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Present a Series of Special Events
The Science & the Skepticism.
Altered States of Consciousness and Cognitive Psychology
Wednesday, October 16, 2024 @ 7PM Eastern
Johns Hopkins University, Mason Hall, 3101 Wyman Park Dr, Baltimore, MD
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Read more about it:
Familiar Strangers” (Psychology Today, 7/2/2024)
The children who remember their past lives: What happens when your toddler is haunted by memories that aren’t hers?” (Washington Post, 5/2/2024)
When Children Remember Past Lives: An interview with Barbara Graham, author of “What Jonah Knew. (Psychology Today, 7/14/2022)
Featuring a panel of experts:
MATTHEW W. JOHNSON, Senior Investigator at the Sheppard Pratt Center for Excellence in Psilocybin Research and Treatment.
Dr. Mathew W. Johnson is an experimental psychologist conducting human research on psychedelics and behavior change. From 2004 to 2024 he conducted seminal psychedelic research at Johns Hopkins, playing a role in the modern-day revival of psychedelic research. In March 2024 he joined Sheppard Pratt to expand his psychedelic research. He has published research on psychedelics in relation to mystical experience, personality change, tobacco smoking cessation, cancer distress treatment, depression treatment, and psychedelic risks and safety guidelines. In 2021 he received as principal investigator the first grant in about 50 years from the US government to administer a classic psychedelic as a treatment, specifically psilocybin for tobacco addiction. He is also known for his expertise in behavioral economics, addiction, sexual risk behavior, and research with a wide variety of drug classes. He has been Interviewed by Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, Fox News, BBC, the Lex Fridman Podcast, the Huberman Lab Podcast, Big Think and Michael Pollan.
Profile as Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at JHU.
Profile as senior researcher for the Center of Excellence for Psilocybin Research and Treatment at Sheppard Pratt’s Institute for Advanced Diagnostics and Therapeutics.
Speaker Disclosure:
Matthew Johnson serves as consultant to several companies that are developing psychedelics as FDA approved treatments: AJNA Labs, Beckley Psychedelic Ltd., Clarion Clinics, MindMed, Otsuka Pharmaceutical Development & Commercialization, and Reunion Neurosciences.
JAMES G. MATLOCK, Research Fellow at the Parapsychology Foundation & Author.
James G. Matlock received a B.A. in English from Emory University in 1977 and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Southern Illinois at Carbondale in 2002. He worked at the American Society for Psychical Research in New York City and at the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina. Matlock is presently a Research Fellow at the Parapsychology Foundation. His chief research interests are the history of parapsychology, anthropology of religion, and reincarnation. He teaches a 15-week online seminar course on reincarnation research and theory. Read more in-depth on Matlock and his research.
Matlock’s book Signs of Reincarnation: Exploring Beliefs, Cases, and Theory, published by Rowman & Littlefield (2019), provides the first comprehensive look at the belief in reincarnation and the evidence for past lives from historical records, anthropological studies, and contemporary research. Matlock discusses various ways the evidence may be interpreted and shows that although reincarnation entails a rejection of the materialist notion that consciousness is generated by the brain, it does not require the acceptance of any radically new concepts or the abandonment of well-established findings in mainstream psychology or biology. This book offers students, scholars, and anyone interested in the possibility of reincarnation an essential grounding in beliefs, cases, and theory, while opening doors for future research into the extension of consciousness beyond our present lives.
See more on Memories of previous lives.
TOM SHRODER, Author and Editor.
Tom Shroder is the author of Old Souls: Scientific Evidence for Reincarnation From Children Who Remember Past Lives (1999); Acid Test: How a Daring Group of Psychonauts Rediscovered the Power of LSD, MDMA and Other Psychedelic Drugs to Heal Addiction, Depression, Anxiety and Trauma (2014); The Most Famous Writer Who Ever Lived), A True Story of My Family (2016) and co-author of Fire on the Horizon: the Untold Story of the Gulf Oil Disaster (2011).
His ghost-written books include The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior by Robert O’Neill, which spent seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and Exposure: Poisoned Water, Corporate Greed, and One Lawyer’s Twenty-Year Battle against DuPont, by Robert Bilott, the true story behind the movie Dark Waters, starring Mark Rufallo.
At Tropic Magazine in 1988, he edited the work by Dave Barry that won the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary, and as editor of The Washington Post Magazine between 2001 and 2009 he oversaw staff writer Gene Weingarten’s two Pulitzer Prize-winning feature stories, Fiddler in the Subway (2008) and Fatal Distraction (2010).
A 25th anniversary edition of Old Souls with a new afterword was published in July. View all of Shroder’s books on Amazon.
See Tom Shroder’s website.
MODERATOR: FREDERICK KAUFMAN, Professor of English & Journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
Frederick Kaufman, Ph.D., is Professor of English and Journalism at the City University of New York. A contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine, his nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Foreign Policy, Fortune, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Lapham’s Quarterly, Literary Hub, Scientific American, Salon, Slate, Nature, Wired, Vice, British Medical Journal, and numerous other publications.
He is the author of four books, most recently The Money Plot: A History from Shells to Bullion to Bitcoin. Other books include Bet the Farm: How Food Stopped Being Food, and the award-winning A Short History of the American Stomach. He hosted and executive produced a Webby-nominated documentary film for Vice Reports, and has appeared on MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, Fox Business News, Democracy Now!, C-Span, National Public Radio’s Radiolab, On the Media, and the BBC World Service, among numerous other broadcasts and podcasts. He has lectured throughout the United States and abroad, including addresses to the National Press Club, PEN, and the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Frederick Kaufman’s profile at CUNY School of Journalism.
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OUR PAST EVENTS:Social Media: Its Effect on Free Speech, the News
& Social Norms. The Profits and the Trappings.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 @ 7PM Eastern
HOSTED BY: BWTech @ UMBC SOUTH
1450 S Rolling Rd, Baltimore, MD 21227
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Featuring a panel of experts:
DR JENNIFER KEOHANE, Associate Professor & Program Director, Digital Communication,
Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences, University of Baltimore.
Jennifer Keohane is associate professor at the University of Baltimore, where she directs the undergraduate program in digital communication and oversees the general education program in oral communication. She holds an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in rhetoric, politics, and culture, where she studied women affiliated with the American Communist Party, a project that became the book Feminist Voices and Communist Rhetoric in Cold War America.
