About the Speakers

Kathleen Anderson was born and raised in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and has always been an avid member of the community. She has served as Holyoke’s director of economic planning and development and as co-chair of the Innovation District Task Force. Anderson presently serves as vice-president of CareerPoint, co-chairs the Economic Development Partners Group and the Economic Development Council. Anderson was nominated by Governor Deval Patrick and Secretary Greg Bialecki to the Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council. She serves locally on the Salvation Army and Holyoke Creative Arts board of directors. She resigned from her stand as director of Economic Planning and Development and succeeded Doris Ransford as the president of the Greater Holyoke Chamber of Commerce in June 2012. As president, Anderson leads the Greater Holyoke Chamber Centennial Foundation, a nonprofit workforce development and education affiliate of the chamber, and she is helping to shape the economic development agenda for the city of Holyoke.

Kathleen Anderson is a panelist on June 4 during a Holyoke site visit.

Elif Babül’s primary specialization is in national and transnational mechanisms of governance and the politics of human rights in Turkey. Her research interests also include everyday forms of state power and political authority, citizenship and national belonging, and the politics of gender in Turkey and the Middle East.

Elif Babül is a moderator on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Judy Barsalou is president of the El-Hibri Foundation, based in Washington, DC.  Prior to that, she was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, where she conducted research on Egyptian attitudes about justice and accountability in post-Mubarak Egypt. Her career has included two stints with the Ford Foundation, first as a program officer in the foundation’s New York and Cairo offices and subsequently as regional representative for the Middle East and North Africa, based in Cairo. Judy has also served as the vice president of the Grant and Fellowship Program at the United States Institute of Peace; executive director of the Middle East Research and Information Project, which publishes Middle East Report; and director of academic programs at the Institute of Governmental Affairs, the University of California, Davis. Her recent publications have focused on memory and transitional justice. She holds a doctorate in comparative politics from Columbia University.

Judy Barsalou is a panelist on May 28 at Mount Holyoke College.

Jessica Berns has more than fifteen years of international experience working on issues of social inclusion, peacebuilding, governance and anti-corruption. The majority of her work has taken place within the NGO sector, and her areas of expertise include strategic planning and communications, and program design and implementation. She has a special interest in civil society network and partnership development, which she first developed as a program officer working with the Latin American chapters of Transparency International, the anti-corruption NGO in Berlin. In 2011 Berns launched a consulting practice through which she collaborates with universities, philanthropists and nonprofits on strategy, program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Bryn Mawr College hired Berns in June 2012 to lead the process of conceptualizing, planning and preparing for the Women in Public Service Institute: Peacebuilding and Development. She is working in the same capacity for the 2014 WPSP Institute. Berns has an undergraduate degree in Spanish from the University of Michigan, and a master of arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Berns has spent much of her professional life working and living abroad, in Latin America, Europe and West Africa.

Jessica Berns, who serves on the executive and curriculum committees for this Institute, is a panelist on May 28 at Mount Holyoke College.

Stacy Blake-Beard teaches organizational behavior at Simmons School of Management. Her research focuses on the challenges and opportunities offered by mentoring relationships, with a focus on how these relationships may be changing as a result of increasing workforce diversity. She is particularly interested in the issues women face as they develop mentoring relationships. Blake-Beard also studies the dynamics of formal mentoring programs in both corporate and educational settings. She has given seminars for and consulted on a wide range of topics, including effectively leveraging diversity, implementing formal mentoring programs, strategic networking, gender and leadership, bystander awareness training, unconscious bias, managing visibility, career action planning and team-building. Blake-Beard holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park and a master’s and doctorate in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan.

Stacy Blake-Beard is a program facilitator.

Alan Bloomgarden administers the Community-Based Learning (CBL) program at Mount Holyoke. CBL links students with communities through courses, independent studies, internships, research and service projects that combine learning and analysis with action and social change. Approximately 400 to 450 students enroll in more than 25 CBL courses annually. Bloomgarden develops and supports collaborations among faculty and community partners, and teaches courses on social action for 35 to 50 community fellows in yearlong, capacity-building internships with community organizations in South Hadley, Holyoke and Springfield, Massachusetts, and other towns in the region. He has published on campus-community partnership, community engagement and liberal arts colleges in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, Metropolitan Universities and the Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher Education. Bloomgarden was a governor’s appointee to the 2012 Massachusetts Special Commission on Civic Engagement and Learning, and previously served as director of faculty grants and government relations at Smith College.

