taping of a corrupt banker in the Cayman Islands for BBC and PBS Frontline. The resulting programs led to the closing of the corrupt bank and an international focus on the problem of offshore tax evasion. 

In 2000 Blum began consulting for the United Nations Office of Crime and Drug Control on the issues of  corruption and asset recovery. He chaired a UN sponsored Committee on Asset Recovery and led meeting in Vienna to develop proposals. In 2001 he chaired an international program on money laundering in St. Petersburg, Russia. The occasion for the conference was the unveiling of new anti money laundering laws in Russia. In 2002 he chaired a similar conference in Santiago Chile for Latin  American bank regulators and law enforcement personnel. 

As part of his work for the UN Blum visited Nigeria and met with Nigerian officials involved in the recovery of money stolen from the Nigerian treasury by the former dictator, Sani Abacha. 

Over the next number of years, continuing to the present day, Blum has worked training law enforcement officials and bak regulators on prevention of money laundering. He has worked with officials of the treasury department, the IRS and other government agencies on recovering funds from tax evaders and criminals.

Jack currently serves as Counsel for Americans for Democratic Action and is Chair of Tax Justice Network USA, and the Violence Policy Center.

 Jack has been a stalwart beloved friend, advisor, mentor, and confidant for decades, challenging me, engaging me in “good trouble,” and keeping me out of bad trouble for decades.  At least he tried. He served on the initial Institute for Global Leadership Board, and participated in many of our programs. These links give you a sense of the man: 

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/22/business/washington-at-work-a-crusader-driven-by-outrage.html

https://web.law.columbia.edu/public-integrity/profiles-public-integrity-jack-blum

Elyse Cherry

Since 1997, Elyse Cherry has served as the CEO of BlueHub Capital, a national nonprofit community finance organization with a 35-year history of building healthy communities where low-income people live and work. Under Cherry’s leadership, BlueHub has invested over $2.2 billion, leveraged an additional $10 billion, and built a national tax credit practice to: finance affordable housing, health centers, schools, and other community facilities; provide foreclosure relief through the creation of a mortgage lender aimed at stabilizing urban neighborhoods; create jobs; benchmark and drive down energy and utility costs; and promote resiliency. 

Cherry is a former partner at the law firm of Hale and Dorr (now WilmerHale) where her national transactional practice focused on multi-family and commercial real estate finance and development, affordable housing, and open space preservation.

An active civic and business leader, Cherry is a member of the Wellesley College Board of Trustees, the Board of Advisors of Eastern Bank, and Chair of the Board of the Forsyth Institute. She is also on the Board of Directors of The Boston Foundation, where she co-chairs the Advisory Committee for The Equality Fund -- a fund supporting greater Boston nonprofits that strengthen the LGBTQ community.

Cherry has been named one of 50 most influential Bostonians by the Boston Business Journal, one of the Top 100 LGBT Executives in the world by the Financial Times and OUTstanding, and one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century by Women’s eNews.  In 2014, The White House named Cherry a Solar Champion of Change. She received Wellesley’s Alumnae Achievement Award in 2017, and she received the Susan M. Love Award from Fenway Health in 2014. For the past seven years, The Boston Globe and The Commonwealth Institute have included BlueHub Capital as one of the Top 100 Women-Led Businesses in Massachusetts.  

Cherry is a frequent speaker and panelist at national gatherings, and has been cited and published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Boston Globe, among others. She has been featured on CBS Evening News, NPR’s Marketplace, PBS NewsHour and MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes.

Cherry is a former or present member of more than a dozen privately held company boards, including Zipcar. She chaired the Massachusetts Cultural Council, served on Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s statewide transition team and was a member of Governor Patrick’s Foreclosure Impacts Task Force. Cherry also chaired the Board of Mass Equality during that organization’s historic fight for marriage equality. 

Cherry, an attorney, graduated from Wellesley College and Northeastern University School of Law.

Pashtoon Atif

Pashtoon Atif was appointed by H. E. the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in June 2021 as the Director General of the National Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. Atif brings with him wealth of experiences he has accumulated in his professional career over the past nearly two decades, during which he worked for various international organizations including the United Nations Development Program, USAID and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization both in Afghanistan and aboard.