As a rhetorical critic, Jennifer studies how advocates for social movements use symbols like language and images to make change in the world. In 2016, she co-founded the research lab for Character Assassination and Reputation Politics (CARP), where she studies how invective is weaponized in political communication. In collaboration with this research lab, she co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Character Assassination and Reputation Management and co-wrote Character Assassination and Reputation Management: Theory and Applications. You can also find her work in academic journals like Women’s Studies in Communication, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, Rhetoric Review, and the Journal for the History of Rhetoric.
DR ELIZABETH M H NEWBURY, Director of the Serious Games Initiative for the Wilson Center.
Dr. Elizabeth M H Newbury is the Director for the Serious Games Initiative for the Wilson Center, leading the Wilson Center’s use of games in engaging the public around policy research. As lead of the Serious Games Initiative, she leverages games as a tool for the public communication of science and policy research. Under her leadership, SGI is pursuing how public policy and science can come together in an interactive platform to increase public dialogue and engagement around timely and critical issues of today. Current projects include the Fiscal Ship, a game about the federal budget developed and maintained in collaboration with the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy with the Brookings Institute. The Wilson Center’s budget games have been played by over 3 million people worldwide.
Collaborating across the Wilson Center, her works in progress include games pertaining to topics ranging from cybsecurity and plastic pollution. Outside of the Wilson Center, she helps coordinate across federal agencies to help support the ecosystem of games used for social good, through chairing the Federal Games Guild, an informal community of practice with over 100 agency participants united by the purpose to see how they can leverage gaming technologies to meet mission goals.
She holds a B.A. in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College, and a Master and PhD from the Department of Communication at Cornell University, where her research interests revolved around understanding multiple dimensions of gaming audiences and the surrounding culture of those who play video games in the context of esports. She married into a Baltimore family and is contractually obligated to support the Ravens and O’s (when they don’t compete with the Nationals).
DR LANCE YONG JIN PARK, Professor at the School of Communications at Howard University, and Faculty Associate at Harvard Law School.
Dr. Lance Yong Jin Park is Professor at the School of Communications at Howard University and Faculty Associate at Harvard Law School. His works focus on the effects of emerging AI technologies in intersection with social and policy problems. Currently, his research looks at how the combination of AI, algorithm, and personal data contributes to social and racial inequalities in information consumption. Dr. Lance Yong Jin Park’s book The Future of Digital Surveillance (University of Michigan Press, 2021) examines AI in its perpetual appetite for data surveillance, AI and social media.
He was an inaugural 2022-23 BKC, RSM Visiting Professor, at Harvard; received several external grants from Facebook, Scripps Foundation, ANA, Urban Comm. Foundation, and more. The most recent grant is from Mozilla Foundation, as the grant aims to study and teach how to debias AI algorithmic modeling. He was previously a Research Fellow at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, and EPIC (Electronic Privacy Info Center), DC. He made a policy testimony at FCC; consulted FTC for dark patterns online; and received numerous top papers awards from top info-communication conferences. He completed his doctorate at the University of Michigan and his MA at USC Annenberg School.
MODERATOR: DR MARK FELDSTEIN, Richard Eaton Chair of Broadcast Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Mark Feldstein spent 20 years as an award-winning on-air investigative correspondent at CNN, ABC News and various local television stations.
On assignment, he was beaten up, subpoenaed and sued in the U.S.; detained and censored by government authorities in Egypt; and escorted out of the country under armed guard in Haiti.
His exposés led to resignations, firings, multimillion dollar fines and prison terms — and more than 50 journalism awards, including two George Foster Peabody medallions, the Columbia-DuPont baton, the national Edward R. Murrow broadcasting prize and nine regional Emmys.
As a scholar, Feldstein has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. His book “Poisoning the Press” earned top academic awards for research and was selected by The Washington Post and other newspapers as a best book of the year.
Feldstein is regularly quoted as a media analyst by leading outlets in the U.S. and abroad, and has testified as an expert witness on First Amendment issues before Congress and in court, most recently on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
He has traveled to more than 30 countries and lectured around the world on investigative reporting, censorship, freedom of the press, and journalism history and ethics.
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HOW TO EDUCATE OUR CHILDREN FOR THEIR BEST FUTURE
IN A CHANGING WORLD
Wednesday, October 4, 2023 @ 7PM Eastern, FREE Online via Zoom
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Featuring a panel of experts:
JOSHUA L. GLAZER, Associate Professor, Education Policy, George Washington University.
Dr. Glazer’s research and teaching examine multiple approaches to improving under-performing schools in high-poverty, urban environments. He recently directed two multi-year studies into school turnaround. The first examined the Tennessee Achievement School District, in which the state removed underperforming schools from local control and then authorized charter schools to develop and implement designs for improvement. The second study investigated the efforts of Shelby County Schools to improve 25 schools that ranked near the bottom of the state in academic performance. In addition, Dr. Glazer was the principal investigator for program of research looking at research-practice partnerships in two urban centers. This research examined the extent to which these partnerships promoted learning and improvement among the participating districts, and the social and political factors that shaped these efforts.
Dr. Glazer has published on a wide range of topics, including the replication of effective school improvement models, the role of external interveners in large-scale reform, the challenges confronting charter management organizations that operate neighborhood schools, the dynamics of race and class in state takeover of schools, and the structure and dynamics of the teaching profession. He is a co-author of Improvement by Design, which examines three prominent comprehensive school reform programs in the U.S., and co-editor of Choosing Charters: Better Schools or More Segregation? His work has been featured in op-ed pieces, newspaper articles, television news, and blogs. He is currently working on a book examining 10 years of school reform efforts in Memphis.
Prior to joining the faculty of the George Washington University, Dr. Glazer worked for five years at the Rothschild Foundation in Jerusalem, Israel as a program officer and program director in the education division. Dr. Glazer holds a B.A. in European history from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
>Article on Charter Schools
RAIN PRYOR, Entertainer, Writer, Director, Playwright, Educator and Activist.