Alan Bloomgarden is a featured speaker on June 4 at Smith College.

Ibtissam Bouachrine was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco. After graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from West Virginia University, she attended Florida State University and earned a Ph.D. in medieval Iberian literatures and cultures at Tulane University. She is associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the director of Middle East Studies at Smith College. Bouachrine’s research is centered on questions of gender and sexuality in Islam. She has also published on feminism and democracy in North Africa, Islam in Europe, and Muslim-Western relations before and since 1492. She is the author of Women and Islam: Myths, Apologies, and the Limits of Feminist Critique (Lexington Books, 2014) and is currently working on a second book on women’s education in Islam.

Ibtissam Bouachrine is a moderator on June 3 at Smith College.

Ina Breuer is executive director of Beyond Conflict, which she joined in October 1999 after working as the assistant director of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies for five years at the New School for Social Research. Breuer is a board member of the Alliance for Peacebuilding and a member of Tufts University Scholars at Risk Network. In 2009 she co-taught a course on leadership and conflict transformation at Tufts Experimental College. She also worked as a consultant for the East-West Management Institute in Sri Lanka in 2006 and was an advisory committee member to the Initiative on Inclusive Security in their efforts to develop a Toolkit for Advocacy and Action for women peacemakers around the world. For more than 20 years Breuer’s work has focused on conflict resolution, civil society development, facilitating the growth of higher education and fostering democratic political culture in transitional societies, primarily in Eastern Europe, South Asia and the Middle East. She a B.A. from Northwestern University, studied at the Freie Universität Berlin and has a master’s in political science from the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Ina Breuer is a participant in a roundtable on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Darcy Buerkle has published widely in the field of European women’s history and visual studies. Her book Nothing Happened: Charlotte Salomon and an Archive of Suicide was published by the University of Michigan Press in 2013. An award-winning teacher at Smith, she has also taught internationally, most recently serving as the Walter Benjamin Chair in German Jewish History and Culture at Humboldt University of Berlin in 2012. Buerkle is also a longtime activist in the Battered Women’s Movement in the United States.

Darcy Buerkle is a moderator on June 2 at Smith College.

Mlada Bukovansky earned a doctorate in political science at Columbia University and teaches courses in international relations, international organizations and European politics at Smith. She is the author of Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture (Princeton University Press, 2002), the co-author of Special Responsibilities: Global Problems and American Power (Cambridge University Press, 2012), and has written articles and book chapters on topics ranging from global corruption rankings to agricultural trade in the World Trade Organization. Her current scholarly work focuses on international ethics in a changing global political environment.

Mlada Bukovansky is a panelist on June 3 at Smith College.

Suzanne Bump, elected in 2010, has made it her mission to make government work better. To her, better government means government that is more effective, efficient, accountable and transparent. Reaching across multiple agencies, state audits in the twenty-first century now evaluate whole government systems. Prior to her election, Auditor Bump served as secretary of Labor and Workforce Development and was a member in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In the private sector, she worked as a business legal counsel and has sat on the boards of numerous nonprofit organizations and charities. A native of Whitman, Massachusetts, Bump attended Cardinal Spellman High School, graduated from Boston College, received her law degree from Suffolk University and now lives in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Suzanne Bump is a featured speaker on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Maria Cartegena has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 20 years. She began at Amherst College after having spent three years as community partnerships coordinator for the Five College Community-Based Learning Committee. Cartegena organized and facilitated “Holyoke Bound,” a biannual orientation for students, faculty and staff of the Five Colleges. Holyoke Bound prepares more than 500 students annually to understand Holyoke’s industrial, social and political history. Cartegena mentors many Latina women exploring activist careers, and she has served on the boards of the Holyoke Community Land Trust and Nueva Esperanza. In 2013, Cartegena was recognized by the Latino Scholarship Association as the Carlos Vega Community Champion, honoring the prominent Holyoke activist, community organizer and historian of Puerto Rican Holyoke. Cartegena dedicates her life to encouraging Holyoke youth to be active citizens. She hopes to write a book about growing up Latina in a post-industrial city.

Maria Cartegena is a featured speaker on June 4 at Smith College.

