Profiles:
Presenters and Moderators (alphabetical order)

(as of September 18, 2012)

Hanne Aaberg, Secretary General of Norwegians Worldwide and Executive Directors of the Norway-America Association
Hanne Aaberg is the Secretary General of Norwegians Worldwide and executive director of the Norway- America Association. Her many years of leadership experience include her positions as Executive Vice President of Norske Skog, Communications Director at Statkraft (Europe’s largest renewable energy company) and the Norwegian Shipowners’ Association, and Editor of Fagpressen.

Jasjut Ahluwalia, Director, Research Education, Training and Career Development, University of Minnesota Medical School
In September 2005, Dr. Ahluwalia joined the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center as the founding Executive Director for the Office of Clinical Research. In summer 2009, he received the NIH P60 Comprehensive Centers of Excellence in Health Disparities and Minority Health. This $6.2 million grant established the Center for Health Equity for which he serves as the founding Executive Director. Dr. Ahluwalia is also an Associate Director for the Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CTSI) and Director for Clinical Research Education, Training and Career Development for the CTSI and the newly funded CTSA. Dr. Ahluwalia has published almost 200 papers and received $20 million in funding as a principal investigator and over $80 million as a co-investigator, largely from the NIH. He received the 2009 Herbert W. Nickens award for national leadership and research in improving minority health and mentoring of ethnic minority investigators. This past year, he accepted the national 2010 Joe Cullen Award for Tobacco Research from the American Society for Preventive Oncology (ASPO).

Charles Betsey, Professor, Department of Economics, Howard University
His recent publications include an edited volume, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Transaction Press), “Faculty Research Productivity: Institutional and Personal Determinants of Faculty Publications,” and “Income and Wealth Transfer Effects of Discrimination in Prison Sentencing.” His current research interests include consumption behavior and wealth accumulation of African Americans, and pay and compensation policies in various labor markets, including the market for college faculty.
His professional activities at Howard also include his leadership as Center Director and Co-Principal Investigator of the Howard University Center on Race and Wealth. The Ford Foundation-sponsored center investigates issues of wealth disparities across racial groups to disseminate research findings and to train researchers in the field. Dr. Betsey began his career as a Labor Economist in the Office of Economic Opportunity, Executive Office of the President, where he served from 1971 to 1973. His duties included conducting research and monitoring a research grant awarded to the National Bureau of Economic Research. Dr. Betsey earned his B.A. in Economics and Spanish Literature and his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan.

Rose M. Brewer, Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor African American & African Studies, University of Minnesota
Rose M. Brewer is the Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor and former Chairperson of the African American & African Studies Department, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She has written extensively on race, class and gender, political change and social movements. Her most recent books are the co-authored, The Color of Wealth (2006) and The United States Social Forum: Perspectives of a Movement (2010). The Color of Wealth received the 2006 Gustavus-Meyer outstanding book award. In 2009 she was awardedthe Ada Comstock Distinguished Women Scholar Lectureship, University of Minnesota. She is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at the University.

Joan Brzezinski, Executive Director China Center, Confucius Institute
Joan Brzezinski graduated from Hamline University with a bachelor’s degree in East Asian history and later finished a Master of International Management degree at the University of St. Thomas. While at Hamline University, she was selected to participate in the reciprocal exchange program at Peking University, the first undergraduate-level exchange program with a private university in the U.S.For more than twenty years, Joan worked in tourism and travel marketing and operations in China and the U.S and later as a business consultant to companies working in China. She has made more than thirty trips to China and has visited most major regions of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. In 1997, she joined the China Center where she administered the China Center’s business and activities. In 2008, Joan became the acting director of the newly established Confucius Institute. Since then, she has assisted the State of Minnesota in their discussions with the Hanban regarding a state-level visiting teachers program, developed a number of professional development seminars and meetings for Chinese language teachers throughout Minnesota, and worked with school districts to bring quality Chinese language programming to schools and enhance Chinese cultural offerings throughout Minnesota

Teree L. Caldwell-Johnson, CEO of Oakridge Neighborhood and Oakridge Neighborhood Services (AALF-Des Moines, IA)
Teree L. Caldwell-Johnson serves as the CEO of Oakridge Neighborhood and Oakridge Neighborhood Services, a housing and human services non-profit agency located in Des Moines, Iowa.  Prior to assuming her position at Oakridge, Caldwell-Johnson held progressively responsible positions in local government across the country most recently serving as Polk County Manager from 1996-2003. Active in the community, Caldwell-Johnson was elected to the Des Moines School Board in 2006 and re-elected to a second four year term in 2009.  In 2011-12 Caldwell-Johnson was elected by her colleagues to serve as Board Chair.  The Des Moines Independent School District is the state’s largest district responsible for educating nearly 32,000 students. Caldwell-Johnson holds a B.A. in English from Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia and an MPA from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas.  Caldwell-Johnson is a National Urban Fellow (NUF) and completed post-graduate studies at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.  

Toni Carter, County Commissioner, (District 4) Ramsey County, Minnesota
Elected by the voters of District 4 on March 15, 2005, Commissioner Toni Carter currently serves as chair of the Association of Minnesota Counties Human Services Policy Committee, and of Ramsey County’s Legislative, Human Services and Workforce, and Juvenile Detention Alternatives Stakeholder Committee. Commissioner Carter also serves on the leadership teams of Ramsey County’s Workforce Investment Board, the Saint Paul Children’s Collaborative and the Ramsey County Children’s Mental Health Collaborative. An advocate of light-rail transit in the Central Corridor, and a member of the Met Council Central Corridor Management Committee, Commissioner Carter strongly believes this endeavor must integrate a holistic, community-generated vision of a transit system and surrounding development that helps people, especially those currently in the corridor, get to good jobs, access the resources they need, explore new avenues and remain connected to each other. She is working with neighbors, businesses and jurisdictions along the corridor to realize shared visions for the Central Corridor, including the build-out of the Western, Victoria and Dale stations, a service plan than enhances transit and LRT access for all, parking solutions that work, integrated and comprehensive streetscape and public art design and planning, and construction and development to increase opportunity and prosperity for residents and businesses within the corridor area. Born in Birmingham, Alabama and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Commissioner Carter moved to Minnesota in 1971 to attend Carleton College. She is married to retired St. Paul Police Sergeant and Save Our Sons co-founder Melvin W. Carter, Jr. They live in the Summit-University neighborhood, and are the parents of three graduates of the Saint Paul Public Schools – Anika (Roi) Ward, Melvin W. (Alecia) Carter III, and Alanna (Anthony) Galloway. They have five granddaughters and one grandson.

Gary Cunningham, Vice President of Programs and Chief Program Officer, Northwest Area Foundation, St. Paul, MN
For over 20 years, Gary Cunningham has served as the top leader of many philanthropic, health care, public policy and educational organizations. Currently, he serves as vice president, chief program officer for the Northwest Area Foundation. He is responsible for carrying out the foundation’s mission to support efforts by the people, organizations, and communities to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable prosperity in eight states. Mr. Cunningham is presently on the boards of Association of Black Foundation Executives, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, the advisory council of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, Hamline Policy Center, and MinnCAN. He is co-chair of the City of Minneapolis Youth Violence Prevention and co-chair of the African American Leadership Forum. He serves as a Council Member of
the Metropolitan Council representing Minneapolis. Gary Cunningham earned a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He received his Bachelor of Arts in public policy from Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

William A. Darity, Jr., Arts and Science Professor of Public Policy, Professor of African and African American Studies and Economics, Duke University
William A. (“Sandy”) Darity Jr. is Arts & Sciences Professor of Public Policy Studies, African and African American Studies and Economics, Chair of African and African American Studies and director of the Research Network on Racial and Ethnic Inequality at Duke University. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. Previously he served as director of the Institute of African American Research, director of the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, director of the Undergraduate Honors Program in economics, and director of Graduate Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Darity’s research focuses on stratification economics, inequality by race, class and ethnicity, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, doctrinal history and the social psychological effects of unemployment exposure.

Ashwini Deshpande, Professor, Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi
Dr. Ashwini Deshpande is a professor at the Department of Economics, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. She is interested in issues related to globalization and development and her specific research areas are: the economics of discrimination; inequality and inter-group disparities, with a focus on caste and gender in India; international debt; and aspects of the Chinese economy. She has
published several papers in leading economics journals and has won awards for her work, including the V.K.R.V. Rao award for economists under 45 for the year 2007. She is the editor of Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational comparisons of inter-group disparity with William Darity, Jr. (London: Routledge, 2003), as well as two volumes containing selected papers from the first two ACDC conferences: Globalization and Development: A Handbook of New Perspectives (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2007) and Capital Without Borders: Challenges to Development (London: Anthem Press, forthcoming 2010).