Rain Pryor is an entertainer, director, writer, playwright, speaker, activist, Osun priestess, wife and mother. Pryor wants to assist you in finding and living out your desires, and, breaking down racial biases. Rain, has lead panel discussions on diversity in education and in the entertainment industry to groups around the world including: Princeton University, The Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Cannes. Pryor has also received honors for her commitment to arts education by the Business Women of Baltimore and the Baltimore Department of Education.
Rain’s leadership skills began back in the early 90’s when she was part of a gang ceasefire in Los Angeles. She was also a substance abuse dual diagnosis counselor and helped to establish treatment protocols for two rehabs in Los Angeles. Rain used all of her experiences to run for local office in Baltimore MD in the 3rd District in 2019. She is currently a Schusterman Fellow, developing her leadership skills and participating in panel discussions on race and intersectionality. She’s also on the board of the Columbia Arts Festival and Jewish Women’s International.
Rain is a truly brilliant performer. Her performances are considered thought provoking through truthful storytelling and mimicry. She won an NAACP award for her irreverent, often sold out, solo show Fried Chicken & Latkes and for her role as the evil stepsister in the Michael Jackson produced musical Sisterella. She was nominated for the prestigious ADELCO Awards for her Off Broadway run at the National Black Theatre in Harlem. Her writing and performance in her award-winning solo show lead to a television development deal with Norman Lear, the creator of The Jefferson’s and All In The Family. And she is currently writing and creating pitches for a new television series, to be filmed in Baltimore MD, and Nigeria.
Pryor was nominated for the African American Literary Award in 2007 for her biography, Jokes My Father Never Taught Me, Life Love & Loss With Richard Pryor. She has won numerous Black Short film awards for That Daughter’s Crazy documentary. She is also a director, who is known for her superior work ethic, and integrity.
OLIVER SONG, Student Rights Advocate, Environmentalist, and Activist.
Oliver Song is a rising freshman at Harvard University and plans on studying Environmental Science and Public Policy.
An avid environmentalist, activist, and student rights advocate, Oliver has spent much time working with students, staff, administration, and his local school board to improve student communication and representation. Elected as Student Body President during the pandemic era of virtual learning, Oliver led a COVID-19 Student Town Hall where students shared their experiences in the school system with elected officials.
From 2022-2023, Oliver was elected President of the Howard County Association of Student Councils, the county-level student government and the only recognized student voices organization in Howard County. He led efforts to increase student representation from underrepresented groups and ages, aiming to equip students with the habits of heart and mind to serve as engaged and informed citizens.
An avid advocate for the environment, Oliver also serves as the co-hub coordinator of the Howard County Sunrise Movement and Certified Youth Ambassador at the Youth Climate Institute. Through testimony and lobbying, Oliver has advocated for much green legislation at the local, state, and national levels.
CONOR P. WILLIAMS, Senior Fellow at Century Foundation, Researcher and Writer Covering Educational Equity & School Diversity.
Conor P. Williams is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, where he writes about education, immigration, early education, school choice, and families’ work-life balance challenges. He is an expert on American educational inequity, English learner students, dual immersion programs, urban education reform, and the history of progressivism.
Williams was previously a senior researcher in New America’s Education Policy Program, a senior researcher in its Early Education Initiative, and the founding director of its Dual Language Learners National Work Group. He has taught postsecondary courses at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and American University. He is a member of the Children’s Equity Project and the National Conference of State Legislatures’ State Policy and Research for Early Education (SPREE) Working Group.
Williams is a regular columnist at the 74 Million. His work has also been published by the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Washington Post, The New Republic, Dissent, Commonweal, The Daily Beast, Vox, TIME, Talking Points Memo, and elsewhere.
Williams holds a PhD and MA in government from Georgetown University, an MS in teaching from Pace University, and a BA in government and Spanish from Bowdoin College. Before beginning his doctoral research, he taught first grade in Brooklyn, New York. Williams attended public schools for his K–12 education, and has three children enrolled in public schools in Washington, D.C.
MODERATOR: WILLIAM EGGINTON, Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
Bill is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, and Chair of Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University.
He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), in Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction (2016). He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies (2017). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator and editor of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003), co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009), author of The Splintering of the American Mind (2018), and most recently The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Kant, Heisenberg, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality (2023).
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Wednesday, March 1, 2023 @ 7PM Eastern
FREE In-person* & via Zoom
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Bloomberg Center for Physics & Astronomy, Room 272
San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD
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Featuring a panel of experts:
RAMA CHELLAPPA, Chief Scientist of The Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy.
Rama Chellappa a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor in electrical and computer engineering and biomedical engineering and chief scientist at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy, is a pioneer in the area of artificial intelligence. His work in computer vision, pattern recognition, and machine learning have had a profound impact on areas including biometrics, smart cars, forensics, and 2D and 3D modeling of faces, objects, and terrain. His work in motion capturing and imaging shows promise for future use in health care and medicine.
He joined Johns Hopkins after 29 years at the University of Maryland, where he served lengthy stretches as chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and director of the Center for Automation Research. He is a member of Johns Hopkins’ Mathematical Institute for Data Science and the Center for Imaging Science.
Chellappa’s research has shaped the field of facial recognition technology—developing detailed face models based on shape, appearance, texture, and bone and muscle structure. Under a recent program called Janus, he and his team have developed a high-accuracy face recognition system that serves critical needs for federal and commercial sectors. The team has also worked on modeling facial expressions, with potential for a variety of medical applications.
He also is known as an expert in machine learning, a branch of artificial intelligence that instructs computer systems to perform tasks based on patterns and inferences. In one recent experiment, Chellappa and colleagues tested the skills of expert forensic facial examiners against the skills of machines; as it turned out, the best results came when both sides worked together. This research has implications for how machine learning algorithms can help doctors diagnose disease.
Chellappa has also worked on gait analysis, which can apply to an enormous range of uses—everything from diagnosing Parkinson’s disease to human identification at a distance.
Chellapa’s book, Can We Trust AI ?, was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022. Chellappa is the 2020 recipient of the Jack S. Kilby Signal Processing Medal for his contributions to image and video processing, particularly face recognition. This is one of the top honors from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), where Chellappa is a life fellow and previously served as editor-in-chief of journals. Among many other honors, Chellappa has also won technical achievement awards from the IEEE Computer Society and the IEEE Signal Processing Society; the latter also awarded him with its highest honor, the Society Award.
