Ethics, Equity, and Repair
As a cultural historian, media scholar and lecturer, Siva Vaidhyanathan speaks on the impact of digitalization on society and democracy. In his speeches, he encourages audiences to consider how technological advances like artificial intelligence, corporations like Google and algorithm-fueled social media platforms shape the way we think and what we can do to foster a new Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world. At the University of Virginia, Vaidhyanathan serves as the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and the director of the Center for Media and Citizenship. He is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues on public radio shows and news programs, notably BBC, CNN and NBC. Siva has authored several books, including Antisocial Media and The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry).
Brando Simeo Starkey is a writer and scholar. A graduate of Harvard Law School and a member of the New York Bar, he taught law at Villanova Law School and wrote for several years for ESPN’s The Undefeated (now Andscape). Born and raised in Cincinnati, he lives in Southern California with his wife and two sons. He has launched a newsletter, The Braveverse, about law, politics, and freedom from caste, at the TheBraveverse.com and a YouTube channel covering the same themes at https://www.youtube.com/@TheBraveverse.
Dr. Davarian L. Baldwin is an internationally recognized scholar, historian, and public advocate. He is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and Founding Director of the Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College. A foremost expert on Black social movements and African American history, he is often called upon to consult on everything from the politics of reparations to the global impact of the Harlem Renaissance. His academic and political commitments have focused on global cities and particularly the diverse and marginalized communities that struggle to maintain sustainable lives in urban locales. Baldwin is the award-winning author of several books including In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities (2021), Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (2007), and Land of Darkness: Chicago and the Making of Race in Modern America (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). He also served as the consultant and text author for The World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle (2022). Baldwin’s research, writing, and commentaries have been featured in numerous outlets from NPR, NBC News, CNN, PBS, BBC, The History Channel, and HULU to USA Today, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and TIME. In 2022, Baldwin was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation for his work in racial and economic justice.
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers is an award-winning archival historian, writer, educator, and community-based organizer. She earned her doctorate in US History from Rutgers University and specializes in Black Women’s History, Antebellum History, Slavery, and the American South. A committed activist both on and off campus, Myers is regularly interviewed by media outlets ranging from PBS and NPR to Fox News on issues of race and gender justice, and she has published editorials and articles on policing, anti-Blackness, and racism writ large in a variety of newspapers including the Washington Post and the Louisville Courier-Journal. Her first book, Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston, was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2011 and received several awards including the 2012 Julia Cherry Spruill Book Prize from the Southern Association of Women Historians and the 2011 Anna Julia Cooper-C.L.R. James Book Prize from the National Council for Black Studies. Her latest book, The Vice President’s Black Wife: The Untold Life of Julia Chinn (Ferris & Ferris, 2023) is now available at all retailers. She is currently the Ruth N. Halls Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington where she is also the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of History.
Jezz Chung is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores personal and collective change through the lens of race, gender, trauma, disability, and neurodivergence. They’ve been recognized internationally by Spain’s El País, Portugal’s Público, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Logo TV, and Made of Millions. You can listen to their podcast with Deem Journal titled Dreaming Different and read their debut collection of poetry, prose, and practices titled This Way to Change: A Gentle Guide to Personal Transformation and Collective Liberation. Jezz has lived in Georgia, Texas, California, and is now based in Brooklyn, New York.
Born in Harlem to Dominican parents, Raquel Cepeda is an award-winning journalist, cultural activist, podcaster, and documentary filmmaker who travels widely to speak to diverse audiences about Latina identity, social justice, gentrification and inequality. Her book Bird of Paradise explores the realities of the American Dream within the context of exploring her ancestry.
"The beauty and promise of America lies in our ability to confront even the most painful parts of our history—not to shame ourselves, but to better understand who we are and who we still have the power to become."
Lee Hawkins is an American investigative journalist and author who was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2022. His most recent work, I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free, focuses on how our understanding of history impacts intergenerational healing and follows an introspective journey into his family history, tracing his roots to pre-Revolutionary America.