Debra Fitzpatrick, Program Director, Center on Women and Public Policy, University of Minnesota
Debra Fitzpatrick directs the Center on Women and Public Policy at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. She leads a partnership with the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota examining the status of women and girls in Minnesota and leads research and outreach efforts in the areas of women and
electoral politics, gender and judging, and women-centered non-profits. As part of this work, she conducts successful bi-partisan programming work with women legislators and local elected women. She also led a research project examining the path to office and success rates of male and female Minnesota legislative candidates (between 1998-2008) and partnered with non-profits to collect in-depth, original data from over 200 men and women potential and current candidates and program participants. In prior positions, she led a partnership with the National Governors Association (NGA), working with Governor led teams on K-12 education reform and advance policy changes in several states. As a Committee Administrator with the
Minnesota Senate, she conducted policy research and managed legislative agendas.

Congressman Keith Ellison, Fifth Congressional District of Minnesota in the U.S. House of Representatives
Congressman Keith Ellison represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Fifth District includes the City of Minneapolis and surrounding suburbs and is one of the most vibrant and ethnically diverse districts in Minnesota. Keith’s philosophy is one of “generosity and inclusiveness.” His roots as a community activist and his message of inclusivity through democratic
participation resonates throughout the Fifth District. His priorities in Congress are: promoting peace, prosperity for working families, environmental sustainability, and civil and human rights. As a member of the House Financial Services Committee, the congressman helps oversee the nation’s financial services and housing industries, as well as Wall Street. He also serves on the House Democratic Steering & Policy
Committee, which decides committee assignments for Democratic Members and sets the Democratic Caucus’ policy agenda. In the past he served on the House Judiciary Committee and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Rep. Ellison was elected co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus for the 112th Congress that promotes the progressive promise of fairness for all. The core principles of this progressive promise are fighting for economic justice and security for all; protecting and preserving our civil rights and civil liberties; promoting global peace and security; and advancing environmental protection and energy independence. He is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, founded the Congressional Consumer Justice Caucus, and belongs to 18 other caucuses that focus on issues ranging from social inclusion to environmental protection.

Yingling Fan, Assistant Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Yingling Fan is an assistant professor in the regional planning and policy area who works interdisciplinarily in the fields of land use, transportation, social equity, and public health. Her overarching research goal is to investigate the impacts of spatial planning (e.g., land use, growth management, and transit improvements) on human activities and movements as well as to understand the health and social aspects of such impacts. To this end, her research combines ecological and behavioral analyses, most quantitatively, as a means of addressing urban sustainability challenges. Fan recently received the Collaborator of the Year Award from the Hennepin County-University Partnership, the Scholar Award from the Children, Youth and Family Consortium at the University of Minnesota, the Best Paper Award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Pedestrian Committee, and the TRB Patricia F. Waller Award. She holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in Transportation Engineering from Southeast University, Nanjing, China.

Katherine Fennelly, Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Katherine Fennelly's research and outreach interests include the human rights of immigrants and refugees in the United States, and the preparedness of communities and public institutions to adapt to demographic changes. She has been dean of the University of Minnesota Extension Service, a faculty member and department head at the Pennsylvania State University, and a faculty member at Columbia University School of Public Health. Fennelly is bilingual in Spanish and English and has worked and traveled extensively throughout Latin America. She holds a certificate of studies from the University of Madrid, a master's of philosophy, a master's of health education, and a doctorate in adult education from Columbia University.

Barbara Frey, Director of Human Rights Program, University of Minnesota
Barbara A. Frey, J.D., is Director of the Human Rights Program at the University of Minnesota, where she oversees interdisciplinary teaching, research and programmatic activities for undergraduates, graduate students and professional students.  Frey’s research is currently focused on: forms of human rights advocacy, the role of civil society in promoting human rights in Mexico, and the global effects of small arms on human rights. Frey has been in leadership positions in a variety of non-governmental and intergovernmental organizations, including serving as Executive Director of Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights from 1985-97.  She served as an alternate member of the U.N. Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights from 2000-2003, and as the Sub-Commission’s Special Rapporteur on the prevention of human rights violations committed with small arms and light weapons, through 2006.

Emorcia V. Hill, Director, Converge, Research and Evaluation, Harvard Medical School
Emorcia V. Hill, PhD (Director, Converge, Research and Evaluation) has more than twenty years of experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of educational and child welfare programs. Dr. Hill was the Senior Director of the Excellence Through Diversity program at the New England Board of Higher Education, where she established and implemented program priorities for a region-wide network to improve the participation and success of minority students and professionals in higher education and industry. Dr. Hill’s higher education evaluation projects include the NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program, the Graduate Research Traineeships and the Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT). Dr. Hill also worked on the evaluation of the Preparing Future Faculty Initiative, which is jointly sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Dr. Hill has a Ph.D. in sociology from Boston College. Her dissertation examined the class structure of academia and the factors that inhibit or facilitate success of scientists and engineers in institutions of higher education.

Trista Harris, Executive Director, Headwaters Foundation for Justice
Trista Harris is philanthropic futurist and a passionate advocate for new leaders in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. She is a leading voice for Generations X and Y and seeks to create professional development opportunities throughout the sector. She writes about generational change in the foundation field in her blog, New Voices Of Philanthropy and is the co-author of "How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar: 50 Ways to Accelerate your Career". Trista’s newest book “Future Started Yesterday” is about how the social sector can predict and shape the future and will be released in the winter of 2012. In her professional life, Trista is the Executive Director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice in Minnesota. Headwaters is a community foundation with a mission to act as a catalyst for social, racial, economic and environmental justice. Trista has the privilege of being co-chair of the Twin Cities African American Leadership Forum, which is a nation-wide movement of African American leaders that is mobilized to address challenges and create long-term solutions for a vibrant and sustainable community.

Micah Hines, General Counsel, Office of Governor Mark Dayton and Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon
Micah Mitchell Hines joined the Office of Governor Mark Dayton in February 2011 as his Assistant Chief of Staff. In August, 2011, the Governor appointed Ms. Hines General Counsel, the role she currently holds today. She is the first African-American person to be appointed to that position. Micah serves as the Governor’s designee on the Minnesota State Board of Investment, and as the office lead on the Executive Council and Land Exchange Board. In addition, Micah continues the community outreach efforts she initially undertook as Assistant Chief of Staff. Micah is the granddaughter of Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., who served as the Executive Director of the Washington Bureau of the NAACP from 1950-1978, and was named the 101st
Senator for his tireless campaign to secure the passage of the Civil Rights Acts of the 1950s and 1960s. She is also the granddaughter of Juanita Jackson Mitchell, the first African-American woman to practice law in Maryland, whose lawsuits desegregated the beaches, parks and schools in Maryland. Micah holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Duke University, and a Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School, where she was a Dean’s Scholar.

Tony Hopson, Sr., President and CEO, Self Enhancement, Inc. (AALF-Portland, OR)
Tony Hopson is a certified teacher and counselor who founded Self Enhancement, Inc in 1981. Under his 35 years of leadership, SEI has grown from a summer program to a multi-service organization touching 5,000 kids and families each year. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Willamette University, where he also holds an Honorary Doctorate. Tony has been a representative for youth and family issues across the country; from the Harvard School of Education and the Boston College Education Roundtable, to Senatorial hearings. Tony serves the Portland community through his membership on multiple boards, including: Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland Trailblazers Executive Advisory Board, and the Portland Cradle-to-Career Steering Committee. Tony was a founding member of the Portland African American Leadership Forum (PAALF) in 2009, and is the current PAALF Steering Committee Co-Chair and the Chair of its Education Subcommittee.

Angelique Kedem, Director, Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood, Wilder Foundation
Angelique grew up in South Africa and graduated high school the year of the country’s first democratic elections. She received her Master’s degree in Public Administration from the School of Government at the University of the Western Cape.  She has worked in youth programming with immigrant and refugee girls, public policy training for African American youth and juvenile justice systems change. Prior to joining the Saint Paul Promise Neighborhood Initiative as director, Angelique worked for the W. Haywood Burns Institute and Annie E. Casey Foundation, consulting nationally on juvenile justice reform to address racial, ethnic and gender disparities. The experience growing up in a segregated and unequal society has deeply influenced her thinking about justice, human rights and equity. In February 2010, Angelique was named a ‘Facing Race Ambassador’ by Minnesota’s St. Paul Foundation.   

Karen Kelley-Ariwoola, Children’s Strategy Consultant/ Former VP, Minneapolis Foundation
Katherine Kersten, a writer and attorney, is a Senior Fellow at Center of the American Experiment in Minneapolis and a Sunday opinion columnist for the Star Tribune (Minneapolis). Ms. Kersten is the author of “Close to Home,” a collection of columns on a wide variety of public policy issues. (The book’s co-author is Mitch Pearlstein, president of Center of the Experiment.) Ms. Kersten has written on cultural and policy issues for a variety of publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Christianity Today, Policy Review, American Enterprise, and First Things. For two years, she served as a regular commentator for National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”In addition to her work with Center of the American Experiment, Ms. Kersten served on the State of Minnesota’s 12-member Integration Revenue Replacement Advisory Task Force in 2011-2012. She has been named a Friend of the Humanities by the Minnesota Humanities Commission, and a Distinguished Alumna of the Program of Liberal Studies of the University of Notre Dame. In 2003, Ms. Kersten received the University of Notre Dame Alumni Association’s Family Exemplar Award.  