KATHLEEN FEATHERINGHAM, Director of Artificial Intelligence Practice, Booz Allen Hamilton.
Kathleen Featheringham is a director in Booz Allen’s artificial intelligence (AI) practice. She leads the firm’s overall AI strategy, as well as its work focused on ethical AI.
An expert in strategy and change management as well as AI and analytics, Kathleen has more than 20 years of experience working with clients across the Federal Government. Leveraging her experience leading highly technical cross-functional teams through transformation, she established and scaled Booz Allen’s AI strategy and training capabilities, which are aimed at empowering organizations to grow their ability to harness analytics for data-driven decision making. She was a founding member of the team that developed Booz Allen’s award-winning Data Science 5K Challenge program, which focused on upskilling the firm’s data science workforce to help clients use data in new ways.
Kathleen has long been focused on the convergence of mission and AI with a special emphasis on the human elements of adoption. This includes working with organizations on responsibly thinking about data as an asset, the evolution of the technical architecture to eliminate continual redesign, the evolution of human roles to allow more time for critical thinking, and building ethical AI controls and measures into the fabric of an organization.
Kathleen has an M.S. in intelligence analysis from Mercyhurst College and a B.S. in business administration from Georgetown University. She holds a Change Management Advanced Practitioner certification from Georgetown and a Psychology of Leadership graduate certificate from Cornell University.
PETER LEVIN, co-founder & CEO of Amida Technology Solutions.
Peter L. Levin is the co-founder and CEO of Amida Technology Solutions, an information technology firm that focuses on data interoperability, exchange, governance, and security.
From May 2009 until March 2013 he was Senior Advisor to the Secretary and Chief Technology Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. At VA he co-created and led the inter-agency deployment of the Blue Button personal health record, as well as the Virtual Regional Office (the platform of VA’s disability claims management system), and the consolidated electronic health record portal with the Department of Defense (now known as the Joint Legacy Viewer). He also led the implementation of VA’s first social media outreach, their employee innovation and industry competitions, and their inaugural Presidential Innovation Fellows initiative.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, he was a director of the open-source network security company Astaro (based in Karlsruhe, acquired by Sophos), the lead investor and board member of the electronic design automation (EDA) company NeoLinear (acquired by Cadence), and co-founder of the GPS-based cybersecurity company Zanio (acquired by Boeing). He was co-founding CEO of DAFCA, an EDA company focused on semiconductor test, a venture partner of Ventizz Capital Partners in Dusseldorf, a general partner of Techno Venture Management in Munich and Boston, and a director of Conversa Health (acquired by AmWell in 2021). He currently serves on the board of Platinum Technologies.
Peter was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator during the first Bush administration, a Clinton White House Fellow in the Office of Management and Budget, an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in the Department Mathematical Physics at the Technical University of Darmstadt, and a winner of an NIST Advanced Technology Program award. He is the co-author of more than 90 articles ranging from satellite navigation and cybersecurity to computer simulations and semiconductor test. He holds patents in chip design and GPS-based authentication. He has published in IEEE journals, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, politico.com, The Hill, The Baltimore Sun, Quillette, and the White House website.
Peter earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and was a DAAD Visiting Scientist in the High Voltage Laboratory at the Technical University of Munich. He began his career at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, was associate dean for research and graduate studies in the College of Engineering at Boston University, was a consulting professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, and was a visiting fellow at the Beeck Center for Social Innovation and Impact at Georgetown University. His academic research focused on electromagnetic and acoustic field theory, and high-performance computing; he was tenured at WPI and BU. He is currently an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a strategic advisor to the Partnership for Public Service.
MARC ROTENBERG, President & Founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy.
Marc Rotenberg is President and Founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy. He is a leading expert in data protection, open government, and AI policy. He has served on many international advisory panels, including the OECD AI Group of Experts. Marc helped draft the Universal Guidelines for AI, a widely endorsed human rights framework for the regulation of Artificial Intelligence.
Marc is the author of several textbooks including the 2020 AI Policy Sourcebook and Privacy and Society (West Academic 2016). He teaches privacy law and the GDPR at Georgetown Law. Marc has spoken frequently before the US Congress, the European Parliament, the OECD, UNESCO, judicial conferences, and international organizations. Marc has directed international comparative law studies on Privacy and Human Rights, Cryptography and Liberty, and Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values. Marc is a graduate of Harvard College, Stanford Law School, and Georgetown Law.
MODERATOR: DAVID IGNATIUS, prize-winning columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post.
David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. He is a former adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and currently Senior Fellow to the Future of Diplomacy Program.
Ignatius has written 11 spy novels: “The Paladin” (2020), “The Quantum Spy,” (2017), “The Director,” (2014), “Bloodmoney” (2011), “The Increment” (2009), “Body of Lies” (2007), “The Sun King” (1999), “A Firing Offense” (1997), “The Bank of Fear” (1994), “SIRO” (1991), and “Agents of Innocence” (1987). “Body of Lies” was made into a 2008 Ridley Scott film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe.
Ignatius joined The Post in 1986 as editor of its Sunday Outlook section. In 1990 he became foreign editor, and in 1993, assistant managing editor for business news. He began writing his column in 1998 and continued even during a three-year stint as executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Earlier in his career, Ignatius was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering at various times the steel industry, the Departments of State and Justice, the CIA, the Senate and the Middle East.
Ignatius grew up in Washington, D.C., and studied political theory at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and has three daughters.
Honors and Awards: 2018 Finalist team, Pulitzer Prize for Public Service; 2018 George Polk Award; 2010 Urbino International Press Award; 2013 Overseas Press Club Award for Foreign Affairs Commentary; Lifetime Achievement Award, International Committee for Foreign Journalists; Legion D’Honneur awarded by the French government; 2004 Edward Weintal Prize; 2000 Gerald Loeb Award for Commentary; As The Post’s foreign editor, Ignatius supervised the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
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GLOBAL DISRUPTION AND BROKEN ALLIANCES.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022 @ 7PM Eastern, FREE In-person* & via YouTube
Hosted by:
The Church of the Redeemer
5603 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD
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Featuring a panel of experts:
HORACE A. BARTILOW, Professor of International Political Economy & American Foreign Policy, School of International Service at American University.
