Jim Gilbert
Jim grew up in Buenos Aires but spent many summers in Cape Cod where he became one of the first surfers on the East Coast. His career in journalism started at the Provincetown Advocate in Cape Cod, and continued in San Juan, Newport, and Ft. Lauderdale, focusing on maritime issues. Jim was editor-in-chief of the publishing company Seven Seas Press but later became fascinated by the beauty, mechanics, and people of superyachts (yachts over 130’), so he founded the magazine ShowBoats International to cover them. He was the founder, editor-in-chief, and eventual owner of the magazine, which received some of the highest praise in the superyacht industry.
While working at ShowBoats International, Jim founded and worked for 24 years for the charity The International SeaKeepers Society, which has done incredible work in protecting the marine environment. He engaged readers as supporters of the charity, raising over $10 million to fund this work, with over 100 members paying $250K each to join by the time he sold the magazine in 2005.
Jim also wrote The Admiral, a climate change-inspired novel, a fantasy book telling the story of a mid-ocean community living the realities of climate change. He then became president of Aquos Yachts and Christensen Shipyard, both yacht construction companies. He now lives and continues to fish in Cape Cod. Jim studied sociology at Occidental College as an undergraduate and completed three years of interdisciplinary postgraduate studies at UMass, Amherst.
I met Jim simply as a fisherman, or more appropriately, The Truro Fisherman, through Convisero mentor Ted Kurland. We had a number of lovely conversations about boats and fishing, mind you I never had a fishing rod in my hand, but he intrigued me. But now, reviewing this bio of a new friend you will see why. He will make an ideal addition to our Global Maritime Accord and has agreed to advise students on maritime issues.
Mae-ling Lokko
Mae-ling Lokko is an architectural scientist, designer and educator from Ghana and the Philippines who works with agrowaste and renewable biobased materials. Through her work, Lokko explores themes of “generative justice” through the development of new models of distributed production and collaboration.
Lokko is an Assistant Professor at Yale University’s School of Architecture (YSoA) . Her research at Yale’s Center for Ecosystems in Architecture focuses on ecological design, integrated material life cycle design and the broad development and evaluation of renewable biobased materials. Her practice Willow Technologies, Ltd. based in Accra, Ghana that upcycles agrowaste into affordable biobased building materials and for water quality treatment applications. Her work was nominated for the Visible Award 2019, Royal Academy Dorfman Award 2020 and she was a finalist for the Hublot Design Prize 2019.
Lokko’s recent works have been exhibited at major museums globally including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; Museum of the Future, Dubai; Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture, Belgium; Triennale Milano, Italy, Somerset House, London, Nobel Prize Museum, Stockholm; and the Luma Foundation, Arles. Her work has been featured in ICON Magazine, Blueprint, Wallpaper, MOLD Magazine, Frieze Magazine, RIBA Journal, DOMUS, DAMN Magazine and other global design publications.
I first met Sherman when I was a sophomore and joined the second class of Synaptic Scholars at Tufts University. Sherm created and inspired a rich, vibrant community to pursue their passions in unconventional ways, through connections inside and outside the school and through a range of friendships. I found a community of sorts there at the time.
Sherman has remained the kind of life long mentor I have always been grateful to have, unwavering in his support and fascination and bravery (and inspiring bravery in others) in all the ways that count. And I’m so grateful for spirit of intellectual diversity that grew during my years in Sherm’s orbit.
As Mae-ling indicated, I met her first as a young, yet having already lived in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, a worldly sophisticated sophomore at Tufts. I had initiated Synaptic Scholars the year before with the blessings of then President Larry Bacow and my Provost Jamshed Bharuch. They were very encouraging of the effort to give meaning to interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary inquiry, terms that I found both intriguing and yet often described in a very manner. I thought the best way to exemplify the concept would be to find and encourage students whose intellectual thirst could not be slacked by majoring and minoring in the usual manner.
I chose the first cohort of intriguing students and gave them the mandate to experiment “at the margins,” a space that Larry described as a fulcrum of the most interesting ideas, and what Jamshed termed the “frontiers of knowledge.” I helped the first class tap the second class, witnessing the interviews, consulting with the students, empowered with the full freedom to choose their cohort.
Mae-ling was an overwhelming, unanimous choice. She thoughtfully embraced intellectual intricacy and understood the nuances of self-identity. She was a precious avatar of the vision I had. She was thoroughly passionate about architecture and especially was fascinated by traditional and vernacular Asian and African design. Her involvement in Synaptics allowed her to concentrate on reviving a landscape design program in her Ghanaian boarding school that she termed "The Uzuri Project" (named after the Swahili word for beauty.)
In her being and action, Mae-ling exemplified the complexity of hybridity and cosmopolitanism. With confidence, grace and strength, she understood how to embrace her identity, transcend boundaries and borders, and navigate and embrace multiple cultural worlds and communities. President of the Tufts African Students Organization, Mae-ling was also active with the Asian-American Society, Tufts' Emerging Black Leadership Symposium, and the University's multiracial organization Loving drama and performance arts, she was active in both Tufts Irish Dance Club and the Filipino Cultural Society. Her concerns for humanity transcended Tufts and she was active in the organization Emergency, centered on quality health care for victims of poverty and war.
It was clear to me that Mae-ling was happiest with a tangible, visceral engagement with creation. I remember her design plans to redo the landscaping and installations of the wide expanse of Tufts Capen House’s grounds. I knew she was destined for a distinctive distinguished career, one fusing theory and practice, that already her trajectory at Yale and beyond speaks to.
Anyone familiar with Mae-ling’s work would find it distinctly strikingly eclectic, path-breaking and precedent-setting. Mae-ling is insightful, thoughtful and fearless. She robustly embodies the word innovation. Her work is breathtaking and the essence of the concept of sustainability. Her intellect is matched by a joyous, humane buoyancy, immediately evident in the warmth and radiance of her personality. I happily remember her trenchent commentaries and thoughtful academic presentations, marked by verve, enthusiasm and often unchecked excitement. When people say of a person, they "light up a room," it is Mae-ling they are talking about.
