Charlotte Clymer is the former press secretary for rapid response at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest civil rights organization dedicated to advancing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) equality. Her day-to-day work involves running the organization’s messaging in response to the White House and federal policy. She also serves on the D.C. Commission for Persons with Disabilities, the Board for the Center for Law and Military Policy, the Military and Veterans Advisory Council for Outserve-SLDN (Servicemember’s Legal Defense Network), and the Advisory Councils for Running Start and the Lone Star Parity Project, organizations working toward gender parity in elected office. She is also a Political Partner in the Class of 2019 at the Truman National Security Project, which works to bring together leaders with national security backgrounds to deliver concrete solutions to pressing global challenges for leaders at the local, state, and national levels. Her commentary has been quoted by the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Guardian, TIME, Newsweek, and numerous other publications. Her work has been published in the Washington Post, NBC News, GQ, the Independent, Quartz, Dame Magazine, and others. She is a 2019 40 under 40 Queer Women of D.C. Honoree and graduate of Georgetown University, and one of Fortune Magazine’s 40 under 40 (2020). She is a Texan, military veteran and proud transgender woman, currently based in Washington, D.C.

Tanya joins Hip Hop Caucus from State Infrastructure Fund (SIF) where she managed the voting rights portfolio, including all national voting rights litigation funding. Tanya’s work at SIF included management of the Voting Rights Working Group, a collective of twelve of the nation’s premier civil rights organizations engaged in voting rights litigation, and the development and management of the Election Protection Mapping Project, a tool that provides a comprehensive landscape of the state and national voter protection activities across the country. As an Obama Administration appointee, Tanya served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for P-12 Education in the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development (OPEPD) at the U.S. Department of Education. In her role, she provided policy recommendations to senior Department officials, oversaw the development of policy in the P-12 budget and spending plan, and was responsible for decisions for major grant competitions.

Ambassador Olofsdotter’s career in the Foreign Service started in 1994 with her first posting to the Embassy of Sweden in Moscow. In the years following, she worked in security policy and defense issues as well as in numerous leadership posts within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, including serving as chief of staff for several of its ministers. She has served as part of the Swedish delegation to NATO as well as at the Swedish EU Representation in Brussels, working with European security policy and defense issues. In 2008, she was appointed deputy chief of mission at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, D.C. In 2011, she entered her first ambassadorial position as ambassador of Sweden to Hungary. Prior to assuming the role as ambassador to the United States, H.E. Olofsdotter served as director-general for trade at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She has also held the position of deputy director-general and head of the Department for Promotion of Sweden, Trade, and CSR. Ambassador Olofsdotter has a B.A. in psychology, economics, and Russian. She studied at UCLA Anderson School of Management and speaks Russian, French and English.

Tambra Stevenson is a Ph.D. Student in the American University School of Communication examining structural communication inequalities within under-resourced communities about food and health inequities to inform policymakers and practitioners. She is also the founder and CEO of WANDA: Women Advancing Nutrition Dietetics and Agriculture building a pipeline of a million women and girls to lead from farm to health through education, advocacy, and innovation. Championing the Food Bill of Rights, Tambra is a sought-after thought leader at the nexus of nutrition security, health equity, and sustainability, speaking at the World Food Prize Foundation, UN Commission on the Status for Women's NGO Forum, World Bank/IMF Spring Meetings, U.S. Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Museum. Appointed by USDA Secretary Vilsack to the National Agricultural Research, Extension, Education, and Economics (NAREEE) Advisory Board, Tambra advocates for policies to ensure an equitable food system. She also serves as the nutrition and health working co-chair for the D.C. Food Policy Council and nutrition security working co-chair for the Tufts Food and Nutrition Innovation Council. She was named the 2021 Science Defender by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 2020 Changemaker in the Food System by Washington City Paper, National Geographic Traveler, and NAACP Wm. Montague Cobb Advocacy Awardee. She holds an M.P.H. in health communication from Tufts University School of Medicine and a Bachelor’s degree in human nutrition with a minor in Spanish from Oklahoma State University. Tambra began her public service career at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the D.C. Mayor's Office on Women's Policy and Initiatives, and the University of the District of Columbia’s College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability, and Environmental Sciences.