Most recently, Mr. Atif served as the Afghanistan Country Director for GoodWeave International, a Washington DC-based non-governmental organization that works to end child labor in global supply chains.  Prior to that job, Mr. Atif worked for various USAID-funded programs that were aimed at promoting stabilization, community development and good governance at the both national and subnational levels. During his career, Mr. Atif has had the opportunity to manage projects in various sectors including the promotion of good governance and community development, WASH, education, capacity building, support for internally displaced people and reintegration of ex-combatants. In all these roles, Mr. Atif has demonstrated professionalism, dedication and integrity which resulted in his successive promotions.

In 2006, Cooperazione Internazionale, an Italian International NGO, offered Mr. Atif a full-time position in Sudan where he managed various large and small-scale programs, mostly in Darfur region. Later, as an independent consultant, Mr. Atif traveled across Europe and the United States to provide consulting services to various organizations about the political, social and economic situation of Afghanistan.

Mr. Atif holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK. He is grateful to Sherman for all the help and support he recieved over the years when he was at Tufts and Fletcher.

R. Bruce Hitchner

Dr. R. Bruce Hitchner is Professor of Classical Studies and International Relations, and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies at Tufts. Hitchner has published extensively on the history and archaeology of the Roman World and has directed archaeological projects in North Africa and France supported by the National Geographic Society, National Endowment of the Humanities, and French Ministry of Culture. Hitchner was the founder and Chair of the Dayton Peace Accords Project (1998 to 2014), and a member of the international negotiating team that assisted parliamentary parties of Bosnia-Herzegovina in producing the April 2006 Package of Amendments to the Dayton Constitution. Hitchner served as the Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Archaeology(1998 to 2006).He has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford (2010), the Center for Human Values at Princeton University (2002 to2003), and Churchill College, Cambridge (1994 to 1995). He has also authored op-eds, papers, and interviews for the United States Institute of Peace, Center for Strategic and International Studies, ICDT, International Centre for Democratic Transition, International Herald Tribune/New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, He is currently writing a book on the Origins of the Roman Empire to be published by Princeton University. I have had the great pleasure of working with Sherman since I first arrived at Tufts in 2003. We have had a long and shared commitment to peace, stability and human rights in the Western Balkans. I have also had the pleasure of speaking regularly to the superb students in the renowned IGL program, which he founded during his successful career Tufts.”

Neil Swidey

NEIL SWIDEY runs on curiosity. A bestselling author and award-winning magazine writer, he explores a wide range of subjects in his work. He is the director of the Journalism Program and a professor of the practice at Brandeis University as well as editor-at-large of the Boston Globe Magazine. His most recent book, Trapped Under the Sea, was named one of the best books of the year by Amazon and Booklist, and his first book, The Assist, was named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post. He was also a coauthor of Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, and previously worked for NBC News as an on-air contributing analyst. He is a National Magazine Award finalist, an Emmy Award Nominee (New England), and an eight-time winner of the Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists. His writing has won many other awards, and has been featured in The Best American Science Writing, The Best American Crime Writing, and The Best American Political Writing. Neil lives outside Boston with his wife and three daughters. As an outgrowth of his first book, he founded the Alray Scholars Program, a mentoring and scholarship nonprofit that gives first-generation college students from Boston a second chance to earn their degree. 

On Sherman Teichman: “No matter how extensive their faculty rosters are, most universities have a small, select group of dynamic individuals who make education come alive for their students, challenging them to become independent and original thinkers and swing-for-the-fences doers. Sherm was that kind of force-of-nature figure at Tufts. I consider myself fortunate to have been one of his students -- and then to have him as a friend for life.”