Horace A. Bartilow is a Jamaican-born political economist who received his Ph.D. in 1994 from the State University of New York at Albany. He is Professor of International Political Economy and American Foreign Policy at the School of International Service at American University where he is also a Faculty Fellow in the Center for Data Science at the School of Public Affairs.
He is a mixed-methods researcher with training in advanced statistical and qualitative research methods with particular expertise in documentary and archival analysis, elite and focus group interviewing. He has extensive research expertise in the study of licit and illicit international political economy. His research on licit economies has focused on the politics of international trade and finance, structural adjustment economic reform, the politics of sustainable development, and the politics of coercive diplomacy and economic sanctions. He is the principal developer of the Bi-SAP database – the Bartilow Index of Governments’ Implementation of the International Monetary Fund’s Structural Adjustment Programs, 1945 to 2021.
His research on illicit economies has focused on the politics of illicit trafficking, and the impact of U.S. drug enforcement on human rights and democratization in the developing world. His forthcoming published research features a large n-statistical analysis of how women’s political representation and participation in 118 countries increase governments’ compliance with international rules and norms against human trafficking.
His scholarly articles on these issues have appeared in prominent peer-reviewed international journals such as Third World Quarterly, Latin American Research Review, International Studies Quarterly, Latin American Politics and Society, International Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, Security Studies, Journal of Conflict Studies, National Political Science Review and the Journal of Human Trafficking, Enslavement and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.
Horace is the author of “The Debt Dilemma: IMF Negotiations in Jamaica, Grenada, and Guyana” (University of Warwick, London: Macmillan Press, 1997), “Drug War Pathologies: Embedded Corporatism and U.S Drug Enforcement in the Americas” (University of North Carolina Press, 2019); and his current book projects are “Pawns and Puppets: Orientalism and the Racial Origins of U.S. Cold War Ideology and Covert Intervention in the Developing World” (Under Contract Cambridge University Press); and “Sinophobia and the Liberal Order: Is China a Present Threat or Pending Manager of Global Liberalism?”
GISELLE DONNELLY, Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Giselle Donnelly is a senior fellow in defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where she focuses on national security and military strategy, operations, programs, and defense budgets.
From 1995 to 1999, Ms. Donnelly served as a policy group director and professional staff member at the House Armed Services Committee. She has also served as a member of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, the editor of Armed Forces Journal and Army Times, and the deputy editor of Defense News.
Ms. Donnelly has testified before Congress and has been widely published in the popular press, including in The Wall Street Journal and The Weekly Standard. Her many books include “Lessons for a Long War: How America Can Win on New Battlefields”(AEI Press, 2010), coauthored with Frederick W. Kagan and others; “Ground Truth: The Future of U.S. Land Power”(AEI Press, 2008), coauthored with Frederick W. Kagan; “Of Men and Materiel: The Crisis in Military Resources”(AEI Press, 2007), coedited with Gary J. Schmitt; “The Military We Need: The Defense Requirements of the Bush Doctrine”(AEI Press, 2005); and “Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment”(AEI Press, 2004). She is currently working on “Empire for Liberty: The British Roots of American Strategy-Making.”
Ms. Donnelly has a master of international public policy from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree from Ithaca College.
Formerly Thomas Donnelly, Giselle Donnelly’s previous work can be found here.
MATTHEW KAMINSKI, Editor-in-Chief, POLITICO.
Matthew Kaminski is POLITICO’s Editor-in-Chief, overseeing all editorial operations of the publication.
Starting as a freelancer from Eastern Europe before his senior year in college, Matt has reported on international affairs, politics and business on and off for the past quarter century. He covered the former Soviet Union for the Financial Times and Economist in 1994-97, and in 1997 joined the Wall Street Journal in Brussels as a correspondent. He subsequently held various writing and editing roles with the Journal in Paris and New York. In 2004, Matt was awarded the Peter Weitz Prize by the German Marshall Fund for a series of stories on the European Union. His coverage of the Ukrainian crisis won an Overseas Press Club prize in 2015. He was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary that year.
He joined POLITICO in late 2014 to become the founding editor of the European edition, which launched in April 2015. He moved to Washington in the fall of 2018 to help lead the publication’s global expansion efforts, and took on his current role in April 2019.
Born in Poland, Matt immigrated to the United States as a child and grew up in Washington. He holds degrees from Yale College and the University of Paris and lives in Washington with his wife, Alexandra Geneste, and their two children.
JEFFREY MANKOFF, Distinguished Research Fellow at the U.S. National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies.
With areas of expertise in Russian Foreign Policy; Eurasia, Ethnic Conflict; and Energy Security, Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the U.S. National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies. He is the author of Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009, 2011). His forthcoming book, Empires of Eurasia: How Imperial Legacies Shape International Security (Yale, 2021), examines the impact of the imperial past on Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Turkish politics and foreign policy. He also writes frequently for Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, CNN, and other outlets.
Mankoff was previously a senior fellow with the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and served as an adviser on U.S.-Russia relations at the U.S. Department of State as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. From 2008 to 2010, he was associate director of International Security Studies at Yale University and an adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also held the John M. Olin National Security Fellowship at Harvard University (2006-07) and the Henry Chauncey Fellowship at Yale University (2007-08). Mankoff received B.A. degrees in international studies and Russian from the University of Oklahoma, and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in diplomatic history from Yale University. He is a Truman National Security Fellow and a past Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
MODERATOR: WILLIAM EGGINTON, Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
Bill is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy, and where he Directs the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), in Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction (2016). He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies (2017). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator and editor of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003), co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009). His most recent book, The Splintering of the American Mind, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018.
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Wednesday, February 2, 2022 @ 7PM Eastern, FREE via Zoom Online
Hosted by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
Respected legal and political minds gather to discuss the role of the Supreme Court and the recent and upcoming decisions that can change the American social and political landscape and the course of history, while conveying perspectives culled between the lines.
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Following registration attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information for the Zoom webinar.
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Featuring a panel of experts:
JOEY JACKSON, Trial Attorney & CNN/HLN Legal Analyst.