Ambassador Wendall K. Jones is a leader in Media in The Bahamas. He is clearly the most successful journalist of his generation in the country. For the past three decades he has pioneered the creation of enterprises which have changed the face of journalism and communications throughout the society. Mr. Jones began his career as a Journalist with The Broadcasting Corporation of The Bahamas in 1972. His training took him to the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados WTV] Channel 4 Miami, Florida; and The Voice of America, Washington, D.C. Mr. Jones has spoken in a number of Seminars on Media in the Caribbean and the Americas, including seminars on Globalization and The Media Looking To The 21st Century, sponsored by the World Media Association in Washington, D.C. and on Communication, Globalization and Democracy, held at Ciespal in Quito, Ecuador.

Sylvia M. Burwell is American University's 15th president and the first woman to serve as president. A visionary leader with experience in the public and private sectors, President Burwell brings to American University a commitment to education and research, the ability to manage large and complex organizations, and experience helping to advance solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges. Burwell joined AU on June 1, 2017, succeeding Neil Kerwin. Burwell has held two cabinet positions in the United States government. She served as the 22nd secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services from 2014 to 2017. During her tenure, she managed a trillion-dollar department that includes the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration, and the Medicaid and Medicare programs; oversaw the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act; and led the department’s responses to the Ebola and Zika outbreaks. Before that, she served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget, working with Congress to negotiate a two-year budget deal following the 2013 government shutdown. In both roles she was known as a leader who worked successfully across the aisle and focused on delivering results for the American people.

Shannon Hader, MD, MPH, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Executive Director of Programmes at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and a prominent leader in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the United States and globally, is the dean of the School of International Service at American University. Before accepting the position at the UN, Dr. Hader served as Director of the Division of Global HIV and TB at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She also has served as Vice President and Director at Futures Group International (now Palladium); as Senior Deputy Director of the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and TB Administration at the District of Columbia Department of Health; Senior Scientific Advisor to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief at the US Department of State.

Niranjali leads ActionAid’s US office, working to build a more just and sustainable world. She is an international lawyer and activist with expertise in climate finance, human rights, and equity.

Amanda Janoo is the Economics and Policy Lead for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEALL). Amanda is an economic policy expert with over a decade of experience working with governments and international development institutions around the world. Her work aims to build just and sustainable economies through goal-oriented and participatory policy design processes. Prior to joining WEAll, Amanda worked for the United Nations and the African Development Bank as an industrial policy and structural transformation expert. As a Fulbright researcher, she explored the relationship between international trade and informal employment. She graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Development Studies and heralds from the green mountain state of Vermont, in the USA.

Simon Nicholson is an Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University, Washington DC. His research and teaching focus on global environmental governance, the intersections of technology and the environment, and carbon removal and solar radiation management responses to climate change. Simon is Director of American University’s cross-campus Center on Environment, Community, and Equity. He is also co-Director of the Institute for Carbon Removal Law and Policy and Director of the Forum for Climate Engineering Assessment.

Dr. Thomas Snitch is Director of Federal Relations and Counsellor to the President of Bowling Green State University. During his 47 years in Washington, DC, he has served at NASA, the US Department of State, the White House and the National Academy of Science. He has worked in the C-Suites of Lockheed Martin, Hitachi, Microsoft, OneWeb and GeoEye. From 2011-16, Dr. Snitch served as Chairman of the Board of the University of Maryland’s College of Computing, Mathematical and Natural Sciences and held a Distinguished Senior Professorship in Maryland’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. His research focuses on using high resolution satellite imagery, UAVs, and mathematical modeling to address transnational crime. Dr. Snitch holds a BA in Chinese, an MA and PhD in International Economics, an MA in Japanese and did his postdoctoral work in nuclear and reactor physics.