Hyon T. Kim, Former Regent, University of Minnesota, CEO, MN Best, Inc.
Hyon T. Kim: MN Best, Inc. was founded as a minority and woman-owned company by Hyon T. Kim. Her vision was to assemble a talented and diverse group of professionals working together toward one common goal, to be nothing but the best in all that they do. The entrepreneurial spirit and excellence that Ms. Kim promotes is felt by everyone who touches the MN Best Team, and each individual is empowered to take his or her place in leading the charge to success. With a rich background in real estate, general construction and maintenance, bio-medical devices, international distribution, and business leadership, Ms. Kim has led several companies to success. Today, MN Best is where she focuses her relentless energy and strength. Her eye for detail, international experience and inspiration in the construction industry where disparities still exist for women and persons of color, led her to be named one of Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal’s “Top 25 Women to Watch” for 2008. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota and is very involved in community work through her past role as the first Asian person on the University of Minnesota Board
of Regents and positions as Chair of the Minnesota State Council, and a member of the National Board of Directors of YWCA USA, the Board of Directors of the Minnesota World Trade Center Corporation, the Workforce Investment Board and the National Association of Women Business Owners. Ms. Kim also serves as Chair of the Asian-African Business Development Committee at the International Leadership Institute
and uses her connections to Korea and Africa to encourage international understanding and to foster stronger relationships in her local community.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, United States Senator from Minnesota
In 2006, Amy Klobuchar became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate in Minnesota's history. As chief prosecutor in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s largest county, and now as a United States Senator, Amy brings the values she learned growing up in Minnesota to her work every day. Her grandfather worked 1500 feet underground in the iron ore mines of Northern Minnesota. Her father, Jim, was a newspaperman, and her mother, Rose, was an elementary school teacher who was still teaching a classroom of thirty second-graders at age seventy. Since arriving in the Senate, Amy has been a strong advocate for middle-class families on the critical issues facing our nation, from promoting long-term economic growth and job creation to pushing for fiscal responsibility and accountability in Washington, from supporting our Minnesota businesses, workers, and farmers to developing homegrown energy. Amy is known as a hard worker determined to get results, and she has taken the lead in passing several bipartisan bills and amendments through the Senate. She passed the most significant consumer product safety legislation in a generation, keeping foreign toxic products off our shores and out of our stores. She acted quickly to obtain full funding to replace the I-35W bridge, the eight-lane highway which tragically collapsed into the Mississippi River and was rebuilt in a record nine months. She took on the cell phone companies for more consumer-friendly policies. She has been a strong supporter of our troops and has worked across party lines to expand education and job opportunities for returning servicemembers and to ensure our veterans receive the full benefits and support they deserve. She has focused on bipartisan solutions to reduce our nation’s debt in a balanced way and was one of fourteen senators who fought to create the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. She helped pass the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate and has been a leading voice for Senate rules reform.

Orlyn Arvid Kringstad, Executive Director, Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights – US Foundation
Orlyn Kringstad serves as Executive Director and Executive Vice President of the Board for the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights – US Foundation. Kringstad, together former US Ambassador to Norway, Thomas A. Loftus, were administratively responsible for the establishment of the foundation in April 2008.  The Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights – U.S. Foundation is a non-profit peace and human rights organization based in Minnesota that works cooperatively with the Oslo Center in Norway to promote peace and justice both locally and globally. As a US platform for peace-making initiatives that have global implications, the OC-USF aims to engage communities in intercultural and interfaith dialogues and activities that promote peace and prevent conflict throughout the world. In pursuit of this mission, the Oslo Center – U.S. Foundation recognizes and actively pursues three core pillars: Democracy, Dialogue and Human Rights. We believe these three pillars are essential to achieving peaceful conflict resolution and understanding within and between the people, cultures, and religions of the world. The OC-USF works locally with other organizations to assist in developing model peace initiatives, dialogues, and programs with the goal of transporting these models nationally and internationally.

Judge LaJune Lange, International Leadership Institute, Senior Fellow, Roy Wilkins Center
The Honorable Judge LaJune Thomas Lange (ret) is admired and respected worldwide for her work facilitating partnerships in infrastructure development, establishing rule of law in developing nations, health and education outreach, and advocacy for women and children.Judge Lange, a retired State of Minnesota Trial Court Judge is an internationally-recognized expert in Human Rights and International Development conducting assessments and programs in Qatar, Tanzania. Rwanda, Brazil, Malawi, Norway, and other parts of the world. She has served as Co-Vice Chair of the Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force on Racial Bias in the Courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court Task Force on Gender Fairness in the Courts, and the National Bar Association, among others. Through her organization, The LaJune Thomas Lange International Leadership Institute, she develops legal, health and education programs while facilitating economic and intercultural exchange. She is also a senior fellow with the Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice.

Nekima Levy-Pounds, Associate Professor of Law, University of Saint Thomas; Director, Communit Justice Project
Nekima Levy-Pounds is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas School and the founder and director of the Community Justice Project, an award-winning civil rights legal clinic. Levy-Pounds writes and lectures on issues at the intersection of race, poverty, and the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems, and is active in challenging laws and policies that produce disparate outcomes for poor communities of color. In 2011, Levy-Pounds was appointed as Chair of the Minnesota State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. In 2012, Levy-Pounds was appointed co-chair of the Everybody In Committee on Eliminating Regional Employment Disparities.

Kevin Lindsey, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights
Kevin Lindsey was appointed Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in February 2011. He had previously served as a civil litigation attorney in the Office of the Ramsey County Attorney, and has 20 years of experience in resolving complex legal and public policy questions. As Commissioner, Lindsey is responsible for a department whose mission is to make Minnesota discrimination free. The Department of Human Rights enforces the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, religion, color, creed, nationality, age, disability, sexual orientation and other characteristics protected under the Act. Discrimination is prohibited in employment, housing, public accommodations, public services, business, credit and other areas. Lindsey received his JD and BA from the University of Iowa, where as a law student he served as Editor-in-Chief of the Iowa Law Review. He worked for the firm of Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly where he practiced civil litigation, primarily representing clients in employment, product liability, contract and health law. He also brings private sector experience as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of Axis, Inc., where he was responsible for managing human resources operations, ensuring legal and administrative compliance, and risk management. Prior to joining Ramsey County Mr. Lindsey worked for the firm of Halleland, Lewis, Nilan & Johnson in the employment and health law groups.

Cecilia Martinez, Director of Research Programs, Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy
Dr. Cecilia Martinez previous positions include Associate Research Professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment at the University of Delaware, Associate Professor at Metropolitan State University and Research Director at the American Indian Policy Center. Dr. Martinez has led a variety of projects to address sustainable development at the local and international levels. Her research is focused on the development of energy and environmental strategies that promote equitable and sustainable policies. Dr. Martinez has also worked with a range of organizations from local grassroots groups to international organizations engaging in the promotion of sound environmental policy and environmental justice. Most recently she completed a review of coal-based energy and environmental justice communities and a review of climate adaptation and public health for the National Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change. Among her other publications is the co-edited volume Environmental Justice: Discourses in International Political Economy which includes some of her work on North American Indigenous peoples and the challenge of forging a common agenda of indigenous rights, justice and sustainability. She received her B.A. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from the University of Delaware, where she received the Ryden Prize for Best Dissertation in the Social Sciences.

Juan E. Mendez, Visiting Professor of Law, Washington College of Law, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Co-Chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association
Juan E. Méndez is a Visiting Professor of Law at the American University – Washington College of Law, and since November 2010, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. In 2009 and 2010 he was the Special Advisor on Prevention to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. He is also Co-Chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. Until May 2009, he was the President of the International Center for Transnational Justice (ICTJ) and, in the summer of 2009, he was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation in New York. Concurrent with his duties at ICTJ, the Honorable Kofi Annan named Mr. Méndez his Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, a task he performed from 2004 to 2007.

Samuel L. Myers, Jr., Professor, Chair of Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice, University of Minnesota
Samuel L. Myers, Jr., is the Roy Wilkins Professor of Human Relations and Social Justice at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota. He specializes in the impacts of social policies on the poor. He has pioneered the use of applied econometric techniques to examine racial disparities in crime, to detect illegal discrimination in credit markets, to assess the impacts of welfare on family stability, and to evaluate the effectiveness of government transfers in reducing poverty. Myers has published widely on the causes and consequences of racial disparities in test scores and on the economics of diversity. He is an expert on conducting disparity studies for state and local governments and analyzes race-neutral public procurement and contracting policies. Myers is a past president of the Association of Public Policy and Management (APPAM) and the National Economic Association (NEA). He is a former chair of the National Science Foundation’s Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering (CEOSE). He
has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Social Science Quarterly, and the Review of Black Political Economy. He is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Myers holds a doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. And, he is a 1967 graduate of the A-Course at Baltimore City College.