Rick Litvin

Rick Litvin is a filmmaker, songwriter, photographer and educator.  His work has screened at the Museum of Modern Art, IFC Center, MTV, VH-1 of MTV Networks and has been featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, Morning Edition, Public Radio International, The BBC, CBS, as well as being distributed internationally. Rick has generated and directed original cable television program content in collaboration with The 3M Corporation and Time Warner and has worked in the music industry as a songwriter on eight releases by Lucy Kaplansky (The Tide, Flesh and Bone, Ten Year Night AFIM Best Pop Album of the Year 2000, Every Single Day AFIM Best Pop Album of the Year 2002, The Red Thread, Over the Hills - 11,965,000 streams on Spotify for the track "More than This," Reunion and Everyday Street). His work has been included in a variety of anthologies and has been reviewed across a spectrum of old media and new media publications including the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Irish Times and Rolling Stone.

Rick produced 10 music videos for Joan Baez's 2019 Grammy Award Nominated release, "Whistle Down the Wind.” Of those videos, ”The President Sang Amazing Grace" premiered on The Atlantic (distinguished by "The Atlantic Selects" category with over 605,000 YouTube plays and over 1,300,000 million plays on Joan Baez’s Facebook page since launch). The music video of Joan Baez’s version of Joe Henry’s "Civil War" premiered on the Smithsonian Magazine Website with a feature story about the production. “The President Sang Amazing Grace” was published in book form (September, 2019) by Cameron + Company (distributed by Abrams Books). 

Rick directed Shawn Colvin’s Sony Records music video, “Steady On,” which was awarded 5 stars by VH1 for her Grammy Award winning debut recording, “Steady On.”  He has also directed, produced, or, co-produced over 190 music videos, co-authored a segment of Amos Poe’s feature film/installation “Empire II,” produced and directed the Shawn Colvin music video of “Ricochet in Time” which premiered on Billboard. Additional songwriting credits that have been featured on network television (NBC, CBS, PBS) include, "Guilty as Sin" which played on NBC's hit television series "Ed." Rick directed the Kickstarter launch video (Kickstarter Staff Pick) for The Pine Hill Project's release, Tomorrow You're Going, which raised over $85,000 in 30 days. Further, he directed the band’s first music video of the Gillian Welch song, “Wichita,” which was profiled in the international online magazine of popular culture, PopMatters. Rick recently produced and directed the new Lucy Kaplansky music video for her version of the Roxy Music classic, “More Than This.”

Rick is an Arts Professor at New York University’s Undergraduate Department of Film and Television. He has worked as an educational consultant for Tribeca Films/Maker Studios, has presented lectures and seminars on video, film and music video production at a number of college campuses and conferences around the country and abroad. Rick was part of The Season Series at La Pietra, Florence, Italy (2018) with his presentation of Word(s), Image(s) and Instinct. At the Clive Davis Center for Recorded Music, he was a guest lecturer in an ASCAP-sponsored songwriter series. He works with the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU) in Prague, Cz and the NYU Global Tisch affiliated 35mm production program. In 2019, he introduced First Person Narrative at the Story Movements conference at American University. Rick has been working with developing the Cinematic Arts program at Effat University (the first private institution of higher education for women in Saudi Arabia) and has been a guest lecturer at the Jeddah, SA campus while continuing his work with Effat throughout the pandemic on Zoom.

As an educator, he has created multiple classes at the Tisch School of the Arts ranging from “Making the Documentary” in Dublin, Ireland, the “Summer High School Filmmakers Workshop," “Short Commercial Forms,” "First Person Narrative" and his research based work in developing alternative interdisciplinary approaches to the narrative form. He was invited to create the curriculum and teach an international program connecting visiting young Emirati filmmakers to New York (2015) in collaboration with NYU Abu Dhabi, Image Nation and the Tisch School of the Arts. Rick's new program/initiative, First Person Narrative was first introduced (2017) in partnership with the Office of Strategic Initiatives, Ghetto Film School and Future Artists. The First Person Narrative initiative connects interdisciplinary first person perspectives of the narrative form.The initial Quest to Learn/Future Filmmakers program was developed and supported with a Dean's development grant. The program teaches students how to tell their own unique stories from their own unique point of view with a focus on interdisciplinary first person perspectives of the narrative form.