Harriette L. Chandler is the Senate assistant majority leader and vice-chair of the Senate Committee on Steering and Policy. She is also the co-founder and co-chair of the Prevention for Health Caucus, co-chair of the Oral Health Caucus and co-chair of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Legislative Caucus. Chandler began her political career when she was elected to the Worcester School Committee in 1991. She served three terms in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where she chaired the Joint Committee on Health Care. She is the first Worcester woman to be elected to the Massachusetts State Senate and is currently in her seventh two-year term in the Senate. Senator Chandler earned degrees from Wellesley College, Simmons College Graduate School of Management and Clark University. She is married to Worcester attorney Burton Chandler and has three grown children and four grandchildren.

Harriette L. Chandler is a featured speaker on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Clementina Chéry is an internationally recognized leader in peace education and violence prevention. She was a founding member and past president of the National Coalition for Survivors for Violence Prevention, an organization that supports survivors of violence in their efforts to enact policies on violence prevention. She served on the Massachusetts Juvenile Indigent Action Defense Network, a MacArthur Foundation initiative to improve the juvenile justice system. She was a founding member of the Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center and served as a delegate to many forums nationally and internationally. Chéry developed and published a crisis response manual, Survivor’s Burial and Resource Guide: A Step-by-Step Workbook for Regaining Control, and a workbook, Always in My Heart, for grieving children. She is also the co-author of PEACEZONE, an elementary school-based program that is designed to increase students’ ability to heal from trauma and loss, make positive decisions and avoid risk-taking behavior.

Clementina Chéry will be a panelist on May 29 at Simmons College.

Ben Cole is an assistant professor of political science and international relations at Simmons College, where he teaches undergraduate courses in comparative and international politics and U.S. public policy, and core courses in the Simmons accelerated Master of Public Policy program. Cole’s research addresses the intersection of state fragility and democratic transition dynamics, with an emphasis on data resource design and dataset management. His current book project identifies best practices for managing factionalism in democratic transition. Since 2011, Cole has served as a research associate for the Center for Systemic Peace in Vienna, Virginia, where he co-authors the influential Global Report series, including the State Fragility Index, a unique cross-national time-series measure of state fragility in the global system. His prior appointments included a postdoctoral fellowship in the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College from 2011 to 2012, and as the Hood House Lecturer in International Affairs at the University of New Hampshire from 2008 to 2011.

 Ben Cole will be a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Katie Conboy began at Simmons in July 2013 after 25 years at Stonehill College. At Stonehill, she served as provost and vice president for academic affairs since 2000. In that role, she was responsible for Stonehill’s academic vision and for ensuring that the curriculum met its academic objectives. She helped to lead and implement three successful strategic plans; increased the diversity of the faculty and the student body; helped to create the Kruse Center for Academic and Professional Excellence, as well as the Center for Teaching and Learning, and the Office of Community-Based Learning. At Simmons, she serves on President Drinan’s operating team, leads the academic council (composed of the deans of Simmons’ five schools), and has overall responsibility for academic affairs, including the Center for Academic Advising, the library, Center for Excellence in Teaching, the registrar, career education center and study abroad. Conboy holds a B.A. in English from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Notre Dame. Her scholarship areas include British fiction, Irish literature and feminist theory.

Katie Conboy will offer opening remarks on May 30 at Simmons College.

Lynda Connolly, a former chief justice, began her career as a special prosecutor in the Major Violator’s Division of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, practiced corporate and regulatory law at Gallagher & Gallagher P.C. in Boston, and was appointed to the bench by Governor William Weld in 1997. Connolly served as the acting first justice in the Charlestown District Court, first justice of the Dedham District Court, and in June 2004 was appointed chief justice of the District Court, the largest department of the Massachusetts Trial Court. Judge Connolly maintains her appointments as an adjunct associate professor of law at Suffolk University Law School and at New England Law/Boston. She has served as a guest lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and at the Harvard School of Public Health, and is the author of “Wills, Estates and Trusts” in the 1981 Annual Survey of Massachusetts Law published by Boston College Law School.

Lynda Connolly, who serves on the executive and curriculum committees for this Institute, will offer introductory remarks on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House and serve as a moderator of a panel discussion.

Radhika Coomaraswamy was the special rapporteur on violence against women and the UN under-secretary-general and special representative of the secretary general for children and armed conflict. She began her career as a constitutional lawyer and has written two books on the constitutional process in her native Sri Lanka and on the role of the judiciary in plural societies. Coomaraswamy has been a strong voice for women’s international human rights and has written extensively on the subject. When she served as special rapporteur, her annual reports and country visits focused on such issues as comfort women in Japan, women trafficked in Nepal and Poland, women victims of domestic violence and rape in Brazil and South Africa, and women in U.S. prisons. Since 2006, as the special representative on children and armed conflict, Coomaraswamy has been in charge of preparing the annual report of the secretary general on children and armed conflict. She has visited conflict areas throughout the world from Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire, Myanmar, Israel, Palestine and southern Thailand. The winner of many awards, including the International Law Award of the American Bar Association, Coomaraswamy received a bachelor’s degree from Yale, a master of law degree from Harvard and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia.