Charles Nelson, Professor of Pediatrics and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Nelson received an honors degree in Psychology from McGill University, a Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas in developmental and child psychology. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in electrophysiology at the University of Minnesota, joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1984, moved to the University of Minnesota in 1986, and moved to Boston in 2005. Dr. Nelson chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development, and served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote “From Neurons to Neighborhoods.” His specific interests are concerned with the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development, particularly as such experience influences the development of memory and the development of the ability to recognize faces. Nelson studies both typically developing children and children at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders, and he employs behavioral, electrophysiological (ERP), and metabolic (MRI) tools in his research.

Denise O’Brien, Founder of Women, Food, and Agriculture Network
Denise O’Brien, from Atlantic, Iowa, is a farmer and nationally known food policy expert whose focus includes agriculture and local food systems and women in agriculture. She founded an international organization called the Women, Food, and Agriculture Network and last year was chosen by President Obama to serve as an agriculture advisor in Afghanistan. She spent a year there, and just returned in March.

Edna Ogwangi, Manager, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning, Land O’Lakes International Development
Ms. Edna Ogwangi is an International Project Management Specialist with over 10 years’ experience working in and outside the field providing project implementation assistance to underdeveloped and developing countries. She holds a Masters in Social Work degree with an in-depth specialization in International Development and Administration in developing nations. She has extensive experienced in project management, financial analysis, data analysis, monitoring and management, good working knowledge of USAID and USDA procedures and requirements, including their reporting procedures, best practices, guidelines, and tools for Monitoring and Evaluation of development projects. Her passion is to help the needy and make a positive change in people’s lives.

Myron Orfield, Director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, University of Minnesota
Professor Myron Orfield is the Director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and an affiliate faculty member at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs. He teaches and writes in the fields of civil rights, state and local government, state and local finance, land use, questions of regional governance, and the legislative
process. From 2005-06, Professor Orfield served as the Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs. Professor Orfield graduated, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota, was a graduate student at Princeton University, and has a J.D. from the University of Chicago, where he was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review.

john powell, Professor of Law, Haas Diversity Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, formerly national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union
As of January 1, 2012, Professor john a. powell is Director of the Haas Diversity Research Center (HDRC) and Robert D. Haas Chancellor’s Chair in Equity and Inclusion at the University of California, Berkeley. From 2003 to the end of 2011, he was Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University and Gregory H. Williams Chair in Civil Right and Civil Liberties at Ohio State’s Moritz College of Law. Under his direction, the Kirwan Institute has emerged as a national leader on research and scholarship related to race, structural racism, racialized space and opportunity. He has been a leader in developing an “opportunity-based” housing model that provides a critical and creative framework for thinking about affordable housing, racialized space, and the many ways that housing influences other opportunity domains including education, health, health care, and employment. Professor powell is an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights and civil liberties and the intersection of race with a wide range of issues including housing, education, poverty, democracy and identity. He has written extensively on a host of topics related to race including structural racism, social justice, corporate power, implicit bias, regionalism, concentrated poverty and urban sprawl, opportunity based housing, integration, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial identity, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society.

Paul Pribbenow, Augsburg College President
On May 7, 2011 Augsburg College President Paul Pribbenow presented former Prime Minister of Norway, Kjell Magne Bondevik an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree in recognition of Mr. Bondevik’s lifetime work for Peace and Human Rights. Mr. Pribbenow’s friendship with the former Prime Minister began in 2007 during Mr. Bondevik’s first visit to the Nobel Peace Prize Forum.  Since 2007 Mr. Bondevik has visited, and spoken at various Augsburg events at least four times.  He gave the commencement address at Augsburg in May 2011. Augsburg College and the University of Minnesota, Humphrey School for Public Affairs are more than just neighbors.  They have a history of collaboration both academically and in neighborhood outreach.  Their most recent partnership is with the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, now celebrating their 25^th year of featuring past Nobel Peace Prize Laureates in cooperation with their four sister colleges, Augustana, Concordia, Luther and St. Olaf. Mr. Pribbenow joined the Advisory Board of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights in April this year, together with the Humphrey School’s Dean, Eric Schwartz.  So, it is natural for the organizers of the 4^th World Conference on Remedies for Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequalities and Dignity and Empowerment: Women as Key to Global Food Security to invite Mr. Pribbenow to welcome his friend, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik to this conference.

Kathryn S. Quick, Assistant Professor, Public and Nonprofit Leadership Area
Kathy's work focuses on how managers in public and nonprofit organizations create opportunities for communities to address public issues together. She engages in three related streams of qualitative research. First, she does long-term, ethnographic research in communities where such managers have been particularly successful in building platforms for ongoing civic engagement and leadership. Second, Kathy is interviewing community facilitation practitioners across Minnesota to analyze how skilled practitioners make design choices about how to organize civic engagement across a diverse range of settings and public policy issues. Third, she is studying methods for effectively engaging stakeholders with substantially different ways of knowing issues, technical knowledge, perceptions of risk, and preferences for management intervention, through case studies of transportation planning and the emerging emerald ash borer threat.She studies these practices across diverse issue areas, including city budgeting and resource management, environmental stewardship, urban master planning and zoning, neighborhood conflicts, transportation, and arts and culture development. She holds a Ph.D. in Planning, Policy, and Design from the University of California, Irvine, a master’s degree in city and regional planning from the University of California, Berkeley, and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Swarthmore College.

Art Rolnick, Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota
Arthur J. Rolnick is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, the University of Minnesota. Rolnick is working to advance multidisciplinary research on child development and social policy. He previously served at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis as a senior vice president and director of research and as an associate economist with the Federal Open Market Committee—the monetary policymaking body for the Federal Reserve System. His work on early childhood development has garnered numerous awards, including those from the George Lucas Educational Foundation and the Minnesota Department of Health, both in 2007; he was also named 2005 Minnesotan of the Year by Minnesota Monthly magazine. A native of Michigan, Rolnick has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree in economics from Wayne State University, Detroit; and a doctorate in economics from the University of Minnesota.

Eric Schwartz, Dean, Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration
Eric Schwartz became Dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota in October 2011, after a 25-year career in senior public service positions in government, at the United Nations and in the philanthropic and non-governmental communities. Prior to his arrival in Minnesota, he was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration, having been
nominated by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009. Working with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he served as the Department of State’s principal humanitarian official, as well as State Department policy and programs for U.S. refugee admissions and U.S. international assistance worldwide. He holds a law degree from New York University School of Law, a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Princeton University; and a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, in Political Science from the State University of New York at Binghamton.

Hussein Samatar, Executive Director of the African Development Center
Hussein Samatar is the Founder and Executive Director of the African Development Center, an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that works within the African communities in Minnesota to start and sustain businesses, build wealth, and promote community reinvestment. In this capacity, he has created several culturally-targeted alternative finance products, and is frequently engaged to address financial, governmental, and other community institutions on the topic of building wealth in emerging markets. Mr. Samatar regularly participates in broader conversations that address existing and emerging economic development issues that impact new American communities. He also provides timely analysis on entrepreneurship and small business development in immigrant communities.  Mr. Samatar holds an M.B.A. from St. Thomas University and is fluent in five languages. He was selected as a Humphrey Institute Policy Fellow in 2003-2004 and a German Marshall Memorial Fellow in 2007. He is currently finishing the Achieving Excellence in Community Economic Development program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Additionally, he was also recently elected to the Minneapolis School Board.

Sanford (Sandy) Schram, Visiting Professor, Bryn Mawr College
Sanford Schram has taught social theory and policy at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research since 1997. Schram serves on the editorial board of the Social Service Review, as well as the boards for a number of other scholarly journals. He is the author or co-author of seven books and co-editor of another five. His most recent book, Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race, is co-authored with Joe Soss and Richard C. Fording and was also selected for the Michael Harrington Award for 2012, making Schram the first person to author two books that have won that prestigious prize. Disciplining the Poor has also been selected for the 2012 Oliver Cromwell Cox award from the American Sociological Association for the best book in the prior two years for combating racism. Schram is the 2012 recipient of the Charles McCoy Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association.