Joey Jackson is a nationally-recognized attorney who has for over two decades represented individuals and labor unions in state and federal court. As Principal and Founder of Joey Jackson Law, PLLC, Mr. Jackson oversees every aspect of the practice. Mr. Jackson and his associates at Joey Jackson Law, have represented a diverse group of clients under the glare of cameras as well as those who have never attracted public attention. He has built an outstanding career as a trial lawyer representing clients who have fallen into high-stakes personal and professional crises, as well as those who are average citizens in need of his fierce and benevolent counsel.
Mr. Jackson has been a member of the New York Bar since 1995. After graduating from Hofstra Law School, Mr. Jackson was appointed Assistant District Attorney under Robert Morgenthau. Following a successful career as a prosecutor where he received the Distinguished Public Service Award, Mr. Jackson joined the firm of Koehler & Isaacs LLP where he served as Senior Trial Counsel specializing in criminal defense. Mr. Jackson has tried cases and received favorable verdicts in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, as well as Nassau, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties. At the Federal level, he handles cases in both the Eastern and Southern Districts.
Mr. Jackson’s straight-talking legal expertise is held in high regard by media outlets, as he has frequently appeared on various cable news programs over the last decade. He is currently employed by CNN/HLN as a Legal Analyst.
Mr. Jackson attended Hofstra Law School. While in law school, he served as editor for the Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal and a member of the National Moot Court and National Trial teams.
Prior to Law School, he earned his M.P.A. from SUNY Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. While earning his Master’s Degree, he worked for the N.Y.S. Assembly Speaker as a Legislative Analyst. He also holds a B.A. from SUNY Brockport, where he participated in the honors program, directed the student-run Legal Information Service, served as student body president, and interned with the N.Y.S. Education Department as well as Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) in Washington, D.C. He also worked for the N.Y.C. Mayor’s Office in the Division of Special Projects.
Professor Michael J. Klarman is the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard Law School, where he joined the faculty in 2008. He received his B.A. and M.A. (political theory) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1983, and his D. Phil. in legal history from the University of Oxford (1988), where he was a Marshall Scholar. After law school, Professor Klarman clerked for the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1983-84). He joined the faculty at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1987 and served there until 2008 as the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Professor of History.
Klarman’s first book, From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality, was published by Oxford University Press in 2004 and received the 2005 Bancroft Prize in History. He published two books in 2007, also with Oxford University Press: Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Movement and Unfinished Business: Racial Equality in American History, which is part of Oxford’s Inalienable Rights series. In 2012, he published From the Closet to the Altar: Courts, Backlash, and the Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage. In 2016, Oxford University Press published his comprehensive history of the Founding, The Framers’ Coup: The Making of the US Constitution, which was a finalist for both the George Washington Book Prize and the American Bar Association’s Silver Gavel Award. In 2020, he authored the Harvard Law Review Foreword on “The Degradation of American Democracy—and the Court.”
Klarman sees trouble ahead in large conservative majority on Supreme Court
BILL KRISTOL, American Neoconservative Writer, Editor & Commentator on MSNBC.
William Kristol is a founding director of Defending Democracy Together, an educational and advocacy organization dedicated to defending America’s liberal democratic norms, principles, and institutions. Kristol has long been recognized as a leading participant in and analyst of American politics and has helped shape the national debate on issues ranging from American foreign policy to the meaning of American conservatism.
Kristol is now editor-at-large of The Bulwark. In 1995, Kristol was a founder of the Weekly Standard and edited the influential magazine for over two decades. Before starting the Weekly Standard, Kristol led the Project for the Republican Future, where he helped developed the strategy that produced the 1994 Republican congressional victory. Before that, Mr. Kristol served in senior positions in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations. Before coming to Washington, Mr. Kristol taught politics at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. He received his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.
KIMBERLY WEHLE, Law Professor & former CBS News Legal Analyst.
Kimberly Wehle is a tenured law professor and has been teaching law full-time since 2006. She is also a book author, lawyer and former CBS News legal analyst. In addition to her scholarly work, she writes regular columns for Politico, The Atlantic, The Bulwark, and The Hill. She also provides frequent legal commentary for CNN, MSNBC, NBC, BBC, NPR, and numerous other media outlets.
At the University of Baltimore School of Law, her teaching and scholarship focuses on the separation of powers, administrative agencies, and civil litigation. She is a 2020 recipient of the prestigious Board of Regents Faculty Award for the University of Maryland for excellence in scholarship, research and creative activity. She is also a former Assistant United States Attorney, Associate Independent Counsel in the Whitewater Investigation, and author of the books What You Need to Know about Voting–and Why, and How to Read The Constitution–and Why. Her new book, forthcoming in February 2022, is How to Think Like a Lawyer–and Why: A Common Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas. Follow Kim Wehle on Twitter and Instagram @kimwehle. She has an IGTV series on Instagram called #SimplePolitics.
MODERATOR: WILLIAM EGGINTON, Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
Bill is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy, and where he Directs the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), in Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction (2016). He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies (2017). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator and editor of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003), co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009). His most recent book, The Splintering of the American Mind, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018.
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CRYPTOCURRENCY THREAT & VALUE?
Wednesday, September 1, 2021 @ 7PM Eastern, via Zoom Online
Hosted by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
Cryptocurrency pioneers and leading financial authorities share their viewpoints on issues including the trading of crypto currencies, their longterm value, the disruption to the global money system, the inequity issues of that system for worldwide populations, the mining of bitcoins, regulations, and ransomware.
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Following registration attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information for the Zoom webinar.
View the video replay from this Great Talk!
Featuring a panel of experts:
AMY CREWS CUTTS, Chief Economist.
Dr. Amy Crews Cutts is a nationally recognized thought leader and chief economist focused on providing strategic economic analysis rooted in practical business terms. Amy is the President and Chief Economist of AC Cutts & Associates LLC. She was previously Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for Equifax and Senior Director and Deputy Chief Economist at Freddie Mac before that. With over 25 years of economic analysis and policy development experience, Amy is a passionate advocate for expanding consumer access to low-cost, nonpredatory credit. She is a noted expert in credit reporting, consumer and small business credit markets, loan servicing, securitization, residential real estate including home equity and price indices, and trends in employment and compensation.
Often quoted in national print and broadcast media, she has also published numerous studies in academic journals and books on such topics as the economics of subprime lending, the impact of technology on foreclosure prevention, and the drivers of strategic mortgage default. In 2015 she won the Pulsenomics® Crystal Ball Award for Outstanding Performance in The Zillow® Home Price Expectations Survey for her forecast accuracy and is a participant in the Wall Street Journal’s Monthly Survey of Leading Economists.