Rick has incubated multiple partnerships with New York City Public High Schools (Quest to Learn, High School for Environmental Studies, High School for Art and Design) and offered a week long collaborative program (2016 and 2017) that invited a group of New York City high school students to engage with UGFTV faculty and students. He also worked with film and media related curriculum development, mentorship and arts related educational opportunities for underrepresented students in the New York City public high school system. Rick is part of a new working group that has launched the New York University College and Career Lab (2018) connecting New York City area middle school and high school students with five schools at NYU (Stern, Law, Steinhardt, Tandon and Tisch). In 2021, the College and Career Lab expanded into the Explorations and Immersive track and introduced First Person Narrative as the core Tisch curricular offering. Rick was invited to lecture for the Lang Arts Scholars in a further expansion of his work in the Tisch Arts Lab (2021). 

Rick teaches a range of production classes at New York University including Sight and Sound Filmmaking, Intermediate Narrative, First Person Narrative, Experimental Production, Advanced Production and presents the master lecture for Language of Film in the history and criticism area.  Over the years, he has provided a key leadership role in developing a number of new curricular initiatives and courses and was responsible for transitioning the department’s signature production class, Sight and Sound Filmmaking, from celluloid to digital. Rick has served as the chair of the Curriculum Committee and was the Executive Director of Production Studies for over 10 years. 

He is the recipient of multiple grants, commissions and awards (including the CINE Golden Eagle), as well as receiving multiple recommendations for both the distinguished teaching award at NYU and multiple nominations for the David Payne-Carter Award for teaching excellence. Rick was a recent nominee for both the Angela Davis/W.E.B. Dubois Faculty Award at New York University (2018) and the New York University Making a Difference Award (2020).

He is a member of the UFVA (University Film and Video Association), ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) and was on the Advisory Council of the board at the Institute of Play.

Charlie Kravetz

Charlie Kravetz’ career spans Boston journalism from broadcast and cable television to public radio. His early career began at WBZ-TV and quickly moved to WCVB-TV where he was founding Producer and Executive Producer of Chronicle, now the longest running local magazine program in America. Charlie eventually became Assistant News Director at NewsCenter 5 and then the founding Station Manager of New England Cable News (NECN). Charlie and his team built NECN into the largest regional news channel in the country, serving four-and-a-half million viewers across all six New England states. Charlie became President and General Manager of NECN and stayed with the channel for 17 years. In 2011, he became General Manager of WBUR, the iconic public radio station in Boston. During his eight year tenure, Charlie grew WBUR’s staff by 50% and doubled its annual revenue to $40 million. Charlie launched the first ever Campaign for WBUR, a $40 million effort that funded dozens of new journalists and the creation of CitySpace, a 275 seat hi-tech event venue. Charlie is the recipient of the Peabody Award, multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards and many New England Emmy Awards. Charlie is a graduate of the University of Rochester, magna cum laude, phi beta kappa. He lives in Wellesley with his wife, Deborah Sinay. They have two grown daughters and two grandchildren.

Ananya Vajpeyi

Ananya Vajpeyi is a Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. She is a scholar and writer, working at the intersection of intellectual history, political theory and critical philology. She is the author of the award-winning book, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India (Harvard, 2012). 

Dr. Vajpeyi was educated at the Jawaharlal Nehru University - New Delhi, the University of Oxford, where she read as a Rhodes Scholar (India and Exeter College), and the University of Chicago, where she earned a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations. She has been a Kluge Fellow at the Library of Congress in Washington DC (2013-14), a Global Ethics Fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, NY (2014-17) and more recently a Charles Wallace Trust Fellow as well as a Visiting Fellow at CRASSH, University of Cambridge (2017-18; 2019-20). 

She is currently working on a political biography of Sanskrit for W.W. Norton, as well as her long-term project, an intellectual life of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956). She writes regularly about politics, arts and ideas for newspapers and magazines in India and abroad. She has published in Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, World Policy Journal, New Statesman, The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Calcutta Telegraph, and numerous other venues. 