Margaret Simms, Institute Fellow Director, Low Income Working Families Project, Urban Institute,
Washington, D.C. Margaret C. Simms is an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., where she directs the Low Income Working Families project.  Prior to joining the Urban Institute in July 2007, she was Vice President for Governance and Economic Analysis at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.  She began working at the Joint Center in 1986 as Deputy Director of Research and held positions of increasing responsibility during her 20 year tenure.  A nationally recognized expert on the economic well-being of African Americans, Dr. Simms’ current work focuses on low-income families, with an emphasis on employment and asset building.  She has edited many books and monographs on black economic well-being, including Economic Perspectives on Affirmative Action and Slipping Through the Cracks: The Status of Black Women, co-edited with Julianne Malveaux. Dr. Simms received her B.A. in Economics from Carleton College and her PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Susan Sorensen Langer, Founder & Principal, Mosaic Mindshare, Inc.
Susan Sorensen Langer is a results-oriented strategic planning and marketing consultant focused within the non-profit and women-owned and led business sectors. Within the non-profit space, Susan has served as an executive director for World Vision on the East Coast, worked with women and youth in the Middle East, helped launch a women’s homeless shelter in New York City and helped develop a national growth strategy for a non-profit serving at-risk teens in Minneapolis. She is currently consulting for Partners in Food Solutions, a start-up non-profit founded by General Mills that connects knowledge and expertise of employee volunteers with technical needs among small and medium-sized food processors in Africa. Susan is a 25-year exemplar of high-touch relationship management among corporate executives, philanthropists and civic leaders. She is a thought-leader on issues related to board engagement, non-profit management, major donor fundraising, women and youth. Susan serves on her local school board and actively supports initiatives that empower, equip and encourage women and girls. 

Professor Graham Hingangaroa Smith, Vice Chancellor/CEO of Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi: indigenous-university of Whakatane, New ZealandDistinguished Professor Smith is a prominent Maori educationalist who has been at the forefront of the alternative Maori initiatives in the education field and beyond.  His recent academic work has centred on initiating theoretically informed transformative strategies to enhance Maori cultural, political, social, educational and economic advancement.  He has been involved in the development of Tribal Universities and was the foundation Chairperson of Te Whare Wānanga O Awanuiārangi in Whakatane. Distinguished Professor Smith is one the most influential indigenous educators today. He is an accomplished international conference speaker.  He has published widely and is in demand as a commentator on national and international indigenous matters. He is of Ngati Apa, Ngati Kahungunu, Kai Tahu and Ngati Porou tribal descent. Distinguished Professor Smith is currently the Vice Chancellor/ CEO of Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi: indigenous-university (www.wananga.ac.nz), in Whakatane, New Zealand.

Joe Soss, Professor, Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Services, University of Minnesota
JoeSossis the inaugural Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota, where he holds faculty positions in the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, the Department of Political Science, and the Department of Sociology. His research and teaching explore the interplay of democratic politics, socio-economic inequalities, and public policy JoeSossis the author ofUnwanted Claims: The Politics of Participation in the U.S. Welfare System(2000), co-editor ofRace and the Politics of Welfare Reform(2003), co-editor ofRemaking America: Democracy and Public Policy in an Age of Inequality(2007), and author or co-author of numerous scholarly articles. His most recent book,Discipliningthe Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race(2011), co-authored with Richard C. Fording and Sanford F.Schram, was selected for the2012 Michael Harrington Award(APSA, New Political Science) and the2012 Oliver Cromwell Cox Award(ASA, Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities).

Ingrid Stange, Founder, Partnership for Change; Co-Founder and Philanthropy advisor, WealthManagement, Inc., Oslo Norway
Co-Founder and Leader of the ESG work of Formuesforvaltning AS, (Wealth Management, Inc.) Norway’s largest privately owned wealth management bank. She is the founder and head of Partnership for Change, working to build collaborations between and within all sectors of society working to provide a world where
we can all live well within the resources of our planet. Ingrid received her MBA from UC Berkeley, thanks to both Fulbright and the Norwegian American Foundation, and started her career at McKinsey & Co., as the first woman manager in Scandinavia.

Chris Stewart, Founder of Action For Equity (AALF-Twin Cities, MN)
Chris Stewart is the founder of Action For Equity, a grassroots campaign for innovation in education. A former member of the Minneapolis Board of Education, he now is the Director of the Twin Cities’ African American Leadership Forum and a board member for the Northside Achievement Zone and Charter School Partners.Chris has experience working in the nonprofit, business, and government sectors.

Dara Z. Strolovitch, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Dara Z. Strolovitch (Ph.D. Yale University, 2002) is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota. Her research and teaching focus on interest groups and social movements, political representation, the causes and consequences of American political inequalities, and the intersecting politics of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Professor Strolovitch is the author of Affirmative Advocacy: Race, Class, and Gender in Interest Group Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2007), which won the American Political Science Association’s Gladys M. Kammerer Award, the Political Organizations and Parties section’s Leon Epstein Award, the American Sociological Association’s Race, Gender, and Class section’s Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award, and the Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action’s Virginia Hodgkinson Prize.

D. Craig Taylor, Director for the Office of Business and Community Economic Development at the University of Minnesota Craig Taylor is currently the founder and Executive Director of the Office for Business & Community Economic Development and the Business & Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. He earned a B.S. Degree in Urban Government from the University of Minnesota and a Masters Degree in Public Affairs from the Hubert Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota; he has also completed Executive Management Development programs at Harvard University and Carlson School of Management.  Mr. Taylor worked in Corporate America for 12 years as the Manager of Xcel Energy’s Small Business Development Program and prior to that as the Acting Director of the Office for Women & Minority Business Enterprise for the City of Minneapolis. He also served as the Foundation Vice President for the National Association of Minority Contractors. He has received numerous distinguished local and national awards for his work in the area of economic development and supplier diversity. He currently serves on several local and national Boards, and was recently appointed by the Obama Administration to serve on the Minnesota State Advisory Board to the United States Commission on Civil rights.

Judy Temple, Associate Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Department of Applied
Economic Analysis, University of MinnesotaJudy Temple has a joint appointment in the Humphrey School and in the Department of Applied Economics. Her recent research focuses on evaluation of the longer terms of effects of early educational interventions. She is a co-principal investigator on a project involving the Chicago Longitudinal Study, which has followed over 1,200 students from low-income neighborhoods from kindergarten into adulthood. Temple also is an adjunct professor in the Institute of Child Development. Before arriving at the Humphrey School in 2006, Temple was an associate professor of economics at Northern Illinois University, where she taught and conducted research in public economics including state and local finance and policy evaluation. Temple also has taught at the LaFollette Institute of Public Affairs at UW-Madison.  Judy Temple has a doctorate in economics from Michigan State University and an undergraduate degree from UW-Madison. She has been a National Academy of Education/ Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellow.

Senator Patricia Torres Ray, Minnesota Senate District 62
Patricia Torres Ray (born March 25, 1964, in Pasto, Colombia) is a Minnesota politician and a member of the Minnesota Senate who represents District 62, which includes portions of southeastern Minneapolis in Hennepin County, which is in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. A Democrat, Ray succeeded the retiring Wes Skoglund in 2007. She is the first Hispanic American to be elected to the Minnesota Senate. She currently serves on the Senate's Education, Jobs and Economic Growth, and State Government Innovation and Veterans committees. On March 31, 2010, state senator and 2010 Minnesota gubernatorial candidate John Marty announced that Ray would be his running mate for lieutenant governor. The team subsequently withdrew from the race at the 2010 DFL State Convention.  Ray met her husband, Jack, when he was a University of Minnesota student in Columbia on a work study internship. They were married in 1987, and she immigrated to Minnesota with him, learned English, and became a U.S. citizen. She studied at the University of Minnesota, earning a B.A. in Urban Studies and a M.P.Aff. from the Humphrey Institute. She and Jack have 2 sons, Tomás (1994) and Carlos (1996).

Vigdis Vevstad, Independent Consultant on international refugee and asylum law, human rights law and EU developments
 Present: Independent consultant on international refugee- and asylum law, human rights law and EU developments. National and international assignments, e.g. UNHCR, Odysseus Academic Network for legal Studies on Immigration and Asylum in Europe (Norwegian Member),University of Oslo, Centre for Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Interior, Directorate of Immigration, Immigration Appeals Board, Norwegian Refugee Council, and so on.

Paul Williams, Deputy Mayor of Saint Paul
Paul Williams is responsible for all aspects of St. Paul’s strategic and day-to-day operations- a $600 million annual endeavor Williams has brought a combination of deep managerial experience, strategic planning
skills and extensive community relationships to the role of Deputy Mayor. Born and raised in Saint Paul, Williams has spent his career focused on creating partnerships and building community. Previously, he served as senior vice president of field strategies and development for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), overseeing LISC’s community development grant making and lending activities in 30
major cities across the country. Prior to assuming his national leadership role, Williams directed LISC’s nationally-recognized Twin Cities program, raising and investing millions in leading-edge affordable housing and economic development projects in the toughest neighborhoods of St. Paul and Minneapolis. After
earning a bachelors degree in Government and Philosophy from Saint John’s University, Williams graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1987 with a Masters in Public Affairs. He served as vice president and senior manager of fund distribution for the United Way of the Saint Paul Area for several years before serving in grant making roles with the Saint Paul and Minneapolis Foundations.