Lucy Kaplansky
Lucy started out singing in Chicago folk music clubs as a teenager. Then, barely out of high school, Lucy Kaplansky took off for New York City. There she found a fertile community of songwriters and performers—Suzanne Vega, Steve Forbert, The Roches, and others. With a beautiful flair for harmony, Lucy was everyone’s favorite singing partner, but most often she found herself singing as a duo with Shawn Colvin. People envisioned big things for them; in fact, The New York Times said it was “easy to predict stardom for her.” But then Lucy dropped it all.
Convinced that her calling was in another direction, Lucy left the musical fast track to pursue a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Upon completing her degree, Dr. Kaplansky took a job at a New York hospital working with chronically mentally ill adults, and also started a private practice. Yet she continued to sing. Lucy was often pulled back into the studio by her friends, (who now had contracts with record labels) wanting her to sing on their albums. She harmonized on Colvin’s Grammy-winning "Steady On," and on Nanci Griffith’s "Lone Star State of Mind" and "Little Love Affairs." She also landed soundtrack credits, singing with Suzanne Vega on "Pretty in Pink" and with Griffith on "The Firm," and several commercial credits as well—including “The Heartbeat of America” for Chevrolet.
Then Shawn Colvin—who was itching to produce a record—hooked up with Lucy, her ex-singing partner. They went into the studio, and when Lucy’s solo tapes got into the hands of Bob Feldman, president of Red House Records, he was blown away. Suddenly, Lucy was back in the music business. She signed with Red House Records and started playing gigs. Red House released The Tide in 1994 to rave reviews, and within six months Lucy signed with a major booking agency—Fleming Artists—and began touring so much it required leaving her two psychologist positions behind.
Lucy’s second album, Flesh and Bone (1996), emphasized her development as a gifted songsmith. Then Lucy’s success took flight with back-to-back hit albums Ten Year Night (1999) and Every Single Day (2001). Both received the AFIM award (Association For Independent Music) for Best Pop Album of the year. Lucy also contributed her story to a unique book, SOLO: Women Singer- Songwriters in Their Own Words, which includes some of the best known women on the music scene today: Ani DiFranco, Shawn Colvin, Sheryl Crow, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and others. She was also featured in Lipshtick, a collection of essays by NPR commentator Gwen Macsai, published in the fall of 1999.
In 1998 Lucy teamed with Dar Williams and Richard Shindell to form supergroup Cry Cry Cry, and recorded some of their favorite songs written by other artists. The resulting album, Cry Cry Cry (which The New Yorker dubbed “a collection of lovely harmonizing and pure emotion,” and to which Entertainment Weekly gave an “A” rating), was an astonishing success in stores and on radio. A national tour of sold-out concerts by the trio served to introduce Lucy’s luminous voice to a new audience. In 2017 and 2018, the trio celebrated their 20th anniversary with a sold out national tour and the release of their first recording in 20 years, a single of Jump Little Children's "Cathedrals."
The Red Thread followed the commercial and critical hit Every Single Day, weaving together themes of motherhood, home and the family with stunning production. Lucy’s 2007 release Over the Hills as well as her 2012 release Reunion explored universal themes of love, joy, loss, and dreams for the future, through reflections on family.
In 2009 and 2010 Lucy had two songs commissioned by the international cosmetics company La Prairie to help launch their new fragrance line “Life Threads.” As part of that marketing campaign, Lucy was featured in a music video, as well in as in a variety of marketing appearances and materials, including a feature story in “Women’s Wear Daily.”
In 2010 Lucy joined up with acclaimed singer-songwriters John Gorka and Eliza Gilkyson to record an album as part of new folk super-group Red Horse. Awash in gorgeous harmonies and stripped down production, the album features the singers performing each other’s songs. Red Horse received rave reviews and was the number one album on Folk Radio for several months in 2010. Since the album’s release, the trio were interviewed on NPR’s “Weekend Edition” with Liane Hansen and appeared on NPR’s “Mountain Stage.”
In 2011 Lucy released an EP, Kaplansky Sings Kaplansky, featuring songs written by her father, famed University of Chicago mathematician Irving Kaplansky, including live performances of the two of them performing together in California. This is Lucy’s first venture into 1940’s style swing, reminiscent of the work of Kaplansky’s former student Tom Lehrer.
Lucy's September 2018 release, Everyday Street, is a stunning collection of songs weaving stories of joy, friendship, family, loss and discovery. It is somewhat of a departure sonically: stripped down, spontaneous, acoustic, with the feel of one of her concerts. The songs were recorded over four days with her long-time collaborator Duke Levine on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, mandola, National guitar, and octave mandolin, and Lucy on acoustic guitar, mandolin and piano. These are genuine performances, many were captured in one take.
The opening song, “Old Friends,” a duet with Lucy's long-time friend Shawn Colvin, is a reflection on their friendship and on their times together in the early days of the Greenwich Village folk scene. “Keeping Time,” with Richard Shindell on harmony, is from her vantage point as a mother sharing her neighborhood’s rhythms, albeit from a distance, with the late actor and father of three Philip Seymour Hoffman. “Janie’s Waltz” is about the beauty and grace of an ordinary day. The everyday streets of her long-time home, Greenwich Village in New York City, are woven throughout the recording. There are also four cover songs which have all been fan favorites from her shows, including Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” Nanci Griffith’s “I Wish it Would Rain,” and the traditional Scottish song “Loch Lomond.” Finally, there is a re-imagined version of the title song of her first album, The Tide.
Lucy's version of Roxy Music's "More than This" was featured on a Spotify playlist, "Your Favorite Coffeehouse," and to date her recording has over 11.5 million streams. She has appeared on the CBS Morning Show, NPR’s Weekend and Morning Editions and All Things Considered, Mountain Stage, and West Coast Live. Her voice has remained in high demand by her peers. Lucy's song “Guilty as Sin” was featured in the NBC television show Ed. In addition, she can be heard on releases by Bryan Ferry and Nanci Griffith, and on the Greg Brown tribute album Going Driftless (also featuring Ani Difranco, Iris Dement, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams and others).
Lucy continues to tour and receive airplay both nationally and internationally. Her CD Ten Year Night is the #1 selling album of all time at Red House Records.