More details at: https://www.csds.in/ananya_vajpeyi

Ananya was also involved as a speaker and participant with EPIIC and IGL from 2008-10, when she taught South Asian and World History at the University of Massachusetts in Boston. She also taught as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in South Asian Studies at SIPA, Columbia University in 2006-07, and before that was a Visiting Fellow in South Asian Studies at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC in 2004. In April 2013 she delivered the First Jalal Alamgir Memorial Lecture at Tufts University.

Adam White

Adam White is the founder of Atlas Workshops, a global education organization committed to inspiring creative engagement with the world. Adam is also a founder and principal at Groupshot and the Digital Matatus Project.

Adam, through Atlas Workshops, has designed and led dozens of field research programs for students and adults. As a program lead with Atlas he has guided programs to nearly every continent including workshops for students to Uruguay to study a culture of renewable energy, deep dives for VCs in India to explore the context of investment opportunities in clean water, and a mix of groups through the Balkans exploring issues of historical memory in the former Yugoslavia among many others.

His eclectic interests come from the many connections across the world and the overlapping challenges and opportunities we all share. It's always incredible how the issues right in front of us at home can crystallize when seen through the lens of another culture, community, or experience.

Adam studied engineering at Tufts university and as a member of the EPIIC colloquium twice he developed interests in global equality and urbanization. He went on to complete a Masters degree in City Design from the London School of Economics. His time at both schools framed all of his future work as an interdisciplinary thinker passionate about how technology and infrastructure can be human and how new ideas arise in context.

While studying at the LSE Adam became involved with the technological emergency response to the earthquake in Haiti which led him to found his design and research firm, Groupshot. Groupshot has worked on projects at the intersection of technology and informality for nearly 10 years as the potential has grown massively.

Groupshot's initial work was on the growing technology for development and social entrepreneurship field especially focused in East Africa. Spending months each year in Nairobi, Adam developed a deeper understanding of the potential and cultural limitations of technology and a large community based in the region. This work came at the time when mobile phones were proliferating rapidly and the smartphone was becoming accessible more widely in Kenya.

Through his work at Groupshot Adam has received recognition for a number of projects including awards from the World Bank for innovative projects in Haiti and Peru. Groupshot projects have included an investigation of how technology and context can help support taco vendors in Mexico, wheelchair users in India, and small scale makers in Kenya.

One of these research projects grew into the Digital Matatus Project. Adam brought together a team of Kenyan and American university professors from MIT, University of Nairobi, and Columbia's Earth Institute. The Digital Matatus Project became the first successful initiative to map informal public transport in a city and made Nairobi's minibus network the first (and most comprehensive) transit system for an African City on Google Maps and as an open source database.

Digital Matatus has been recognized in Kenyan and international publications and received awards, features, and support from the Dubai Expo, the Rockefeller foundation, Wired Magazine, the Guardian, the Economist, Google, the World Bank, the BBC, the venice Biennale, the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and many others.

Adam now spends most of his time with Atlas Workshops. Atlas was founded when a school asked to tag along on one of Adam's research programs and a new model for global education, immersive travel, and creative inspiration was born. He continues to lead Atlas Workshops in the design and execution of a range of field programs and is currently launching a growing network of international hubs for creative and curious thinking around the world.

A wonderful, valued friend now for decades, Adam was one of the most thoughtful and influential of my students, whose intelligent insights had a very positive impact on the coherence and sharpness of my syllabi. His involvement as one of the first engineering students to enroll in EPIIC led to the School of Engineering adding EPIIC to its quite restricted approved social science elective offerings. I greatly admire the thrust of his thinking and activity which has resulted in some of the finest educational experiences for young students I know of; and his thoughtful policy recommendations reflect his intelligence and cultural sensitivity, and derive from both intellectual and experiential depth. He is fun to banter with and he is fulfilling his intent to meaningfully experience the world in a way few of his generation have, COVID notwithstanding, visiting and working in 97 countries as of this year, 2021 .

Jonathan Moreno

Jonathan D. Moreno is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania where he is a Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) professor. At Penn he is also Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, of History and Sociology of Science, and of Philosophy. His most recent books are Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die: Bioethics and the Transformation of Healthcare in America, co-authored with Penn president Amy Gutmann; and The Brain in Context: A Pragmatic Guide to Neuroscience, written with neuroscientist Jay Schulkin.  