Bill Wilson, Executive Director of Higher Ground Academy
William Lee (Bill) Wilson is the Executive Director and Founder of the Higher Ground Academy Charter School in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Higher Ground Academy is a multicultural K-12 school of choice which opened on September 7, 1999 to kindergarten through 9th grade students. An additional grade level was added each successive year until it reached the 12th grade in the fall of 2002. The school currently has an enrollment of 650 students. Bill Wilson became the first African American elected to the St. Paul City Council in 1980 by winning a city-wide election. Throughout his professional career, Bill Wilson has been the recipient of many awards for his service to the community. He served as the Chairman of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Commission for Minnesota from 1985 to 1993 and received a Certification of Appreciation from the St. Paul Branch of the NAACP; he received the William (Bill) Cosby Alumni Award for City Government Service from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1983. In 1994, he was the recipient of a Proclamation issued by Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson establishing May 21, 1994 as “Bill Wilson Day” in the State of Minnesota.

Victoria Woodwards, President/CEO Tacoma Urban League (AALF - Tacoma, WA)
Elected to the Tacoma City Council in 2009, Victoria serves a community that is near and dear to her heart. Approving and having oversight of a $200 million dollar biennial general fund budget, she wisely assesses the needs of Tacoma, appropriating the funds to the city’s services and facilities. Held every summer to enhance awareness of the city’s cultural diversity, Victoria also manages all aspects of Ethnic Fest, which is the largest annual multicultural celebration in the city, bringing thousands together on common ground over a two-day period. Taking the reigns as the President and CEO of the Tacoma Urban League in 2011, Victoria helps to lead a devoted team, serving the local community while targeting the next generation. Programs such as Digital Connectors, help to identify talented young people and immerse them in technology training, helping them build their leadership and workplace skills to enter the 21^st century economy. The Male Involvement Program (MIP) is another program impacting the community, helping to prevent violence by teaching young males of color by men of color alternative ways for reducing conflict, managing anger, and avoiding violence through structured dialogue, culture specific exercise, and group mentoring.


CONCURRENT SESSION PANEL PRESENTERS (alphabetical order)

Algernon Austin, Economic Policy Institute
Algernon Austin directs the Economic Policy Institute’s Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy (PREE). PREE works to advance policies that enable people of color to participate fully in the American economy and benefit equitably from gains in prosperity. As director of PREE, Austin oversees reports and policy analyses on the economic condition of America’s people of color.  Prior to joining the Economic Policy Institute, Austin was a senior fellow at the Dēmos think tank and assistant director of research at the Foundation Center. From 2001 to 2005, he served on the faculty of Wesleyan University. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University

Ragui Assaad, Professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesot
Ragui Assaad, professor, researches labor policy and labor market analysis in developing countries, the informal economy, community and economic development, and developing countries' urban planning. His current research projects include studying the effects of economic reform on the Egyptian labor market, female labor supply in Egypt, and community development efforts among Cairo's informal waste collectors. Assaad has served as a consultant to the World Bank, the International Labor Organization, the Ford Foundation, and UNICEF. Assaad is a research fellow of the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran, and Turkey. He received a doctorate in city and regional planning from Cornell University and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. He earned the Humphrey School's teacher of the year award in 1992, 1995, 1996, and 2000.

Linda Bailey, College of Staten Island, CUNY
Linda Bailey is a labor economist whose research examines differences in labor market and education outcomes by race, ethnicity, immigrant status and family structure.  She has studied the impact of the 1986 immigration amnesty on wages and employment likelihood of less-educated Americans.  She has also done research on the effect of HIV/AIDS on agricultural productivity in rural Rwanda and the effect of immigration on US housing and rental prices.  She is currently a Lecturer in the Political Science, Economics and Philosophy Department at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York.   She has previously worked at Baruch College (CUNY) and Wagner College.  She obtained her Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University majoring in Labor Economics and Applied Econometrics. 

Thomas “Danny” Boston, Georgia Tech
Dr. Thomas “Danny” Boston is a Professor of Economics in the School of Economics at Georgia Tech. He is also CEO of EuQuant, which is an economic consulting company that specializes in Business Analytics and Quantitative Program Performance Evaluations. A native of Jacksonville, Florida, he received the BS Degree from West Virginia State University and the PhD Degree in Economics from Cornell University. Graduating as a commissioned officer from WVSU, he attained the rank of Capt. in the U.S. Army and was awarded the Purple Heart. Dr. Boston specializes in research on minority and small business dynamics, impacts of public housing revitalization on families and communities, and evaluations of the attainment of Millennium Development Goals in West Africa. He contributes regularly to CNN where he joins the anchor monthly to discuss the Labor Department's latest report on employment and unemployment. Over the last two years Dr. Boston has testified six times before committees of the US Congress regarding federal minority business programs and public housing policies. He is a frequent consultant and advisor to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and to select Congresspersons and subcommittees that have oversight for the nation's minority and small business programs. Dr. Boston's research on the 8(A) and SDB Program contributed to new guidelines.

Godfrey Cadogan, Ryerson University
Godfrey Cadogan’s research interests include but are not limited to decision theory, probability theory, and mathematical behavioural and financial economics. Some of his current projects include extensions of decision theory to Lie group theory; confidence representation with stochastic processes; behavioural operator theory; mechanism design for regulator career option; high frequency trading stock price dynamics; alpha representation for portfolio performance evaluation; and asset pricing theory for minority banks.  Before embarking on a career in academic research, Cadogan worked as a senior actuarial analyst in the areas of automobile insurance and employee benefits. He also served as a consultant on several disparity studies. He is a research associate at the Institute for Innovation and Technology Management, Ted Rogers School of Management, and his most recent research appears in peer reviewed proceedings of the American Statistical Association, Academy of Behavioural Finance and Economics, Foundations and Applications of Utility and Risk(FUR), and Midwest Econometric Theory Group. He received a certificate in modeling American electoral politics from the Institute for Social Research; bachelor of science degrees in statistics and actuarial mathematics; and a master’s degree in mathematical statistics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is pursuing doctoral studies in the Faculty of Commerce at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Robert Cherry, Brooklyn College, CUNY
Robert Cherry has just completed a social policy book, Moving Working Families Forward: Third Way Policies That Work (NYU Press). It covers a number of areas, including low-income housing, race and gender earnings disparities, immigration, community college training, tax reforms and strengthening domestic relations. Cherry is beginning a new project that will assess the large share of black and Latino students who obtain four-year degrees from less competitive colleges in the private sector.

Terry-Ann L. Craigie, Connecticut College
Terry-Ann L. Craigie, Ph.D.  is the Lenore Tingle Howard ’42 Assistant Professor of Economics  at Connecticut College.  After graduating  magna cum laude  with a B.A. in economics from The  Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, she later received her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University, where her primary fields of specialization  were  labor economics and economics of the family.  Before her position  at  Connecticut College, Dr. Craigie  also completed postdoctoral research at Princeton University,  in The Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing (CRCW). Her most recent research projects focus on the effects of family structure and stability on early child wellbeing, the role of sex-ratios  and male marginalization on family formation, as well as child support receipts in complex families.

Max Felker-Kantor, University of Southern California

Max Felker-Kantor is a PhD candidate at the University of Southern California. His primary area of interest has been in twentieth-century United States history with a focus on race, politics, urban history, and social movements. His research focuses on race and urban politics in post-World War II Los Angeles. His past projects have focused on African American and Mexican American struggles for equal housing and the implementation of equal employment law in Los Angeles, which will be included in two forthcoming publications, the first in an edited collection from the University of California Press and the second in the Pacific Historical Review. His current project focuses on the relationship between responses to urban unrest and efforts for community empowerment in Los Angeles’ communities of color between 1965 and 1992.This project traces the ways policies responding to the urban crisis and civil disorder operated to further devastate and criminalize inner city space and communities during the last three decades of the twentieth century. It also explores the ways residents and community groups responded to these policies and worked to change them to produce a more livable and equitable city.

Mónica Isabel García-Pérez, St. Cloud State University

Mónica Isabel García-Pérez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at St. Cloud State University (SCSU), St. Cloud Minnesota since 2009.  She teaches Microeconomics, Econometrics and Labor Economics for undergraduate and graduate students. She also actively participates as a Faculty Researcher for SCSU Research Group Immigrant Workers and Families in Minnesota.  During her last years of her graduate studies, she worked as an Economist Contractor for the U.S. Census Bureau and worked on the improvement of the longitudinal database called Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD).  Recently, she is a Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics (DITE) Fellow 2011-2014, an American Society of Hispanic Economists Fellow, and a 2011 CSWEP Fellow.Prof. Garcia-Perez researches economics of immigration, labor economics, entrepreneurship and health of immigrant children.  Her current research projects involve analyzing the importance of wage and salary jobs in the financing of starting up a new business or help it survive, and studying the effect of parental nativity on children of immigrants’ health.  Prof. Garcia-Perez is originally from Caracas, Venezuela and obtained her PhD in Economics from the University of Maryland –College Park, and holds a Msc in Economics from University College London –London. In her spare time, she likes to practice Vinasha yoga and exercising. Recently, she gave birth to her first baby.  So, her spare time has been used to taking care of a new life and enjoying every miracle development.