I first met Lucy in an encounter on one of Truro's magnificent bayside beaches, Corn Hill It's a dog mecca. I was returning from its breakwater with my pup, Remi, and from a distance I saw a lovely lady making seemingly deliberate strides towards me, towed forward by an energetic beagle. I remember looking about, wondering if there was someone interesting behind me. But it was me she was searching for. Her query when she came within earshot was something insistent, like, "Is the University of Chicago's Lab School yours?"
It was. I had left it on the sand at the entry of the beach. I was at the Lab for a year, (1968), hungry for a teaching, and mentoring experience, while I was pursuing a MA on their Committee of International Relations at the University of Chicago. Lucy explained that she had gone to school there.
It was a fun, animated conversation, and a delightfully serendipitous meeting. Lucy was without affect, or any guile.
We continued to meet with our dog group, and if I remember correctly, our initial conversations were concentrated on US domestic politics and the threat of Trumpism. And playful comments on my bizarre vocabulary.
It was only later that I realized she was an extraordinarily accomplished and noted songwriter and modern folk singer.
She is as modest and unaffected as any person might be. It is so easy to care about this person who deflects any pretense of celebrity.
From assertive virtuoso guitar playing to gentle mandolin and piano arrangements, her eclectic, nuanced music is compelling, sensitive and heartfelt, her harmonies, beautiful. Lucy's thoughtful lyrics are always thought provoking, be they poignantly political, insightful commentaries on life, insightful personal remembrances, humorous asides, or caring lullabies.
Having been privileged to witness her performances, her rapport with, and respect for her audience, is remarkable
I am an unabashed fan. Her friendship, and that of her superbly talented husband,Rick, often her writing collaborator, is priceless.
I always find it amusing that I'm a good friend of the daughter of an internationally renowned professor of mathematics , "Kap!" Her performances of his A Song About Pi, always evokes smiles and laughter when I play it for my friends.
And the sweatshirt in question was actually a gift from one of my wonderful alumni, Sarah Arkin, another Convisero mentor, who had also attended the Lab School.
Iraklis Gkritsis
Iraklis Gkritsis is a management consultant and entrepreneur. He is currently pursuing an MBA at Columbia Business School with a concentration in finance. Iraklis was a consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked extensively in banking, energy and public sector projects including helping a European government tackle the economic impact of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that he worked in the technology sector developing software for European institutions for a major enterprise software company and as a founder of two tech startups in the news aggregation and face animation spaces.
He studied philosophy at University College London and the University of Warwick in the UK. His master’s thesis focused on the contradictions of the concept of time leveraging the work of Immanuel Kant and John M. E. McTaggart. He has been active in political and debating forums since high school and he represented Greece in the European Youth Parliament.
Outside his professional and academic pursuits Iraklis is an avid mountaineer, having climbed over fifty mountains in 6 countries over the past decade and an aspiring author having recently completed his first philosophical novel, “The Birth of Man”.
Phil Torres
Phil was born to Chilean parents living overseas from their homeland during the revolution only to find himself fleeing his home in Nicaragua as a child. His family's experiences have always been a driving force to better understand why some countries (de)evolve.
Phil left EPIIC ('93 & '94) and Tufts ('94) and spent four years operating in various developing markets on USAID and IMF economic development projects. After helping to design the stock market in Uganda and the pension in Kazakhstan he became increasingly interested in the intersection of markets and eco-political development. After a graduate degree from the University of Chicago ('01) he became a "global macro" investor specializing in the emerging markets. Over the course of his twenty five year investment career Phil has launched a hedge fund, a mutual fund, managed sovereign wealth, and retirement savings. Lately he has returned to his roots and is focusing on human welfare oriented impact investing in the emerging markets.
Away from his time in markets, Phil has held a diverse if not comical collection of jobs: a shrimp trader, a t-shirt broker, an internet radio entrepreneur, a yacht cleaner, a Hobie cat instructor, and an aloe juice salesman. Phil is the Senior Portfolio Manager of Emerging Markets for Aegon Asset Management and an Adjunct Professor of Finance at Loyola University of Chicago. He is also one of the original Superforecasters from the 2013 ACE IARPA research project. Among things Phil is most proud of are his two brilliant children and his overstamped passports.
Phil was lucky enough to participate in two rounds of EPIIC where he was mentored and educated by Sherman. He credits Sherman with learning to learn and understanding that big questions are knowable (if you don't sleep for a semester). Phil is still in awe of the love and passion Sherman resonates to pull students of all ages into his orbit.
David Abromowitz
David Abromowitz is an advocate, policy shaper, believer in opportunity youth, attorney and writer. A longtime partner in the law firm Goulston & Storrs, David is nationally known for his expertise on affordable housing, economic development, and workforce development issues.
Most recently, David launched the New Power Project, a national effort recruiting and supporting people who have grown up experiencing poverty to run for local and district elective office. Before that he served six years as Chief Public Policy Officer at YouthBuild USA, leading successful bi-partisan appropriation efforts and policy reform efforts in the education, criminal justice and workforce areas. Prior to YouthBuild USA, David served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for America Progress focusing on economic mobility issues, where he authored the policy proposal that was ultimately enacted as the $8 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
David is a past chair and founding member of both the Lawyers’ Clearinghouse on Affordable Housing and Homelessness and of the American Bar Association’s Forum Committee on Affordable Housing and Community Development, a past chair and board member of the National Housing and Rehabilitation Association, and a member of America Forward’s Advisory Council. He has served on numerous transition teams and policy working groups for various elected officials and candidates, including for then Governor-elect Deval Patrick (D-MA) and Boston Mayor Tom Menino’s advisory task force, and served six years on the board of MassDevelopment, the Commonwealth’s economic development agency.
An active civic leader, David also serves on the Board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, B’nai B’rith Housing New England, and previously served on the boards of The Equity Trust, YouthBuild USA, the New Economy Coalition, among others. His contributions have been recognized by numerous awards, including the Affordable Housing Vision Award of the National Housing & Rehabilitation Association, the Distinguished Achievement Awardof B'Nai B'rith Housing New England, recognition as a "social capitalist" by SCI Social Capital, Inc., honored by Fair Housing Center of Boston, and honored by National Economic Development and Law Center.
A proud New Jersey native, David recently completed The Foxtail Legacy, his first novel.