Among Moreno’s previous books are Impromptu Man: J.L. Moreno and the Origins of Psychodrama, Encounter Culture, and the Social Network; The Body Politic, which was named a Best Book of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews; Undue Risk, nominated for the Virginia Book Award; and Mind Wars, which was referenced by the screenwriter of The Bourne Legacy. He has published more than a thousand papers, articles, reviews and op-eds. Moreno’s writings have been translated into German, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Romanian.  Moreno is senior consultant to a six-year, 10 million euro project on cold war medical science on both sides of the iron curtain, funded by the European Research Council.

Moreno’s op eds have been published in venues including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Science, Nature, Slate, Politico, The Hill, Foreign Affairs, Axios.com, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today. He often appears on broadcast and online media.  He was co-host of Making the Call, an Endeavor Content podcast and was a columnist for ABCNews.com. Formerly Moreno was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC. and editor of the online magazine Science Progress. The American Journal of Bioethics has called him “the quietly most interesting bioethicist of our time.”

Moreno is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has served as staff member or adviser to many governmental and non-governmental organizations, including the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, three U.S. presidential commissions, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2008-09 he served as a member of President Barack Obama’s transition team.

Moreno received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis, was an Andrew W. Mellon post-doctoral fellow, holds an honorary doctorate from Hofstra University, and is a recipient of the College of William and Mary Law School Benjamin Rush Medal, the Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Global Citizenship from Tufts University, and the Penn Alumni Faculty Award of Merit.  He has held the honorary Visiting Professorship in History at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. In 2018 the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Andy Snider

For the last 20 years, Andy Snider has been a consultant, team facilitator, coach, and business leader working with leadership teams to help them achieve dramatic performance improvements. Andy’s specialty is helping people and organizations adapt and thrive in new or changing environments. 

Since 2000, Andy has been the CEO of Snider Associates, a consulting organization focused on helping organizations reach the next level by designing and implementing strategies and off-sites to build organizational and leadership capacity. Some of Snider Associates’ clients have included: Athenium Software, Authentic Leadership Institute, Binswanger Corporation, Cambridge Leadership Associates, Covestor, Davita Medical, Grand Circle Travel, Heartland Payment Systems, Intuit, Ketchum PR, Legal Sea Foods, Management Concepts, Ridge Training, Visiting Nurses of NY, and Yum Brands. 

Snider has facilitated leadership retreats for a wide variety of executive groups including: YPO Forums, HBS Alumni Forums, Wharton AMP program participants, and Harvard Business School AMP program participants.  

Andy has taught in Executive leadership programs at Harvard and Northeastern Universities. 

In addition to his work at Snider Associates, Andy oversaw the growth of The Authentic Leadership Institute as its COO. ALI provides advanced leadership programs to Fortune 100 companies. He has also served as EVP of Leadership for Grand Circle Travel, a global travel company.  

Prior to starting Snider Associates from 1991 until 2000, Andy was the co-founder and President of VIS Development. That technology company became an INC 500 fast-growth company and pioneered the development of interactive video training on CDs, and later on the web. Major clients included:  Bain Consulting, BellSouth, Dupont, Forum Corporation, Harvard Business Interactive, Honda, Pfizer, and Unilever.   

Prior to VIS, Andy was VP of Administration for ABC Television Broadcast Operations in New York. 

Andy lives in Boston with his wife, a TV producer. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and Lehigh University. He has served on the boards of Conservatory Lab Charter School, More than Words, Management Concepts Inc., Facing History and Ourselves, and has been an active member of the World President’s Organization (YPO-NE). He was a participant for over 18 years in New England YPO and WPO Forums.