Malini Ranganathan is Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University and a political ecologist and geographer by training. Dr. Ranganathan researches environmental casteism and environmental racism in urban contexts, what she refers to as "environmental unfreedoms." Specifically, she studies how caste and racial histories shape segregated housing and property relations, water and sanitation access, and flood and climate vulnerability. She works on both India and the U.S. She is currently working on a book, The Urbanization of Caste Power: Land, Labor, and Spatial Politics in Bengaluru. The book re-examines Bengaluru through the analytic of caste power, tracing the historical and contemporary production of housing, labor, and flooding and other ecological inequities. It considers how slum, legal, and union activism disrupts injustices perpetuated by caste and class power. She is co-editor of Rethinking Difference in India through Racialization: Caste, Tribe, and Hindu Nationalism in Transnational Perspective (Routledge, 2022). She is also a recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies-Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant for a book forthcoming with Cornell University Press (2023), Corruption Plots: Stories, Ethics, and Publics of the Late Capitalist City. The collaborative monograph weaves together ethnographic and literary analysis to argue that corruption politics lie at the heart of, rather than being a deviation from, (neo)liberal capitalism and its 21st century authoritarian guises. Not merely a synonym for bribery or illegality, "corruption talk" is an affective framework deployed to make sense of unequal spatial change and elite abuses of power, even as it is used opportunistically by those who are themselves implicated in wrongdoing

Sauleh Siddiqui is an Associate Professor of Environmental Science with an affiliation with the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at American University and a Research Fellow at the German Economic Research Institute (DIW Berlin). He is currently on leave from American University as Chief Energy Modeler with the Energy Information Administration at the US Department of Energy. He was the inaugural PI and Director of Multiscale RECIPES for Sustainable Food Systems Research Network, a $15M cooperative agreement with NSF funding over 15 institutions, 40 faculty, 45 graduate students, and 14 staff. His primary area of research is mathematical optimization and operations research applied to environmental systems, including energy infrastructure, food systems, and human health. His algorithms for systems optimization incorporate infrastructure function, game theory and markets, and energy and environmental policies to enable optimal decision-making. He is the recipient of the Young Researcher Prize from the INFORMS Energy, Natural Resources, and the Environment (ENRE) section, where he has served as the Secretary/Treasurer and past Chair of the Energy Cluster. In addition, he has served as Vice Chair for Linear and Conic Optimization for the INFORMS Optimization Society and is currently an Associate Editor for the journals Optimization & Engineering and Energy Systems.

Sarah Jackson-Han rejoined the United Nations Development Programme in Washington in August 2016 as Adviser for Communications, Partnerships, & Policy. She has more than 20 years’ experience in print, broadcast, online, and social media; strategic communications; partnerships; risk and reputation management; and speech- and op-ed-writing. A native Washingtonian, she served as Senior Communications Officer in the Gender Cross-Cutting Solution Area at the World Bank Group from 2013-2016, after working with UNDP from 2010-2013. She worked previously as Asian affairs editor and correspondent with Agence France-Presse, communications director with Radio Free Asia, and online editor with NPR. She holds honors degrees from Dartmouth College (US) and Cambridge University (UK).

Veronica Limeberry, a doctoral candidate at American University School of International Service, holds an MA in Gender and Diversity Studies and an MPA in Economic Planning and Development. She is the founder of an Appalachian non-profit that provides education and outreach to promote food justice and regional seed biodiversity conservation. She has advocated at the UN for rural women's roles in hunger eradication and completed a Fulbright Research Fellowship in India, working with women and Indigenous farmers across the country. She is a current Ford Dissertation Fellow for 2020-2021. Her research interests are understanding the intersections of Indigenous territorial rights, food and agricultural sovereignty, state and tribal sovereignty, and agrarian policy in the Americas. She also works on issues of environmental peacebuilding, especially related to transitions from illicit crop production and agrobiodiversity for conflict resolution.

My research and teaching interests span social movements, political ecology, racial capitalism in South Asia and its diasporas. My book, The Ethics of Staying: Social Movements and Land Rights in Pakistan (SUP 2019), is a history and ethnography of AMP, a land rights movement that successfully challenged the Pakistan military’s efforts to privatize state-owned lands. I am broadly interested in how poor marginalized communities strive to build a good life in the midst of economic uncertainty and repression. My scholarly publications analyze the role of infrastructure projects in shaping political subjectivity in Punjab Pakistan, the use of counter-terrorism policies to suppress peasant/indigenous demand for land rights’ and the complexities arising from civil society/ NGO involvement in grassroots struggles. My current fieldwork research focus is on informal urbanism in Karachi’s food markets, and the role of these markets in structuring relations of coexistence in the aftermath of urban violence. I am also working on a DC based project that looks at the overlooked history and memory of the DC waterfront, especially the Potomac river through the framework of Racial capitalism.