Cutts holds a Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Mathematics from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. In 2015 she became a Certified Business Economist®, a distinction of professional achievement from the National Association for Business Economics (NABE). She serves on the board of directors for NABE and the National Business Economics Issues Council, and the policy advisory board for The Reinvestment Fund, the advisory board for Riskspan, and the housing advisory board for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. She has taught economics at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Virginia and was Assistant Professor of Economics and Senior Researcher in the Maxwell School for Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.
MICHAEL HILTZIK, Journalist & Author.
Michael is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who has written for the Los Angeles Times for three decades, serving as a financial and political writer, investigative reporter, technology writer and editor, and foreign correspondent in Africa and Russia. His columns on economics, business, public policy, and politics can be found at the LA Times.
Michael’s latest book, Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America, covers the nation’s history during the Gilded Age of the last 19th Century. His previous books are Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention that Launched the Military-Industrial Complex (2015), The New Deal: A Modern History (2011), the New York Times bestseller Colossus: Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century (2010), The Plot Against Social Security (2005), Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (1999), and A Death in Kenya: The Murder of Julie Ward (1991).
Michael received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry. His other awards for excellence in reporting include the 2004 Gerald Loeb Award for outstanding business commentary and the Silver Gavel from the American Bar Association for outstanding legal reporting. A graduate of Colgate University and Columbia University, he lives in Southern California with his family.
ALEX MASHINSKY, Entrepreneur.
Alex is CEO and co-founder of Celsius, the centralized cryptocurrency lending platform.
Celsius Network: ALEX MASHINSKY A Genius Corporate Structure With An Undervalued Token (Cryptocurrency:CEL-USD)
Bitcoin will go all the way to $160,000 this year,’ says Celsius CEO.
Alex is also one of the inventors of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) with a foundational patent dating back to 1994 and is now working on MOIP (Money Over Internet Protocol) technology. Over 35 patents have been issued to Alex, relating to exchanges, VOIP protocols, messaging and communication.
Alex is a serial entrepreneur and founder of seven New York City-based startups, raising more than $1 billion and exiting over $3 billion. Alex founded two of New York City’s top 10 venture-backed exits since 2000: Arbinet, with a 2004 IPO that had a market capitalization of over $750 million; and Transit Wireless, valued at $1.2 billion.
Alex has received numerous awards for innovation, including being nominated twice by E&Y as ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’, in 2002 & 2011; Crain’s 2010 Top Entrepreneur; the prestigious 2000 Albert Einstein Technology medal; and the Technology Foresight Award for Innovation (presented in Geneva at Telecom 99).
As one of the pioneers of web-based exchanges, Alex authored patents that cover aspects of the Smart Grid, ad exchanges, Twitter, Skype, App Store, Netflix streaming concept and many other popular web companies. Additionally, Arbinet’s fundraising story was featured as a case study in 2001 by Harvard Business School.
LEE REINERS, Law Professor.
Lee Reiners is executive director of the Global Financial Markets Center at Duke Law. At Duke Law, Reiners teaches FinTech Law and Policy as well as seminars relating to financial policy and regulatory practice. His broad research agenda focuses on how new financial technologies fit within existing regulatory frameworks.
His work has examined the risks associated with cryptocurrency derivatives, the rise of digital investment advice, and corporate governance failures within the financial industry. He writes frequently on FinTech and other financial regulatory matters on The FinReg Blog and speaks with financial policy experts on the Global Financial Markets Center’s podcast, The FinReg Pod.
Prior to joining Duke Law, Reiners worked for five years at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY), first as a supervisor of systemically important financial institutions and then as a senior associate within the executive office. In the latter capacity, he helped coordinate the FRBNY’s engagement with international standard-setting bodies, such as the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board. While at the FRBNY, Reiners worked closely with other federal and state regulatory agencies.
MODERATOR: WILLIAM EGGINTON, Director of the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
Bill is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy, and where he Directs the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute.
He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), in Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction (2016). He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies (2017). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator and editor of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003), co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009). His most recent book, The Splintering of the American Mind, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018.
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In honor of assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, and the other journalists lost and injured in the attack on the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.
Tuesday, March 23, 2021 @ 7PM Eastern, Online
Hosted by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
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Following registration attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information for the Zoom webinar.
View the video replay from this Great Talk!
Featuring a panel of experts:
CARL HIAASEN, American Journalist & Author
Headlining our panel to honor the memory of his brother, assistant editor Rob Hiaasen, and the other journalists lost in the attack on the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland.
Carl’s latest book Squeeze Me is a New York Times bestseller having debuted in 2020 at #2 in the Combined Print & EBook Best Sellers list. In all, 20 of Hiaasen’s novels and nonfiction books have been on the New York Times Best Seller list, with two made into Hollywood films. Carl is the recipient of numerous awards as both a writer and journalist, including the 2010 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
Carl recently announced his retirement from the Miami Herald after 35 years, with his final column slated to be published March 14th.
DEWAYNE WICKHAM is the Dean and Distinguished Professor of Journalism, Morgan State University.
DeWayne is not only the founding dean of the School of Global Journalism & Communication at Morgan State University, but an author, journalist, and a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists.
DeWayne was awarded the Society of Professional Journalists’ highest honor, the Fellow of the Society Award in 2012. View his complete profile on The History Makers.
WENDY BENJAMINSON is the politics editor for Bloomberg News, based in Washington. She is responsible for broad coverage of campaigns and elections and oversaw the news outlet’s coverage of the 2020 campaign.
Before joining Bloomberg in 2019, Benjaminson was Washington bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers, a chain of local papers that stretch from Miami to Sacramento. She also was acting Washington bureau chief for the AP, managing the coverage of the first hectic months of the Trump era, fighting for White House access and setting up a strong, standing fact-checking operation while increasing AP-Washington’s social media presence.
As national security editor for the AP in Washington, her team was routinely ahead of substantial competition on the Iran nuclear deal, Syria policy, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, detente with Cuba and more. She also helped advise the Pentagon on a revision of the Law of War manual, which governed the treatment of embedded journalists in a conflict zone. Before returning to Washington in 2011, Benjaminson was an editor at the Houston Chronicle and was Texas News Editor for The AP.