Tomo Takaki

Tomo Takaki recently graduated from Yale Law School and clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. During law school, he was a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic and was a 2018 Law Fellow in the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE). Prior to law school, Tomo worked as an AmeriCorps Fellow and served in the U.S. Army, most recently at the Office of the Chief Prosecutor in the Office of Military Commissions. He previously graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with a M.A. in Security Studies in 2015 and from Tufts University with a B.A. in International Relations and a minor in Arabic in 2011.  At Tufts, Tomo was a member of the Institute for Global Leadership's ALLIES program and part of the 2009-2010 EPIIC Colloquium (South Asia: Conflict, Culture, Complexity and Change)

David Williams

David Williams has more than 40 years of experience in crafting innovative and successful political campaigns. They include winning a 2012 ballot measure in Idaho that overturned laws that would have undermined public education, dramatically increasing the turnout of low-propensity voters in a key state in the 2004 Presidential race, and orchestrating a public relations campaign for MA public employees in 1993 that resulted in the passage of a law that derailed efforts to privatize various state agencies.

He has been the Chief of Staff for three members of the US House of Representatives – John Tierney (D-MA), Steve Kagen (D-WI) and Mike Forbes (D-NY). Tierney and Kagen had never held public office before their initial victories and David helped guide them to re-election wins in 1998 and 2008. In 1999, David took over the helm in Forbes’ office after Forbes became the first member of Congress to change parties since the height of Watergate. 

David also served as the national political director for Planned Parenthood (2002-05) where he developed a unique program in 2004 to increase the turnout of women who had little or no history of voting. The program capitalized on Planned Parenthood’s reputation as a trusted health care provider and went door-to-door in suburban Portland, OR with apolitical, non-traditional messaging to build a personal rapport. Where multiple individual contacts were made, 80% of the targets voted and these largely single, unmarried women contributed significantly to John Kerry’s 4-point victory in a state which Al Gore had carried by less than one half a point in 2000.

The 2012 Idaho campaign – Vote No on Propositions 1,2,3 – for which David was the manager and chief strategist, was the first successful repeal of laws passed by the legislature since 1936 and was only the second time it had occurred in the state’s history. The laws masqueraded as education reform but their principal goal was to gut the collective bargaining rights of the state’s teachers and impose more restrictive working conditions. The nonpartisan campaign made extensive use of social media – 75% of the state’s voters were on Facebook – and launched Conservatives Voting No on Props 1,2,3 to capitalize on the populist resentment of the GOP establishment’s dictates. 

From 2014-20, David was the Director of Government Relations and Communications for the Ohio Education Association (OEA). He first came to OH in 2011 as a communications consultant at the behest of the national labor table – a coalition of prominent unions. He subsequently served as a deputy manager for the campaign that successfully overturned a law (SB-5) that would have severely weakened the rights of the state’s public employees.

In 2014, at David’s direction, OEA and partners created an interactive website – https://knowyourcharter.com/– that enabled parents, teachers and other interested parties to compare the performance of local public schools with that of charter schools.  Ohio had a reputation for a large number of poor-performing charters that were draining needed funds from public schools that were in a large majority of cases doing a better job of educating their students.  The Ohio Charter School Accountability Project brought attention to the sorry state of Ohio’s charters without casting aspersions on the many lawmakers who had voted to set up charters with little or no oversight. A number of these legislators had also received large campaign contributions from some of the worst charter school operators. The focus was on the students who were being underserved and on the taxpayers who were being fleeced. Using creative videos that were targeted digitally at key constituencies and capturing the personal stories of parents and educators who had had bad experiences with charter schools, the Ohio Charter School Accountability Project built public support for reform. Within a year of launching the website, legislators were persuaded to pass badly-needed changes in the laws governing charter schools. 

David began his career as a radio and television reporter in Boston at WBUR-FM and WGBH-TV.

Nithyaa Venkataramani

Nithyaa is a current graduate student at Columbia University’s School of Social Work focused in dialectical behavior therapy. She currently interns as a therapist at Brooklyn Heights Behavioral Associates and is training under the supervision of André Ivanoff, the Board Chair of the Linehan Institute. Outside of these roles, Nithyaa manages virtual career design programs for higher education institutions through Mission Collaborative and runs a wellness coaching program for front-line medical professionals at Stamford Health coping with the pandemic. Nithyaa is a certified hatha yoga teacher and holds additional certifications in trauma-sensitive yoga (TCTSY) through the Trauma Center of the Justice Resource Institute and expressive arts therapy through the East-West Center for Counselling and Training in Chennai, India. She teaches regular trauma-sensitive classes and workshops for educators, social workers, therapists and the general public. Prior to her work in the mental health field, Nithyaa served as the Chief of Staff at New Profit, Inc., a venture philanthropy firm dedicated to scaling innovating nonprofit organizations.

