On May 26, 2020, Philonise O’Neil Floyd learned that four police officers in Minneapolis murdered his older brother after a store clerk alleged that he had passed a counterfeit $20 bill. The world saw named officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; however, the people of the Earth did more than watch and mourn. Across the United States and internationally, George Floyd’s death sparked a worldwide outpour of protests against police brutality, especially toward Black people.
Virtual
As founder and president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), recognized as the world’s top think tank for science and technology policy, Robert Atkinson leads a prolific team of policy analysts and fellows that is successfully shaping the debate and setting the agenda on a host of critical issues at the intersection of technological innovation and public policy. He is an internationally recognized scholar and a widely published author whom The New Republic has named one of the “three most important thinkers about innovation,” Washingtonian Magazine has called a “tech titan,” Government Technology Magazine has judged to be one of the 25 top “doers, dreamers and drivers of information technology,” and the Wharton Business School has given the “Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award.”
Virtual
Congressman Ro Khanna and Arlie Russell Hochschild
John F. Kennedy Library
Ambassador (Ret.) Aurelia Brazeal, Leola Calzolai-Stewart, Adriane Lentz-Smith, and Cameo George
John F. Kennedy Library
SUZANNE BUCHANAN was first captivated by the history of material culture at the age of 14 when she discovered her grandmother’s illustrated history of the Tower of London. Prior to joining the Shirley-Eustis House in 2019, she worked at Historic New England. DR. EILEEN KA-MAY CHENG is an associate professor of history and the Sara Yates Exley Chair in Teaching Excellence at Sarah Lawrence College, where her courses include “Gaming the Past: Democracy and Dissent in the United States,” “The American Revolution,” and “‘The Founders’ in Film and Fiction.” She is the author of The Plain and Noble Garb of Truth: Nationalism and Impartiality in American Historical Writing, 1784-1860 and Historiography: An Introductory Guide; she has authored articles and book reviews for History and Theory, Journal of American History, Reviews in American History, and Journal of the Early Republic. DR. J. PATRICK MULLINS is a cultural and intellectual historian of the anglophone Atlantic World, focusing on America and England over the long eighteenth century, as well as Marquette’s Public History Director. A practicing public historian, he volunteers as the Exhibit Research Director for the Ray Bradbury Experience Museum and serves as project manager for his students’ work on museum exhibits, documentary films, historic preservation research, and websites in collaboration with museums, historical societies, and other community partners.
Old South Meeting House
Kris Newby, is a Stanford-educated science writer and senior producer of the Lyme disease documentary Under the Skin, whose book Bitten has won three international book awards.
Virtual
Eli Saslow
Virtual
ANDREW LEONG is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Dept. in the College of Liberal Arts at UMass Boston where he teaches legal studies, Latino and Asian American Studies. His specialty is on law, social justice, and equality pertaining to disenfranchised communities, with a focus on Asian Americans. He has been active in community and civil rights work, having served on the board of trustee of numerous Asian American and civil rights-related organizations. ANGIE LIOU is a seasoned community leader specializing in affordable housing and community development since 2004 and having served as the project lead on over $150 million worth of projects. Under her leadership, Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC) has expanded its programs in housing support, resident and youth engagement and leadership, community planning, and placekeeping. In 2022, Angie was selected to serve on HUD’s Housing Counseling Federal Advisory Committee representing the Real Estate industry. LING-MEI WONG is a journalist with experience in ethnic media coverage and technical writing. She led a community paper, the Sampan, as the editor of a bilingual Chinese-English newspaper based in Boston’s Chinatown from 2012 to 2020. CYNTHIA YEE is an educator, writer, artist and artistic collaborator. She writes creative, nonfiction essays from the viewpoint of an American-born Taishanese girl coming of age in Boston’s Chinatown and Combat Zone through the 1950s and ’60s. She continues exploring the themes of what makes for thriving community life and child development, how structural racism oppresses, how feminism can be nurtured, and how social justice can look in America.
Virtual
Sneha Revanur, Alexandra Raphling, Vidya Bharadwaj, Sumanth Ratna, Damilola Awofisayo, and Raksha Govind.
Museum of Science
HENRY ADAMS currently serves as Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. A graduate of Harvard College, he received his M.A. and PH.D. from Yale, where he received the Frances Blanshard Prize for the best doctoral dissertation in art history. He is the author of over 500 publications in the field of American art ranging in time from the 17th century to the present. The painter Andrew Wyeth described his book Eakins Revealed as “without question, the most extraordinary biography I have ever read on an artist.” LARRY DICARA served on the Boston City Council for ten years and has been intimately involved with the development process in Boston for many decades. While on the City Council, he actively participated in many of the decisions which made Boston the city it is today: Quincy Market, Copley Place, Charlestown Navy Yard, etc. As an attorney in private practice, Larry represented a wide array of clients with matters in cities and towns across the Commonwealth. Hosted by PARIS ALSTON, co-host of Morning Edition at GBH News. She was a host of the NPR podcast “Consider This,” produced in conjunction with GBH and WBUR.
Virtual
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