BRIAN STELTER is the anchor of “Reliable Sources,” which examines the week’s top media stories every Sunday at 11:00 a.m. ET on CNN/U.S, and the chief media correspondent for CNN Worldwide. Stelter reports for CNN Media, and writes a nightly e-newsletter.
Prior to joining CNN in November 2013, Stelter was a media reporter at The New York Times. Starting in 2007, he covered television and digital media for the Business Day and Arts section of the newspaper. He was also a lead contributor to the “Media Decoder” blog.
Stelter published The New York Times best-selling books, “HOAX: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth” in fall 2020, and “Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV” in 2013.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2020 @ 7PM Eastern, Online
Hosted by the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute
Featuring a panel of experts:
Dr. Eric Green, Director, National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH
Diane Hoffmann, Professor of Law; Director, Law & Health Care Program, University of Maryland Carey School of Law
Dr. Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, Chair, American Society of Human Genetics; Chair, Dept of Genetics and Genome Sciences at the Case School of Medicine, Univ. of Cleveland Medical Center
Antonio Regalado, Senior Editor, MIT Technology Review
Moderated by: William Egginton, Decker Professor in the Humanities, Johns Hopkins University; Director, Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, JHU
A panel of experts discuss the challenges, promises, hopes, and dangers of stem cell research and the exciting new technologies that have enabled us to explore and alter the building blocks of life itself.
Dr. Eric Green is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the third NHGRI director, having been appointed by NIH director Dr. Francis Collins in 2009.
Dr. Green has been at the Institute for more than 25 years, during which he has had multiple key leadership roles. He served as the Institute’s scientific director for 7 years, chief of the NHGRI Genome Technology Branch for 13 years, and founding director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center for 12 years.
For just over two decades, Dr. Green directed an independent research program that included integral start-to-finish roles in the Human Genome Project and groundbreaking work on mapping, sequencing, and characterizing mammalian genomes.
Dr. Green earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1987 from Washington University in St. Louis; coincidentally, the word “genomics” was coined in that same year. During his career, Dr. Green has authored and co-authored over 370 scientific publications.
Diane E. Hoffmann, J.D. M.S., has been on the faculty at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law since 1987. She has taught Torts, Law and Medicine, Health Care Law, Legal Problems of the Elderly, Critical Issues in Health Care, Research with Human Subjects, and Health Care for the Poor.
Diane Hoffmann is the Jacob A. France Professor of Health Law and Director of the law school’s Law & Health Care Program. Her research and scholarship has focused on issues in end of life care as well as the legal and ethical issues associated with cutting edge technologies, therapies and diagnostic tests. She has served as a member of a number of health care ethics committees including those at the University of Maryland Medical System and the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health. She is currently a member of the Maryland Stem Cell Commission, the Composite Committee of the U.S. Medical Licensing Exam, the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medical Regulation, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Center for Gut Microbiome Research & Education at the American Gastroenterological Association.
Her recent scholarship includes a study of the use of health related genetic tests in the court room and an article on the criminal prosecution of physicians for prescription of opioids. In addition to her teaching and scholarship, Professor Hoffmann served as Law School’s Associate Dean of Academic Programs from 1999-2012, responsible for the school’s academic curriculum and dual degree programs. Hoffmann received her B.A., magna cum laude, from Duke University, her M.S. in Health Policy and Management from Harvard School of Public Health and her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Anthony Wynshaw-Boris, Chair, Genetics & Genome Sciences, Case Western Reserve Univ School of Medicine and University Hospitals.
Tony Wynshaw-Boris received his MD, PhD degrees from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
His PhD was under the direction of Richard Hanson, PhD, where he elucidated the sequences within the PEPCK promoter required for activation by cAMP and glucocorticoids. He did his residency at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, in Pediatrics followed by a medical genetics fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. While in Boston, he did a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School under the direction of Philip Leder, MD, where he studied mouse models of developmental disorders.
In 1994, Dr. Wynshaw-Boris set up an independent laboratory at the National Human Genome Research Institute of the NIH, where he initiated a program using mouse models to study human genetic diseases, with a focus on neurogenetic diseases. In 1999, he moved to UCSD School of Medicine, where he became Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, as well as Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics.
In 2007, he moved to UCSF School of Medicine, where he was the Charles J. Epstein Professor of Human Genetics and Pediatrics, and the Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics. At UCSF, in addition to mouse models, his laboratory began to use patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models to study human disease. In June 2013, he returned to Cleveland to become the Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genome Sciences. His laboratory continues to use mouse and iPSC models to shed light on mechanisms of neurogenetic diseases with the ultimate goal of providing novel therapies.
Dr. Wynshaw-Boris is President-Elect of the American Society for Human Genetics for 2019, and will be President in 2020. He was appointed to the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, National Institutes of Health, in 2019. He has also been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Pediatric Society, and he was elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Antonio Regalado is the senior editor for biomedicine for MIT Technology Review, with a focus on how technology is changing medicine and biomedical research.
Many of Antonio’a articles have also been included in the Genetic Literacy Project.
Before joining MIT Technology Review in July 2011, Antonio lived in São Paulo, Brazil, where he wrote about science, technology, and politics in Latin America for Science and other publications.
From 2000 to 2009, Antonio was the science reporter at the Wall Street Journal and later a foreign correspondent.
MODERATOR William Egginton is the Decker Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University.
Bill teaches literature, literary theory, and the relation between literature and philosophy, and Directs the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute. He is the author of How the World Became a Stage (2003), Perversity and Ethics (2006), A Wrinkle in History (2007), The Philosopher’s Desire (2007), The Theater of Truth (2010), in Defense of Religious Moderation (2011), and The Man Who Invented Fiction (2016). He is co-author with David Castillo of Medialogies (2017). He is also co-editor with Mike Sandbothe of The Pragmatic Turn in Philosophy (2004), translator and editor of Lisa Block de Behar’s Borges, the Passion of an Endless Quotation (2003), co-editor with David E. Johnson of Thinking With Borges (2009). His most recent book, The Splintering of the American Mind, was published by Bloomsbury in 2018.
With special thanks to Ruth Goldstein, The Pikesville Speakers Series; and Dan Gincel, Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund
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