Dagim Gemeda, Lifetrack Resources

Dagim is the Refugee & Immigrant Services Manager at Lifetrack Resources and has worked at Lifetrack for the past 12 years. He has Bachelor’s Degree in Economics from Asmara University and Mini MBA for Non Profit Management from St. Thomas University. Prior to this position he worked for three years as Intake coordinator for Refugee Employment Services. He also worked as employment counselor/job developer for four years where he applied his data management and multilingual skills delivering social services with refugee communities. He is bicultural and fluent in two East African languages: Oromo and Amharic.

Juan Carlos González, California State University

Juan Carlos González received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Presently he’s an assistant professor at California State University, Fresno in the Department of Educational Research and Administration. His research interests include: educational policy and history, multicultural and Latino educational issues, and higher education faculty. And his teaching interests include: visual ethnography, the education of Chicanas/os, critical theory in education, and qualitative research methods. His recent publications include two co-edited journal articles entitled: Teaching from a Critical Perspective / Enseñando de Una Perspectiva Crítica: Conceptualization, Reflection, and Application of Chicana/o Pedagogy (The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy) and Crime Control Strategies in School: Chicanas’/os’ Perceptions and Criminalization (The Urban Review). Presently Dr. González is working on two research projects: one to document the in and out of school lives of Latino males in Fresno Country, and another to understand the college choice process of Latino males in various high school contexts.

Susan T. Gooden, Virginia Commonwealth University

Susan T. Gooden, Ph.D., is a Professor of Public Administration and Policyin theL. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs and Executive Director of the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She has published numerous scholarly articles, a book, book chapters, and technical reports in the areas of social equity, welfare policy, and post-secondary education. She has conducted several research studies for MDRC, as well as for other national research organizations. She teaches courses in Public Policy and Administration, Social Equity and Public Policy Analysis, Research Methods, and Social Welfare Policy. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, an elected member of thenational policy council of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) and the executive council of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Prior to her current academic appointment, Dr. Gooden was an Associate Professor at the Center for Public Administration and Policy at Virginia Tech, where she received early promotion and tenure and served as Founder and Director of the Race and Social Policy Research Center. She has served as a visiting scholar-in-residence at the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A native of Martinsville, Virginia,she received an A.S. in Natural Science from Patrick Henry Community College, a B.A. in English from Virginia Tech, and a M.A. in Political Science from Virginia Tech. She received her Ph.D. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Inhyuck "Steve" Ha, Western Carolina University

Inhyuck "Steve" Ha (Ph.D., University of Minnesota-Twin Cities) is an Associate Professor of Economics and Director of the MBA Program at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. His areas of interest are economics of discrimination, spatial econometrics, community economic development and economic impact analysis. His current research projects include studying the effects of affirmative action policy in public procurement and contracting and labor market discrimination. He has extensive experience conducting statistical analysis and understanding the complexities of real-world data. Prior to his current position, Dr. Ha worked in the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at University of Minnesota and in the Haas Center for Business Research and Economic Development at University of West Florida as Forecasting Program Director.

Darrick Hamilton, The New School

Darrick Hamilton is an Associate Professor at Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy, an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Economics at The New School for Social Research, a faculty research fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, an affiliate scholar at the Center for American Progress, and a former Associate Director of the American Economic Association Summer Research and Minority Training Program. He earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1999, and upon graduation received the National Economic Association's 2001 Rhonda M. Williams Dissertation Award. Professor Hamilton was a Ford Foundation Fellow on Poverty, the Underclass and Public Policy at the Poverty Research and Training Center, and the Program for Research on Black Americans both at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor from 1999-2001, and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar in Health Policy Research at the Institution for Policy Studies, Yale University from 2001-2003. His work focuses on the causes, consequences and remedies of racial and ethnic inequality in economic and health outcomes, which includes an examination of the intersection of identity, racism, colorism, and socioeconomic outcomes. He has published articles on disparities in wealth, homeownership, health and labor market outcomes. He has provided consultation to the following organizations: American Human Development Project, Center for Economic Development (CFED), Center for Social Development, Council of Economic Advisors-The White House, Demos A Network for Ideas and Action, Economic Policy Institute, Empire State Coalition of Youth and Family Services, National Urban League, Service Employees International Union, and U.S. Office of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In addition, his research agenda has been supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, National Institute of Health, National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Elsie Harper-Anderson, Virginia Commonwealth University; Susan T. Gooden, Virginia Commonwealth University

Dr. Elsie Harper-Anderson is a faculty member at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in the Urban and Regional Planning Program. Her research examines the impact of macroeconomic transformation on regional economies and urban labor markets. Her most recent work focuses on understanding and enhancing the connection between workforce development and economic development with an emphasis on social equity and sustainability concerns. She recently published a paper entitled “Exploring What Greening the Economy Means for African-American Workers, Entrepreneurs and Communities,” in Economic Development Quarterly. Two current research projects address 1). the potential role for entrepreneurship in meeting workforce development challenges; and 2). the joint impact of workforce and economic investments on poor communities. Harper-Anderson’s work has included significant experience implementing and evaluating economic development, workforce development and housing programs for local, state and federal agencies such as the Department of Labor, the Economic Development Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Prior to joining the academy, she worked as a social scientist at Social Policy Research Associates. Harper-Anderson has served on the faculty at the University of Michigan, American University and as a visiting scholar at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Management and Policy from the Heinz School at Carnegie Mellon University and a doctorate in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley.

Diane Heldt, Lifetrack Resources

 Diane is a Program Director at Lifetrack Resources and has worked at Lifetrack Resources for the past 12 years. Diane has direct responsibility for program oversight and evaluation and supervision of employment-related activities for refugee programs, MFIP, WIA Youth, and training programs. She has a B.A. in Social Work. Prior to her work at Lifetrack Resources, she served at World Relief Minnesota as a manager in Refugee Resettlement & Placement. In 2010 she completed the Mini MBA for Nonprofit Organizations at the University of St. Thomas. In 2011, Diane was selected as a Marano fellow of the Aspen Institute Sector Skills Academy.

Dennis Jansen, Texas A&M University

Dr. Dennis W. Jansen is Professor of Economics and the Jordan Professor of Public Policy at Texas A&M University.  He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics from St. Louis University.  His research has focused on the economics of education, econometrics, forecasting and time series analysis, and monetary and financial economics.  He has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the State of Texas.  He has worked as a consultant on grants funded by the Texas Education Agency and produced studies for the state of Texas on its school finance formula.  Most recently he served on the evaluation team for the Texas Educator Excellence Grant program and the Texas District Award for Teacher Excellence program, and he currently serves on an evaluation team for pay for performance programs in the state of Tennessee.  Professor Jansen was a Fulbright Scholar in 2008.  He has chaired the doctoral dissertations of over thirty students.  He is a regular participant at academic conferences.  Dr. Jansen has held research or teaching positions at the National University of Ireland-Galway, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Indiana University-Bloomington, North Carolina State University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Catholic University Leuven, and Maastricht University.  He has published over fifty research papers in professional journals and books as well as two textbooks and numerous other writings.

Rhonda Jones-Webb, University of Minnesota

Jones-Webb research focuses on health disparities.  Her current research projects evaluate the effects of local policies that restrict high alcohol content beverages (e.g., malt liquor) on crime in 19 U.S. cities.   Jones-Webb  serves as Co-Chair of the Health Disparities Work Group at the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health.  She received her Dr.PH. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Daniel Kidane, Texas Tech University

Daniel Kidane is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economics at Texas Tech University. He received his B.Sc. in Agricultural Economics from Alemaya University, and his M.A. in Economics from Texas Tech University. He served as a statistician in Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, working on various socio-economic surveys, and as a researcher in Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute. His primary research interests lie in the fields of microeconomics, applied econometrics and labor economics. He is particularly interested in time allocations of different demographic groups in labor markets and household activities, and the impact of changes in timing schedules in border economies.

David Liebowitz, Harvard University; Lindsay Page, Harvard University

David Liebowitz researches the effects of student assignment policies on neighborhood and school outcomes. His current projects explore the impact of the end of desegregation on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and in a national sample of 215 districts. David taught middle school English for six years, worked as a policy analyst at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Education and the New York State Education Department, and is currently the principal of the Joseph A. Browne Middle School in Chelsea, Massachusetts. David is also a fifth-year doctoral student in the Education Policy, Leadership and Instructional Practice concentration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University and two masters degrees from Harvard University.