Radhika Coomaraswamy is a featured speaker on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Joanne Corbin was recently chair of the research sequence and will become co-director of the Smith College School for Social Work doctoral program. She is currently on sabbatical conducting research on the effects of armed conflict and displacement on women’s social, cultural and economic roles in northern Uganda. Her recent research has focused on the reintegration experiences of child soldiers in northern Uganda, and the resettlement experiences of individuals internally displaced by the LRA conflict in Uganda. Corbin developed a psychosocial training program for counselors in northern Uganda based on her initial research. She also developed an eight-month social work internship in Uganda for students in the master’s program. She has published articles, chapters and an edited book on her work. In 2013, Corbin was appointed chair of the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) Council on Global Learning, Research and Practice.

Joanne Corbin is a panelist on June 3 at Smith College.

Rangita de Silva de Alwis directs the Global Women’s Leadership Initiative and the Women in Public Service Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She has more than 25 years of experience working in over 25 countries with a vast network of academic institutions, government and nongovernment entities on women’s human rights law, policy making and institutional reform. She has convened several transnational networks, including the Women’s Leadership Network in Muslim Communities, the Asia Cause Lawyer Network in India, and the Gender and Law Expert Group and the Women’s Watch in China. She has advised UNICEF, UN Women, UNFP and the UNDP on state accountability under the relevant human rights treaties. Throughout her career, de Silva de Alwis has lectured and published widely. She has a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School and was a teaching fellow with the European Law Research Institute at Harvard Law School and a research fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. She was a Fulbright specialist with the Asian University of Women, a distinguished visiting lecturer at Wellesley College, a visiting scholar at Wellesley Centers for Women and an honorary professor of China Women’s University.

Rangita de Silva de Alwis is a featured speaker at the opening ceremony on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College and the closing ceremony on June 5 at Smith College.

Patricia Deyton is a professor of practice in addition to being an associate dean for graduate programs and director for the Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO), an internationally recognized research arm of the Simmons School of Management. She has taught extensively at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels at Simmons and at the Harvard Extension School. She has more than 20 years of experience as a CEO in the nonprofit sector, serves on several nonprofit boards and heads her own consulting practice, working recently with gender programs for UNDP. She holds a master of social work degree from Columbia University and a master of divinity degree from Yale University.

Patricia Deyton is a program facilitator.

Helen Drinan has guided Simmons College to a position of competitive strength financially, academically and operationally. Previously, she was chair of the Simmons College Board of Trustees, senior vice president of Human Resources at Caritas Christi Health Care, president and CEO of the Society of Human Resources Management and executive vice president of human resources for BankBoston. Drinan has been recognized by the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts as a Leading Woman; and by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce as a Pinnacle Award recipient. Drinan is a member of 2020 Women on Boards, the Massachusetts Women’s Forum and the Mount Holyoke College Board of Trustees. She serves on the board of directors for the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts and for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Drinan is a graduate alumna of the Simmons College School of Management and the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, and an undergraduate alumna of Mount Holyoke College.

Helen Drinan will give an opening speech on May 28 at Simmons College.

Fernande R.V. Duffly was appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court on February 1, 2011, by Governor Deval Patrick. A graduate of Harvard Law School, she previously served as associate justice on the Massachusetts Appeals Court and on the Massachusetts Probate and Family Court. Prior to her appointment to the bench, she provided pro bono legal services to indigent clients and was a member of the board of Greater Boston Legal Service while also serving as a partner in the litigation department at what was then the law firm of Warner & Stackpole, now K&L Gates LLP. Justice Duffly has served on committees that address access to justice and diversity in the legal profession, and she speaks frequently on these subjects. She is a member and past president of the National Association of Women Judges; she was NAWJ’s delegate to the American Bar Association House of Delegates and served for three years as a commissioner on the ABA’s Commission on the Status of Women in the Profession. She is a member of the ABA’s Minority Caucus and commissioner to the Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibilities.