Mike Savicki
There are some dates in people's lives that stand out above others. For Mike Savicki, one of those was 1990. Shortly after graduating from Tufts University (B.A. International Relations and Political Science), and receiving his officer commission as the Outstanding Naval Aviation Candidate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mike sustained a paralyzing cervical spinal cord injury in a service-connected training accident. By year's end, instead of continuing on his path to fly F-14s, he was learning to use a wheelchair.
His life path altered, he persisted. Mike earned an MBA from Duke University (delivering the commencement address), accepted a job as a government, healthcare, and information technology consultant, and became active in wheelchair sports locally, regionally, and nationally.
But feeling a pull to serve others, and a belief that sports, unlike almost anything else, can build communities, bridge gaps, erase prejudice, and promote peace, he began work as Deputy Director of an innovative, integrative, sports nonprofit, World TEAM (The Exceptional Athlete Matters) Sports. He played a major role in the success of projects not only across the United States but also in countries like Nepal, New Zealand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. 1998’s Vietnam Challenge, a 1200 mile cycling adventure between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with an integrated team of Vietnamese and American veterans, many from the war, became the subject of an Emmy award winning documentary film, “Vietnam, Long Time Coming.” The groundwork that he laid for 2000’s Face of America Adventure, a unique, cross-country, multi-sport journey with two separate teams beginning on opposite coasts and coming together under the arch in St. Louis in celebration of America’s diversity in the new millennium, has allowed that event to continue even today.
Mike is the current Founder and Chief Thinker of Afterburner Communications, a boutique communications consulting firm that assists clients through writing, speaking, advocacy, lobbying, consulting, and special projects. He has been instrumental in the passing of state and federal legislation advancing the interest of both veterans and those with disabilities. His writings appear regularly across multiple media sources.
As a high school teacher at the Community School of Davidson (NC), Mike continues to use sports as a way to educate. His elective course, “Sport in Society,'' is oversubscribed. As sport becomes a language more and more people speak, Mike believes it should be required study for anyone with an involvement in, or a love of, sports as it can shape and shift the world.
Mike continues as an athlete. He is arguably one of the most accomplished wheelchair marathoners in history with two dozen Boston Marathon finishes across five decades, including five overall Quad Division wins. Mike is the only athlete to have ever completed the legendary Boston course both on foot and in a racing wheelchair. And he played wheelchair rugby, more commonly known as MURDERBALL, for more than three decades. Mike has won more than 100 gold medals at the National Veterans Wheelchair Games and was a member of Team Navy at the inaugural Warrior Games (now the Invictus Games). He is a multi-time handcycling national champion who slows down by kayaking, fishing, boating, and traveling.
Mike, his efforts and his work, has appeared in the New York Times, USA today, NBC Nightly News, and NPR. He has also appeared on a limited edition Cheerios cereal box honoring disabled veterans in sport.
Mike is also the recipient of the Tufts University Athletic Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award.
Mike lives in North Carolina and Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Honored to assist The Trebuchet, Mike supports the effort to create non-partisan policy forums for ethical global engagement and citizenship while creating distinctive educational opportunities for those who see hope and promise in our world.
Mike and I collaborated during the EPIIC Global Games year. He taught myself and my students, along with other indominable athletes and people, the myopia of thinking about people in terms of being able bodied or being disabled at T.E.A.M. I had to laugh when he told me that he had been too intimidated to take EPIIC, because of its workload! It has been joyous for myself and my family to have cheered Mike on at various Boston Marathons, and I am honored that Mike has taken elements of the global sports curriculum into his high school seminars on sports and society that are always oversubscribed.
Terry Abrahamson
Terry Abrahamson is the only artist in history to have work presented at the Smithsonian Institution, Chicago’s DuSable Museum of African American History, the Blues Hall of Fame, Boston Celtics home games, Johnny Cochran’s funeral, the Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival on NPR and The Oprah Winfrey Show and before the US Supreme Court. Terry won a Grammy for co-writing “Bus Driver” with legendary Bluesician Muddy Waters, one of five Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees and six Blues Hall of Fame inductees to perform Terry’s work. He is a 2014 Chicago Blues Hall of Fame inductee.
Terry’s photomemoire, “In the Belly of the Blues,” and “The Blues Parade” - his kids’ illustrated history of the Blues - are both part of the permanent collection of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In February 2020, the Chicago Public Library chose “The Booksibition” of “The Blues Parade” as an anchor for its African American History Month celebration.
Terry’s Blues photographs have been exhibited at museums and libraries and at the Chicago Blues Festival, and will soon be part of a Folk Americana Roots Hall of Fame
exhibit at the Boch Center/Wang Theater in Boston. His produced stage plays include “The Brat Race,” “Hannukatz the Musical,” “The New Orleans Jazz Funeral of Stella Brooks” - an anchor presentation of the 2010 Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival - and his prescient 1990 production, “Doo Lister’s Blues” about the conspiracy to suppress political content in Black pop music of the 1960’s, which the Chicago Reader praised as “reminiscent of August Wilson.”
A Chicago native and first-hand witness to American music history, Terry is a frequent speaker on the history and legacy of the Blues, its role as the first voice to rise from the cotton fields in defiance of White Supremacy, its role as the historic spirit of Black Lives Matter, and on his own days and nights onstage and backstage with the legends of America’s oldest and most resonant artform.
Most recently, Terry created a workshop for Provincetown Family Week 2022 celebrating the tools of whimsy, imagination and swagger, as used by the Blues, to find our voices, celebrate our identities and share them with the world. As part of the event, each child in attendance got their own Blues name, and helped write a Blues song.
Terry’s radio show, “In the Belly of the Blues” can be heard on Northwestern University’s WNUR at wnur.org.
Terry and I have shared a lot of fun, mostly in Truro, Cape Cod, where we were frequently the guests of Convisero mentor Ted Kurland. I have rarely met a more exuberant and enthusiastic person. We found common ground in our music tastes, and recently, Terry composed this song,“My Body Is Mine”to support our efforts to elect Patrick Schmidt in his race for the House from Kansas. This video is performed by Blues Legend, Ms. Teeny Tucker. This song helped galvanize the successful vote against Kansas republicans’ efforts to curtail abortion rights, and was allied with our efforts with Planned Parenthood.