Margaret Maurer-Fazio, Bates College

Margaret Maurer-Fazio is the Betty Doran Stangle Professor of Applied Economics at Bates College and Chair of the Program in Asian Studies. She is also a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany. She holds a Ph.D. in economics and an advanced certificate in Asian Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. She received both her M.A. and Honors B.A. in economics at the University of Western Ontario. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary China and on the Advisory Board of the Chinese Women Economists Network. Maurer-Fazio's research program focuses on labor market developments in China. She is currently at work on two resume audit studies that explore whether and to what extent Chinese firms discriminate on the basis of ethnicity and gender and appearance, respectively, in their hiring processes. She has recently investigated urban women's labor force participation decisions in the context of their families and their residential locations. She is particularly interested in how the presence in the household of preschool and school-age children and/or the elderly and disabled affects women's likelihood of engaging in work outside the home. These projects complement her work on the integration of China's rapidly changing urban labor markets with its particular emphasis on gender wage differentials, the interactions of rural migrants and urban residents, and the plight of laid-off urban workers.

Noelia R. Paez, Hawaii Pacific University

Noelia R. Paez is Assistant Professor of Economics at Hawai’i Pacific University. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from Texas A&M University, a Master of Arts in Economics from Georgetown University and a Master of Science in Statistics from Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile.  While living in Chile, she worked for United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.  Her fields of study are Labor Economics, Public Economics, and Econometrics, and her current research lies in the areas of household behavior, labor, fertility, education, and health.  The topics she works on have policy implications for both the general population and minorities determined by gender and ethnicity.

Gregory N. Price, Morehouse College

Gregory N. Price, Ph.D is the Charles E. Merrill Professor and Chair, Department of Economics, Morehouse College. His previous appointments include Director of the Mississippi Urban Research Center, Professor of Economics at Jackson State University, and Economics Program Director at the National Science Foundation. An applied econometrician and theorist, his research has been published in a wide variety of journals such as Review of Black Political Economy, Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Review, African Development Review, American Economist, and Review of Development Economics. A native of New Haven, Connecticut, Dr. Price earned his B.A. in economics from Morehouse College, and completed his economics doctorate at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.

Ding Sai, Chinese Academy of Social Science

Ding Sai researches income distribution, economic development, ethnic minority economy, and gender issues. Her current research projects include studying the income distribution, poverty within different ethnic groups in minority areas of China, the factors which effect on rural minority migrants, the effect of minority girl’s family care work on education in west rural China. Ding Sai has been an adjunct faculty member of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Until now, she has published papers in Feminist Economics, China Economic Review, Review of Income and Wealth. She received a doctorate in economics from The Central Party School of C.P.C and a master’s degree in economics from Renmin University of China.

Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Virginia Commonwealth University

Dr. Genevieve Siegel-Hawley received her Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research interests focus on examining the impact of segregation and resegregation in American schools, along with exploring viable policy options for a truly integrated society. She received her Master of Education Degree in Education Policy and Management from Harvard University.

Aaron Sojourner, University of Minnesota and IZA

Sojourner completed his PhD in economics at Northwestern University in 2009. He also has an MA in public policy analysis from the University of Chicago and a BA in history from Yale University. Research interests include the productivity of preschool investments for later cognitive and socio-emotional skills, the impacts of unions in the economic and political arenas, and the social value of policies that reduce public risks. Complementing his research interest, Sojourner has a wide range of policy experience including service as an adviser to the Office of the Illinois State Treasurer, member of several policy working groups, and as a fellow in the U.S. Senate’s Labor Policy Office. 

Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner, California State University, Sacramento

Caroline Sotello Viernes Turner is Professor, Doctorate in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, California State University, Sacramento and Professor Emerita, Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Higher Education, Arizona State University. Her research and teaching interests include access, equity and leadership in higher education, faculty gender and racial/ethnic diversity, organizational change, and the use of qualitative methods for policy research. Her publications include a book entitled Diversifying the Faculty: A Guidebook for Search Committees, which is widely adopted selling over 17,000 copies nationally and internationally, a co-authored book (with Myers, Jr.) entitled Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success, and a co-edited book (with Gasman and Baez), Understanding Minority-Serving Institutions.  Her work has been published in several journals, including The Review of Higher Education, the Journal of Higher Education, the Harvard Educational Review, and the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. Recognizing her exemplary scholarship, Turner is the 2009 Recipient of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Scholars of Color in Education Distinguished Career Contribution Award, the 2009 AERA Multicultural/Multiethnic Education (MME) Special Interest Group (SIG) Dr. Carlos J. Vallejo Memorial Award for Lifetime Scholarship, and the 2008 Recipient of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) Council on Ethnic Participation Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship. Her current book contracts include: Promoting Social Justice in Higher Education: Preparing the Next Generation of Scholars and Practitioners and Mentoring Across Institutions, Gender, Race & Class: Cultivating the Next Generation of Academics of Color (co-editor). In 2008, she was named a Stanford University Distinguished Alumni Scholar. She serves as President-Elect of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Turner received her undergraduate and master’s degrees from the University of California, Davis. She received her doctorate in Administration and Policy Analysis from the Stanford University School of Education.

Barbara Stone, University of Minnesota

Barbara Stone researches intercultural adaptation, adjustment and identity with a focus on populations experiencing poverty.  She has explored individual and community adaptation through research on the mutual adaptation between Burma’s Karen refugee community and their host communities in St. Paul and Worthington, Minnesota. Stone served as the director of cultural adaptation programming at the International Institute of Minnesota and taught at 澳門理工學院  (Instituto Politécnico de Macau/ Macau Polytechnic Institute), Macau, 대전대학교 (Taejon University) in the Republic of Korea and 東海大學 (Tunghai University) in the Republic of China.  Stone is a doctoral student in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development at the University of Minnesota.  She earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of St. Thomas.

Amy Twe, Lifetrack Resources
Amy is an Employment Counselor at Lifetrack Resources and has worked at Lifetrack for the past 8 years She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Geography & English as well as a Diploma of Teaching. Prior to her work at Lifetrack, Amy worked for 15 years teaching English in Thailand at the University and also in the refugee camps. She is bicultural and fluent in three Asian languages: Karen, Burmese, and Thai.

Seneca Vaught, Kennesaw State University
Seneca Vaught is assistant professor of African and African Diaspora history at Kennesaw State University who combines his expertise in race, policy, technology, and social entrepreneurship to address contemporary problems. He has won a teaching excellence award for his innovative and project-oriented approach to the classroom and though William Wells Brown Award for his ongoing support of African American history and community development.  His groundbreaking dissertation on the impact of jails and prisons on civil rights era leaders, tactics, strategies and outcomes framed the questions of social problems in policy terms for a young generation of scholars, activists, and community leaders seeking to use historical knowledge to address contemporary issues. Vaught has interned at TransAfrica Forum and is currently a senior fellow of information and technology at the Africana Cultures and Policy Studies Institute.  He has published articles on policy and international relations between African Americans and Africans.  Recently his current work on cross-cultural collaboration in Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Benin and the Sea Islands of Georgia illustrates his unique collaborative style of research-informed ventures and transnational applications of Africana studies.

Andres J. Vargas, Texas Tech University
Dr. Andres J. Vargas is an assistant professor of economics at Texas Tech University. His main field of expertise is labor economics, with research interests in the areas of immigration and time use. In these areas, he addresses two broad questions: the economic impact of immigrants and the assimilation of immigrants to the US. His research has been published in the American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings and the Southern Economic Journal, among others.  Vargas holds bachelor’s and master's degrees in economics from Los Andes University in Colombia, a master’s degree in natural resources and agricultural economics from the Toulouse School of Economics in France, and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. 

Mehmet Yaya, Eastern Michigan University
Mehmet E. Yaya's research interests include immigration, income inequality and distribution, international factor movements, labor economics, international economics, economic development, terrorism. He currently investigatesimmigrants, their labor market performance, and assimilation process. Yayais an Assistant Professor of Economics at Eastern Michigan University. He received a doctoratein Economics from the University of Alabamaand a master's degree from Auburn University.

Jeffrey Zax, University of Colorado at Boulder
Jeffrey S. Zax is a professor specializing in labor economics, public economics, and urban economics at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Among his published papers are articles on the relationship between IQ, schooling and adult income; the effects of residential segregation on black economic welfare; the economic consequences of competition among local governments; the estimation of voting behavior; and microeconomic activity in China. Additional themes in his current work include the measurement, causes and effects of residential segregation and income inequality in the U.S. and China. Prof. Zax received the Stanford Calderwood Teaching Excellence Award from the Department of Economics at the University of Colorado in 1993 and 2000. He has served as a consultant for many public and private organizations, including the Attorneys General of the States of Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Montana and South Dakota. He also served as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Ghana in 1990. Prof. Zax received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1984, and his B.A. in Economics, magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1976. He is a member of the American Economic Association, the Society of Labor Economists, the Association for Public Policy and Applied Management, the Urban Economics Association and the Chinese Economists Society. His biography is included in the fourth edition of Who’s Who in Economics.

Xiuping Zhang, Minzu University of China
Xiuping Zhang researches supply chain management and economy in developing area in China. Her current research projects include studying food supply chain management, the public policy and the growth of enterprisesinChinese minorities regions.Zhang served as a professor at Minzu University of China, the deputydean ofmanagement school, and the director of MBA program. She received adoctorate in Management from Renmin University of China and a master's degree in Economics from Renmin University of China.