Fernande R.V. Duffly is a featured speaker on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Brent Durbin teaches courses in U.S. foreign policy, strategic intelligence, military conflict and culture, and international relations. His research interests span these topics, with a particular focus on the organizational dynamics of national security bureaucracies. Durbin earned his doctorate in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and also holds degrees from Oberlin College and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He has held research fellowships at Stanford University, the University of California, the University of Cambridge and George Washington University. Prior to joining the Smith faculty, Durbin taught in the public policy program at Stanford. He has also served as press secretary for U.S. Senator Patty Murray, and as a media consultant and adviser on electoral and advocacy campaigns.

Brent Durbin is a moderator on June 4 at Smith College.

Erin Ennis has been vice president of the US-China Business Council since May 2005. In this position, she directs the council’s government affairs and advocacy work for member companies and oversees the council’s Business Advisory Services. She also leads a coalition of other trade associations on issues of interest to companies doing business with China. The US-China Business Council provides extensive China-focused information, advisory and advocacy services to nearly 250 U.S. corporations operating within the United States and throughout Asia. Prior to joining the council, Ennis held several positions in the U.S. government, including positions with U.S. Senator John Breaux and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She also worked at Kissinger McLarty Associates, the international consulting firm headed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former White House Chief of Staff Thomas (Mack) McLarty. A native of Louisiana, Ennis has a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s in international affairs from Catholic University.

Erin Ennis is a panelist on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Elizabeth Fahey is a Superior Court judge for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She took a leave of absence to serve as an International judge in the War Crimes Chamber of the State Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2007 to 2008. Fahey graduated from Boston College Law School in 1977, was an assistant district attorney in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, from 1977 to 1983 and in private practice in Boston from 1993 to 1999, when she was sworn in as a Superior Court judge. In private practice Fahey specialized in civil rights, municipal liability, product liability, medical malpractice and general liability. Judge Fahey has also participated in numerous U.S. State Department-sponsored Rule of Law programs in China, Macedonia and Mongolia.

Elizabeth Fahey is a panelist on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Vincent Ferraro has taught at Mount Holyoke College since 1976, and he regularly teaches courses in world politics, American foreign policy and international political economy. He also teaches a first-year seminar on public speaking. He has served as an academic consultant to the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Pew Foundation. He writes primarily on issues related to global poverty, globalization and income inequality.

Vincent Ferraro is a facilitator at Mount Holyoke College.

Catherine Filloux is an award-winning playwright and librettist who has been writing about human rights and social justice for more than twenty years. Her play Luz premiered at La MaMa in New York City, where she is an artist in residence, and was then produced at Looking for Lilith Theatre Company in Louisville, Kentucky. Filloux’s new play, Selma ’65, about the civil rights movement and the KKK, will open at La MaMa in September 2014. Filloux recently took part in an overseas reading tour to Sudan and South Sudan that was organized by the University of Iowa’s international writing program. Her play The Beauty Inside was produced in northern Iraq in the Kurdish language by ArtRole, in collaboration with Kurdish theater director Gaziza Omer. Filloux is a co-founder of Theatre Without Borders and has served as a speaker for playwriting and human rights organizations around the world. She was one of the seven playwrights who wrote Seven, which will be performed at Smith on May 31 and June 1.

Catherine Filloux is a panelist on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Sara Gould is the former president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, and she is a recognized expert on economic justice, social justice philanthropy and women’s leadership. After 25 years at the Ms. Foundation, Gould served as the Atlantic Philanthropy’s senior fellow at the Foundation Center, focusing on social justice philanthropy and leadership development. Most recently, she was the associate director of Caring Across Generations, a campaign led by the National Domestic Workers Alliance and Jobs with Justice, aimed at changing the long-term homecare system in the United States for the benefit of people who receive care and for the workers who provide that care. Gould is vice chair of the board of the National Immigration Law Center and serves on the board of the Proteus Fund. She is also an executive coach; her practice focuses on leaders in feminist and other progressive organizations.

Sara Gould is a discussant on June 2 at Smith College.

Paula Green founded the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, a nongovernmental organization based in Amherst, Massachusetts. She is a professor at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont, where she founded and directs the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (CONTACT) Program. This professional training program occurs each year in June in the United States and in December in Nepal. Paula has worked as a professional peace builder in many countries throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe over the past two decades. For this work, Paula received an award from the Dalai Lama as an Unsung Hero of Compassion. Her training manual, Peacebuilding in Divided Communities, offers tools and lessons for peace builders.

Paula Green is a trainer on May 28 at Mount Holyoke College.