Alex Gladstein
Alex Gladstein is Chief Strategy Officer at the Human Rights Foundation. He has also served as Vice President of Strategy for the Oslo Freedom Forum since its inception in 2009. In his work Alex has connected hundreds of dissidents and civil society groups with business leaders, technologists, journalists, philanthropists, policymakers, and artists to promote free and open societies. Alex's writing and views on human rights and technology have appeared in media outlets across the world including The Atlantic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The New York Times, NPR, TIME, The Washington Post, WIRED, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken at universities ranging from MIT to Stanford, briefed the European Parliament and US State Department, and serves as faculty at Singularity University and as an advisor to Blockchain Capital, a leading venture firm in the fintech industry. He frequently speaks and writes about why Bitcoin matters for freedom, and co-authored "The Little Bitcoin Book" in 2019. His new book “Check Your Financial Privilege” was published in March 2022.
Shanzhi Thia
Shanzhi Thia is a Submarine Officer in the Republic of Singapore Navy with over 14 years of dedicated service. He is a dual-qualified submarine officer and surface warfare officer, having held substantive appointments as Operations Officer on a Challenger-class submarine and as Executive Officer on two Independence-class Littoral Mission Vessels. Throughout his career, he has led teams and crews to hone operational capabilities and trained sailors to meet high standards in operations. Notably, he was the Top Graduate for the 55th Naval Warfare Officers Course, specializing in surface warfare competencies.
Born and raised in Singapore, Shanzhi has a strong interest in international security issues, particularly how nations and armed forces are adapting to meet the present and future challenges of non-conventional security threats, both globally and in the Asia-Pacific. He is also interested in the interplay of law and policy in the Asia-Pacific maritime arena, and broader issues of maritime security.
Shanzhi has extensive international experience, including graduating from the Federal German Navy's submarine officer course and qualifying on the Type 212A submarine. In addition to his operational roles, he held a staff appointment in Naval Operations, working closely with the Singapore Ministry of Defence and other government agencies as the RSN representative to safeguard Singapore's interests.
Academically, Shanzhi holds a Master of Arts in Defense and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, graduating with Highest Distinction and earning the prestigious Admiral Arleigh A. Burke Award for Academic Excellence by an International Officer, as well as the Naval Submarine League Award. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Tufts University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude. While at Tufts, he participated in the 2012-2013 EPIIC "Global Health and Security" Colloquium. The themes and takeaways from that year prepared him somewhat in navigating the present-day COVID-19 reality. He was also actively involved in EPIIC, Tufts ALLIES Chapter, Blackout Step Team, and the Tufts Singapore Students' Association. His earlier education was completed at Raffles Institution, where he served on the Prefectorial Board and the 29th Students' Council.
Shanzhi is also a published author, with his essay "Promises and Pitfalls: Prospects for Submarine Rescue Cooperation between the United States, and Russia and China, in the Indo-Pacific" featured in The Submarine Review (December 2024). This essay earned him the 2024 Naval Submarine League Submarine Warfare Essay Award for the best essay or technical paper on a subject related to submarine warfare at the U.S. Naval War College.
His exemplary achievements have been recognized with the prestigious Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Scholarship, issued by the Public Service Commission of Singapore.
Mosab Abu Toha
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. Abu Toha is the author of the debut poetry book Things you May Find Hidden in My Ear, published by City Lights in April 2022. The book is shortlisted for the 2022 Palestine Book Awards.
In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University; a Visiting Librarian at Harvard’s Houghton Library; and a Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative Fellow in the Harvard Divinity School. In 2020, Abu Toha gave talks and readings at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and the University of Arizona. He also spoke at the American Library Association (ALA) Midwinter Meeting held in Philadelphia in January 2020. In October 2021, University of Notre Dame’s Literatures, Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance lecture series hosted Abu Toha to speak about his poetry and work in Gaza.
Abu Toha is a columnist for Arrowsmith Press, and his writings from Gaza have also appeared in The Nation and Literary Hub. His poems have been published on the Poetry Foundation’s website, in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Daily, Poem-a-Day, Banipal, Solstice, The Markaz Review, The New Arab, Peripheries, Jewish Currents, Democracy in Exile, and other journals.
‘The Journalist in Jenin’, a poem for Shireen Abu Akleh
What a Gazan Should Do During an Israeli Air Strike - a poem by Most
I was introduced to Mosab by Convisero mentor Sara Roy. Together, we created this webinar, From Inside The Wall: Conflict and the Flourishing of Culture In Gaza. We are contributing books to his Edward Said Library in Gaza.
Shorena Shaverdashvili
Shorena Shaverdashvili has 19 years of experience in the field of media, in Georgia.
Over the years, she has been the co-founder and editor-in-chief of popular general-interest magazines, a radio station and the weekly political print and online publication Liberali.
In 2010-2011 Shorena was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Georgian Public Broadcaster, and in 2008-2011 was a co-founder of the media advocacy group Media Club. She also co-founded Media Advocacy Coalition, which became an umbrella for organizations working on media rights. Through these efforts, she actively fought and advocated for media freedoms, freedom of expression and media transparency and accountability.
Between 2013-2019, Shorena held the position of the General Manager of the Publishing and Printing House Cezanne and later became the managing partner at Cezanne Publishing, an independent publishing house specializing in non-fiction titles and translations.Cezanne Publishing also started a paper stationary line which integrates the work of Georgian artists.
In September, 2021 Shorena assumed the position of the Head of the Media Academy, a media institution based on the Georgian National Communications Commission. Media Academy trains journalists through short and long-term training programs, harbours and helps start-ups in digital technologies through the Media Lab and owns a platform called Mediacritic.ge, which provides professional commentary and assessment of media issues and violations of journalistic standards in Georgian media.
Shorena is a graduate of Tufts University, in International Relations and Philosophy.
She is married with three children, Luka (18), Lazare (16) and Cecilia (3).