Nicholas Buccola is a philosopher, author, and teacher who specializes in the area of American political thought. He is the author of One Man’s Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal (Princeton University Press, October 2025). His previous books include The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton University, 2019) and The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass: In Pursuit of American Liberty (New York University Press, 2012).
Dr. Jasmine Brown began writing TWICE AS HARD when she was twenty-two. A 2018 recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship, she used her time at the University of Oxford to complete the in-depth research into the lives of the first Black women who became physicians in the United States. She graduated from Oxford with Merit, earning an M.Phil. in History of Science, Medicine, and Technology before pursuing her medical degree. As a Black woman in medicine, Jasmine advocates for more representation within medicine and delivers talks that are both well-researched and personal.
Dr. Myisha Cherry is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the Director of the Emotion and Society Lab. Her research is primarily concerned with the role of emotions and attitudes in public life. Cherry’s books include UnMuted: Conversations on Prejudice, Oppression, and Social Justice, The Moral Psychology of Anger which she co-edited with Owen Flanagan, and The Case for Rage: Why Anger is Essential to Anti-racist Struggle. In her latest book, Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better, Dr. Cherry presents a new and healthier understanding of forgiveness—one that will give us a better chance to recover from wrongdoing and move toward “radical repair.” Her work on emotions and race has appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Review, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Huffington Post, WomanKind, and New Philosopher Magazine. Dr. Cherry is also the host of the UnMute Podcast, where she interviews philosophers about the social and political issues of our day.
Bridgett M. Davis is the award-winning author of the memoirs Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy and The World According To Fannie Davis: My Mother’s Life In The Detroit Numbers. Davis is also the writer and director of the 1998 award-winning feature film Naked Acts, newly restored by Milestone Films and released in 2024 to critical acclaim, and screening in theaters across the US as well as international venues. She is is Professor Emerita in the Department of Journalism and the Writing Professions at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she taught creative, narrative and film writing.
Andrea Freeman is an author, law professor, and Fulbright scholar. She is a national and international expert on the intersections of race and food policy, health, and consumer credit. Her pioneering theory of food oppression reveals how food law and policy, influenced by corporate interests, leads to race and gender health disparities.
A graphic novelist and Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California-Irvine, Sherine Hamdy speaks nationally and internationally on the role of comics as a teaching tool and on social justice and representation in comics. Sherine writes out of a desire to contribute to more honest depictions of Arab and Muslim Americans, particularly in the space of bioethics. In 2017, she published a graphic novel co-authored with Coleman Nye called Lissa: A Story of Friendship, Medical Promise, and Revolution (University of Toronto/EthnoGRAPHICS). This story draws on Sherine’s work on Muslim ethics and health care practices in Egypt, as well as Coleman Nye's research on women in the U.S. who test positive for the BRCA cancer gene.
Layla F. Saad is the author of the ground-breaking Me and White Supremacy, an anti-racism education workbook that was initially offered for free in an Instagram challenge and in a self-published digital workbook in 2018 (downloaded by 100,000 people in the space of six months). Me and White Supremacy debuted on the New York Times and USA Today bestsellers lists. It is also an Amazon, Wall Street Journal, Indie, and Pacific Northwest bestseller. Most recently, she has adapted it for young adult audiences. Layla is an East African, Arab, British, Black, Muslim woman who was born and grew up in the West, and lives in the Middle East. Layla has always sat at a unique intersection of identities from which she is able to draw rich and intriguing perspectives. Her work is driven by her powerful desire to become a good ancestor; to live and work in ways that leave a legacy of healing and liberation for those who will come after she is gone.
A political commentator and contributor to broadcast news outlets, Susan Abulhawa speaks widely on the subjects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the power of storytelling, particularly for marginalized communities. Susan is the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, a non-profit organization dedicated to upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children under Israeli occupation and in refugee camps outside of Palestine. Susan is one of the most widely-read Arab authors. Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin, is a multigenerational family epic spanning five countries and more than sixty years. With an unflinching look at the Palestinian question, it was translated into thirty languages and became an international bestseller.