Nithyaa's deep interest in global mental health was piqued as a student of Sherman's at Tufts. She started a program during her time in college working in rural India supporting a local organization scale holistic community development efforts and participated in a year-long intensive program, EPIIC, focused on global health. During her time as an EPIIC scholar, she was able to attend a course in global mental health and crisis intervention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also conducted research on global health related topics in nutrition, healthcare access and caste-based conflict in Guatemala, Rwanda and India respectively. Her long-term vision is to bring accessible and high-quality psychotherapy and advocacy platforms to women and children worldwide recovering from abuse and complex trauma. She integrates her skills in counseling, yoga and mindfulness into all of her work and believes that authentic human connection is at the core of healing and transforming our world

Lumay Wang Murphy

Lumay Wang Murphy is a corporate strategist at AB InBev, the largest CPG company by EBITDA, where she is responsible for the company’s long-term strategy and annual strategic planning. Lumay is a former management consultant with Monitor Deloitte (Strategy & Analytics) with deep expertise in retail and CPG industries and a focus on innovation, growth strategy, and sustainable supply chain. She was the climate change legislative correspondent for Senator John F. Kerry and then legislative assistant for Congressman Scott Peters where her portfolio included the environment, energy, and climate change. She received her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and graduated from Tufts University summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She currently serves on the board of The Ocean Foundation. Previously, she served as a board observer of the Chicago Literacy Alliance and in leadership roles on the Tufts Alumni Council and Sidwell Friends School Alumni Association.

Richard Sobol

Since graduating from Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University I have used the art of photography to visit 54 countries and produce visual narratives.

 My photographs from these distinctive worlds have been published in: National Geographic, Time, Rolling Stone, People, Audubon, The New York Times, Paris Match, Stern and Geo. I added text to these stories and published seventeen photographic monographs including Seal Journey, Governor: In the Company of Ann Richards, One More Elephant,  Senator: In the Company of Connie Mack, Mayor: In the Company of Norm Rice, Adelina’s Whales,  An Elephant in the Backyard, and  Growing  Peace.  With Candlewick Press I have published four books in The Traveling Photographer Series, The Story of Silk: From Worm Spit to Woven Scarves, The Mysteries of Angkor Wat, Exploring Cambodia’s Ancient Temple, The Life of Rice: From Seedling to Supper, and Breakfast in The Rainforest: The Story of Uganda’s Mountain Gorillas    (with an introduction by Leonardo DiCaprio).

As a result of my unique set of location shooting skills I was called upon by international wildlife protection agencies to document wild areas and I traveled to Sub-Saharan Africa eleven times. Often, this work focused on poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, but I also photographed poor villagers struggling to feed their families and survive staggering environmental pressures. On my journeys, I met other photographers working on stories about hunger, the onslaught of AIDS, or the frequent brutal civil wars that plague African nations.

During this time, it struck me that most of the photographic images coming out of Africa were overwhelmingly bleak and desperate, if not all together hopeless. I have tried to show another side of Africa and after four visits to Uganda, Abbeville Press published the book, Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda, which was followed by a traveling exhibition and the release of a Music CD by Smithsonian Folkways that was nominated for a GRAMMY award. This project has evolved into the ongoing story, Delicious Peace, which follows a group of Muslim, Christian and Jewish Ugandan farmers who work together in a cooperative based on religious tolerance and interfaith harmony. The music, photos and video of these farmers have also just been released as a Music CD on Smithsonian Folkways.

Closer to home I worked with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the architect Frank Gehry, as I documented the design and construction of MIT’s Stata Center Building. Together with commentary by Gehry, this story is told in the book, Building Stata, published by the MIT Press and the children’s book, Construction Zone.

I am currently competing work on, The Last Rhino, The story of the last male northern white rhino on earth.