"Sherman and EPIIC have been the single, most inspiring encounter of my life! I was only a sophomore when I joined EPIIC, and I got very lucky during my "entrance exams". Sherman's "killer questionnaire", which was to test our knowledge of world affairs, and hence help him decide on the EPIIC "dream-team of 1998", was based mostly on the topics I was too familiar with - Russia, post-Soviet countries and good-old Russian Oligarchs. Now we all know about them, but back then, it was a strange word, and concept. Lucky for me, my father had a few Georgian oligarch friends and I knew all too well how they amassed their assets after the break-up of the Soviet union.So, I was in for a year-long adventure, which has been lasting a life-time, thanks to Sherman, who taught us that the world is amazingly and intricately interconnected through serendipitous encounters and our quest for thorough understanding of it's workings, and a deep empathy for human experiences which shape us into super-heroes. Yes, Superheroes! Anyone who has been under Sherman's mentorship knows that anything is possible, through endless curiosity and zeal for life, and learning.I hope for many more encounters with Sherman, where we can drink some Georgian wine and talk about how we tirelessly need to dissect and challenge ideological prisms and mainstream political or cultural narratives of today."
Steven Miller
Steven E. Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, Belfer Center Studies in International Security (which is published by the MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller is editor or co-editor of more than two dozen books, including, most recently, The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.-China Conflict.
Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he is a member of their Committee on International Security Studies (CISS). He currently co-directs the Academy's project On the Global Nuclear Future.
Miller is also co-chair of the U.S. Pugwash Committee and a member of the Council of International Pugwash.
Miller was born and raised in North Hollywood, California. He received his undergraduate degree at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He received a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) and a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is married to Deborah K. Louis. They have two sons: Jonathan (1989) and Nicholas (1997).
Steve has been a strong supporter and friend. He scripted this letter in support of EPIIC’s and the Institute’s overture to the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Caron Croland Yanis
Caren is principal of Croland Consulting, a private practice that guides athletes, celebrities, high net worth families, and social institutions in building collective purpose and legacy through philanthropy.
As President of Crown Family Philanthropies in Chicago, (2009-2016), she managed organizational redesign and growth, engaged multiple generations, and guided strategy in the U.S., the Middle East, and the developing world.
Caren built Oprah Winfrey’s philanthropies, as Executive Director (2000-2009) at the height of the Oprah Winfrey Show, a period that included Oprah’s Use Your Life Awards, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa and the Oprah Winfrey Boys and Girls Club in Kosciusko Mississippi where Oprah was born. She led disaster recovery and rebuilding in the Mid-South following Hurricane Katrina that put fourteen-hundred families back in homes. Caren was a member of Harpo’s Senior Management Team.
Caren chairs the board of The Poetry Foundation (a well-resourced, private operating foundation) and has guided it through a series of organizational changes with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is a member of the Board of Visitors at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and at the Women in Philanthropy Institute.
She is a frequent keynote and podcast speaker at wealth management and estate planning conferences with a focus on family offices, governance, and purpose. Recent keynotes and podcasts include: The Heart of Giving (BBB), Dentons, Family Business Magazine’s Family Wealth and Legacy Conference, Family Office World, Yale Philanthropy Conference, and FEW.
Caren is an adjunct professor at Tulane University, the University of Chicago’s Booth School Private Wealth Management program, the Spertus Institute, and the Sports and Entertainment Impact Collective (formerly part of Johns Hopkins).
Caren understands the social change landscape. Her engagement in the sector has spanned media (The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Inc., WSJ, Country Living) and startups like Leading Edge, formed to build organizational capacity in nonprofits. She has developed economic and education programs in Africa in collaboration with the Nelson Mandela Foundation and through public private partnerships and worked extensively in Israel and the Middle East on cross boundary projects related to coexistence and the environment. She holds a degree in Broadcast Journalism from Emerson College, studied speech and language pathology at Mercy College, and has a certificate in Strategic Leadership for Nonprofit Organizations from Stanford University.
In her spare time Caren hosts salons that bring bold thinkers together for meaningful conversations. She has a passion for listening deeply, navigating challenges, and guiding people who have the potential to make the world a better place.
Sherman had a formative influence on Caren when she was a broadcast journalism major at Emerson College. She helped develop the Freedom of Information Act symposium, that brought journalists and novelists together with politicians to discuss the importance of the Act and the need for transparency. Years later he participated in a conference on ethics and international affairs she chaired in the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of Portsmouth, NH.”
In the early 1980’s, I accepted a very challenging, fun position to enhance the journalism curriculum of the Mass Communications Department at Emerson College, invited by a wonderful lady, Marsha Della-Guistinaand an interesting character, Rod Whitacker aka “Trevanian”. They both gave me full authority to be playful. There, I created some of my first major symposia with the honors undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in my seminars.
I created curriculum on investigative journalism, foreign policy, reporting, and even on sports journalism. In this context, I met Caren, one of the smartest students I had had in decades. She was, and remains, perceptive, innovative, and engaged in remarkable initiatives. I could never have enacted the programming and curricula that stimulated my life without her direct and thorough engagement.
She was an editor of the Emerson newspaper and worked closely with me on several forums, one on the MX missile, and then the forum on Secrecy and Democracy that she mentions above. We convened this symposium in 1982 anticipating Orwell’s 1984. Participants included the former Director of the CIA, the radical lawyer William Kunstler; Mort Halperin of the National Security Council, the author of a book on the Rosenberg’s, novelist Robert Coover; the Official Historian of the US Department of State, William Slany; and the Director of the Ralph Nader Freedom of Information Clearinghouse, Katherine Myer. Here is the cover of the briefing book for that symposium; if one removed the acetone cover, it would reveal the whited-out portions, usually black, in the FOIA docs that inquiring journalists would submit.
Ezra Barzilay
Dr. Ezra J. Barzilay hails from Greece and is a pediatrician by training. Currently the Country Director of the CDC office in Kyiv, Ukraine, he is leading the efforts to stem the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and responding to the COVID-19 threat in the country.
Ezra is a commissioned officer of the US Public Health Service, currently in the rank of Captain, he has served in uniform for 16 years, his most recent role at CDC was serving as the technical lead of the National Public Health Institute Program in the Center for Global Health. In this role, he supported several countries in strengthening or establishing their national public health institutes and led the process of strategic planning and coordination of vertical disease programs and other public health functions from a systems perspective.
Ezra began his career at CDC in 2004 as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer. He also served as the lead epidemiologist for the Health System Reconstruction Office, and served as the Deputy Incident Manager for the CDC’s 2016-2017 Zika Response, the 2014-2015 Ebola Response and the 2010-2011 Haiti Cholera Response. Prior to that, Ezra led the U.S. National Surveillance Team for Enteric Diseases in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at CDC.
Ezra received his bachelor’s and medical degrees from Tufts University, in Boston, MA, where he returned in 2012 as an Institutional Scholar and Practitioner in Residence (INSPIRE) Fellow, to advise, mentor, and instruct students of the 2012 Institute for Global Leadership colloquium/symposium efforts on Global Health and Security. He completed a residency in pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine Affiliated Hospitals and then joined the Epidemic Intelligence Service corps at CDC to train in infectious disease epidemiology and is board-certified in pediatrics. Ezra is a Fellow for Life with the Albert Schweitzer Foundation, and holds academic appointments as Adjunct Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and as Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine.
Fluent in seven languages, Ezra's field experience includes disease surveillance, international public health interventions, disaster response, outbreak investigations, and serving as a trainer and expert consultant for the World Health Organization.
Ezra was a superb INSPIRE Fellow. He was our colloquium Outward Bound quest lecturer and ran the Operation Dark Winter exercise on biological terrorism attacks on the U.S.
Ezra receiving “the Light On the Hill” Award in 2013.
He expertly mentored our students and provided internships at the CDC. I nominated him for the top Tufts University alumni honor, "The Light On the Hill" Award in 2013.
He has remained a close friend and ally. Most recently, he helped convene Trebuchet's webinar event on the human impact of COVID-19.
Emalee Thitthavong
Emalee has a background in international affairs and economics, and has years of experience as a teacher of communication to a global audience. She has conducted grassroots research in Indonesia, focusing on maternal healthcare to alleviate some of the highest rates of postpartum hemorrhaging in the world. In the Dominican Republic, Emalee tackled workers’ rights issues in the international garment industry and helped launch the first unionized, living-wage garment factory. She used her skills abroad in communication, development and technology to pivot to digital communication for a variety of organizations domestically. Her experiences have included working in healthcare spaces and helping doctors and patients navigate complex medical treatment options, to working with non-profit organizations focusing on refugee resettlement, racial justice, and addressing education inequality.
Currently, Emalee is the Strategic Growth Manager and Communication Coach at Executive Voice, (www.executive-voice.com) coaching international cliente at various career stages. Notably, she’s worked with graduate and PhD level economics departments, world fellows, public health professionals, environmentalists, and architects at top universities around the world. She’s also worked with political candidates and their teams on the municipal and federal level, and executives in the private sector.
Mitchell Orenstein
Mitchell A. Orenstein is Professor and Chair of Russian and East European Studies at University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His sole-authored and co-authored works on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe have won numerous prizes.
His most recent book, Taking Stock of Shock (Oxford University Press, 2021), co-authored with Prof. Kristen Ghodsee, evaluates the social consequences of the 1989 revolutions that ended communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It explores two theories: 1. After a short recession, everyone has done fine and achieved a new level of prosperity, and 2. 1989 unleased an economic catastrophe of enormous proportions that requires a strong hand to put right. Unexpectedly, Taking Stock of Shock finds strong support for both theories. While many people experienced a short dip followed by increased prosperity, a majority suffered an economic decline six times greater on average than the Great Depression. Meanwhile, Western international organizations tried to convince everyone that all was well, creating a bizarre political, economic, and social legacy of transition that remains to be overcome.
Orenstein is also the author of The Lands in Between: Russia vs. The West and the New Politics of Hybrid War (Oxford University Press, 2019), a study of how intensifying geopolitical conflict has shaped politics in the lands in between Russia and the West. It documents the “civilizational choice” faced by these countries, the resulting sharp polarization of politics, and the rise of corrupt power brokers who balance between both sides. While this politics is most evident in the lands in between, it is increasingly prevalent throughout Europe and the West. We are all lands in between.
Prior to this, Orenstein co-authored From Triumph to Crisis: Neoliberal Economic Reform in Postcommunist Countries (Cambridge University Press, 2018) with Prof. Hilary Appel. Based on newly available archives from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, From Triumph to Crisis develops a new theory of the political economy of transition that explains the enduring triumph of neoliberalism in the region from 1989-2008, as capital-starved countries sought to signal their openness to investment with policy reforms. From Triumph to Crisis won the Laura Shannon Prize Silver Medal of the Nanovic Institute for European Studies in 2021.
Mitchell has participated actively in my prior Institute, and particularly inspired my students during my last year at Tufts as my last Outward Bound speaker, where we created the cohesive team necessary to enact a very complicated year. (Here is the program of the 2015-2016 EPIIC Symposium: The Future of Europe. You can find Mitch on page 40.) He has also conducted a recent lecture on Ukraine to my Indian students.
Mitchell is also a wonderful personal friend, and a relative on my wife, Iris’s side.
I will always remember Mitch for his wonderful, direct support of me joyfully retaining nearly ten thousand volumes of my personal library when I retired, which Iris was eager to have me discard. He argued persuasively against that idea, with the wonderful phrase that such a library represented one’s “intellectual autobiography.”
Alexander (Sasha) Abashkin
Alexander (Sasha) Abashkin is a Russian educator who for more than 30 years has worked in the interests of developing US-Russia relations.
In 1993 he joined Stanford University and co-founded the Moscow campus of Bing Overseas Studies. He served as the Program's Deputy Director (1993-2004) and then as Program Director (2005-2014). Stanford program in Moscow was one of 11 other programs around the world where Bing Overseas Studies delivers education to Stanford-only students interested in studying abroad.
At some point, Alexander was also invited to head the Center for International Projects of the Russian Academy of National Economy, where his mission was to develop cooperation with foreign universities and organizations. He has formed partnerships with Harvard’s Davis Center, State University of New York, Georgia Tech, University of Southern California, University of Pennsylvania, Brigham Young University, and several other universities. Thanks to his acquaintance with Sherman, Russian students became regular participants in the EPIIC Symposia.
He co-founded and served as Executive Director for the Academy’s “Preparing Global Leaders Summit” (PGLS), a premiere international educational program for best young professionals. The program sought to provide aspiring global scholar-leaders with the tools that are necessary for effective leadership in an increasingly complex world. In the last three years the program of its existence it was attended by young leaders from about 80 countries.
Alexander founded and supervised RANEPA’s English-language Masters’ program, the first Master’s program in Russia for local and international students studying management which is taught fully in English. He promoted the program internationally to help attract students and faculty from more than 20 countries, including US, Canada, France, India, Macedonia, Bulgaria, FSU countries.
Thanks to Alexander's efforts, hundreds of Americans had the opportunity to learn Russian, to get to know Russia, its culture, and people. Many of them have now become respected professionals and work in important positions, including in the US Presidential Administration. In today's Russia, such an achievement became a black mark, which prompted Alexander to leave Russia. Now he hopes to find a position that will allow him to aid scientists from Ukraine, as well as those ones from Russia and Belarus, who oppose the war with Ukraine and are therefore persecuted by the Russian authorities.
In my experience with Sasha, he was a consummate professional, brilliantly alive, and sensitive to cultural and educational nuances, and courageous and ethical in his thinking. I had the pleasure of working with him in my Institute’s TILIP program, when wonderful Russian students attended multiple international programs of the Institute, particularly EPIIC.
I was invited and hosted by Sasha to give graduate-level lectures at RANEPA on global challenges. I particularly remember one lecture when, based on Steven Coll’s book on global energy, Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power, I challenged Russian students to think about the implications of their energy policies in Europe and particularly in the Arctic, both sadly now contested areas of hot and potential conflict.
In what might have been one of the most embarrassing moments of my tenure as the Director of the Institute, where for years I was preparing and advising students on their international, immersive educational experiences, occurred when I and my wife traveled to Moscow on what we thought were valid visas. One day, I had received an incredibly formal-looking, embossed document by certified mail from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) including a wax chop seal securing the envelope. The letter was printed on parchment vellum and entirely in Russian, a language I could not read. It was followed up by an email from the Presidential Academy the very next day, asking whether I had received my visa. Idiotically, given the timing, I believed that what I had indeed received was my visa, expressly delivered. I did not translate the letter, which had both my and Iris’s formal names in elaborate script, and I immediately emailed back to who I thought was my official Russian contact that I had.
It was an all-expense-paid trip, and they sent first-class tickets, but it was not a direct flight, with a required stop-over in Amsterdam. We enjoyed the city, and arrived early at Schiphol Airport, where we were the source of some consternation at the Aeroflot gate when I presented our documents. Officials agitatedly conferred, all in Russian, and after considerable delay, they apologized and ushered us onto the plane.
Upon arriving at approximately two in the morning, we were immediately stopped at customs and ushered into a pale green, windowless room, interrogated separately, and informed that we had entered illegally and that we would be unceremoniously deported back to Europe on the next flight, which was perhaps four hours later. What I had assumed was my visa was simply an invitation to travel to Washington to the Russian Embassy to get the formal visa.
I felt remarkably embarrassed, humiliated, and stupid, and I could only imagine the humiliation of disappointing Sasha, who had made elaborate plans to host us, as well as the humiliation I would face returning to Tufts, where I departed as an official envoy between two universities. Luckily, a Russian employee of KLM took pity on the two of us and got a message out to Sasha in the middle of the night. Sasha worked his magic. He had contacts at the highest levels of the Russian government and after several hours of pure dismay, we were suddenly ushered into Sheremetyevo International Airport, where Edward Snowden would spend a lot of time in limbo. Upon my return to Tufts, I made sure to tell this embarrassing story, which turned out well, to all of my students, who were travelling all over the world. They got a great laugh out of it, but seriously understood the necessity to more rigorously prepare than I had.
My last time at the airport was decades earlier in the 1970s, when I remember bribing Russian custom officials with Penthouse pornographic magazines to not search our luggage, filled with human rights literature and personal letters to Jewish Russian refuseniks seeking to leave Russia for Israel, and Russian democrats seeking a democratic future in Russia. I was a courier for Amnesty International and the Union of International Concerned Jewry. Quite a different experience. I had made several trips, including one with then-not-notorious Alan Dershowitz, when we each had parts of a small camera we assembled to bring documents back from Russian Laureate Andrei Sakharov.
One note here: The graduate student escort that drove Iris and I around Moscow on a sightseeing tour turned out to be remarkably interesting, especially when he insisted that Jews were responsible for the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Center. His “evidence” was that all Jews were alerted by the Israeli Mossad to evacuate the buildings before the planes struck. As I reflect on this, I think about the persistent anti-Semitism in Russia, the news blackout over the war in Ukraine, and the perverse irony of Putin arguing his “military exercise” was to de-Nazify Ukraine, and how Russian propaganda asserts that Zolensky — a Jew — has a Nazi-like brain.
Benjamin Perlstein
Rabbi Ben Perlstein is a Chaplain Resident at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, serving primarily on the Columbia University Irving Medical Center campus. He worked previously as a Rabbinic Fellow at Romemu in Manhattan and received rabbinic ordination in 2021 from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he also completed an M.A. in Jewish Thought focused on ethics and mysticism.
Ben previously graduated summa cum laude from Tufts University, where he studied political science and participated in the Institute for Global Leadership's EPIIC and Synaptic Scholars programs. He is also a grateful alumnus and current junior faculty member of FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics), and through the international Jewish education organization Kivunim, Ben has spoken at the U.N. on the complexities of contemporary Holocaust commemoration and participated in the first Holocaust conference in the Arab world. He is passionate about creative, multidisciplinary and multifaith applications of spiritual wisdom and practice to issues of public concern and pastoral need.
Abuzar Royesh
Abuzar Royesh is the co-founder and CEO of DataServeAI (Sabi Cash), a California-based startup that builds digital financial solutions for small businesses in Africa. Abuzar holds master’s degrees in Management Science & Engineering and International Policy from Stanford University as a Knight-Hennessy scholar and a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in International Relations.
Prior to Stanford, Abuzar worked as a research lead at Afghanistan Holding Group, where he led various research and assessment projects for the office of the Afghan president, various ministries, USAID, UNHCR, and GIZ. He has also worked with marginalized youth, including international displaced persons, in Afghanistan in various capacities since 2010.
He was recently selected for Forbes 30 under 30 along with 5 other Tufts alumni.