Sonali Gulati is an independent filmmaker, feminist, grass-roots activist and educator. She teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Photography & Film. Gulati has a master’s in film and media arts from Temple University and a bachelor’s degree in critical social thought from Mount Holyoke College. Gulati has made several short films that have screened at over 300 film festivals worldwide. Her award-winning films have screened at venues such as the Hirshhorn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her films have been broadcasted on television in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa. Gulati has won awards, grants and fellowships from various institutions, including the Creative Capital Foundation, a VCU School of the Arts Faculty Award of Excellence and, most recently, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellowship in film and video in 2013.

Sonali Gulati is a featured speaker on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Paula Gutlove is a professor of practice at the Simmons College School of Management, where she teaches negotiation and leadership. In addition, she is the deputy director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies, where she directs the International Conflict Management Program. Gutlove has more than two decades of experience in teaching negotiation, leadership and managing conflict, including the development, administration, and implementation of post-conflict reconstruction programs. Her experience includes work in conflict-afflicted areas such as the Balkans, the North Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia. Gutlove has served as a consultant to numerous international organizations, including the World Health Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She has received support, recognition and awards for her conflict-management-related work from a variety of government and nongovernment organizations, including the U.S. State Department and various U.S. and international foundations.

Paula Gutlove is a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Jane Harman resigned from Congress in February 2011 to join the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars as its first female director, president and CEO. Representing the aerospace center of California during nine terms in Congress, Harman served on all the major security committees: six years on Armed Services, eight years on Intelligence and four on Homeland Security. She has made numerous Congressional fact-finding missions to hotspots around the world, including North Korea, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Guantanamo Bay to assess threats against the United States. During her long public career, Harman has been recognized as a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues. She received the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Service in 1998, the CIA Seal Medal in 2007, and the CIA Director’s Award and the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal in 2011. She is a member of the Defense Policy Board, State Department Foreign Policy Board, CIA External Advisory Board, the Director of National Intelligence’s Senior Advisory Group, and is a Trustee of the Aspen Institute and the University of Southern California.

Jane Harman will be a featured speaker on June 3 at Smith College.

Amy Heiss works in Dell’s Social Media Training and Employee Activation program, known as SMaC U. She provides social media coaching to executives and subject matter experts in order to amplify Dell’s brand message, establish executives as thought leaders and expand Dell’s reach in technology communities. Her team has been internationally recognized for innovation, and their work has been featured in several books and case studies on employee activation in social media. Amy lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and two small children.

Our organizers gratefully acknowledge Dell’s generosity in providing the laptops and software for delegates participating in this Institute.

Amy Heiss is a panelist on June 4 at Smith College.

Cynthia Ingols teaches across the Simmons School of Management’s undergraduate, master’s and executive education programs. In particular, Ingols directs the undergraduate internship program and teaches the Organizational Change courses to undergraduate and master’s students. She is the faculty director for Strategic Leadership for Women, an executive education program with a global clientele base. Early in her career, Ingols received her doctorate from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in organizational behavior. Today, she consults, researchers and publishes on three topics: organizational change, assessment of educational programs and careers. Her research has been published in a number of journals, including the Journal of Management Education, Harvard Business Review, the Journal of Career Development and Human Resource Development Quarterly. She has co-authored three books: Organizational Change: An Action-Oriented Toolkit (Sage Publications, 2011); Take Charge of Your Career (Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2004); and Your Job Interview: An Easy, Smart Guide to Interview Success (Silver Lining Books, 2003).

Cynthia Ingols is a program facilitator.

Rachel Kaprielian is a lifelong Massachusetts resident with a successful track record in customer service and governmental management. She oversees the Commonwealth’s five labor and workforce regulatory agencies: the Departments of Unemployment Assistance, Career Services, Labor Standards, Industrial Accidents and Labor Relations. She also manages the Joint Task Force on the Underground Economy and Employee Misclassification, working with the officials in Governor Deval Patrick’s Administration and across state government to combat workplace fraud and protect exploited workers. Kaprielian also oversees Commonwealth Corp., a quasi-public agency focused on designing and implementing workforce strategies with external partners to address existing skills gaps and keep Massachusetts economically competitive. From 2008 to 2014, she served as registrar at the Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), where she spearheaded a multiyear strategy to dramatically expand and improve online transactions available to the state’s 4.7 million drivers and their 5.8 million registered vehicles. Prior to her role as registrar, Kaprielian served from 1995 to 2008 as state representative for Watertown and Cambridge, where she displayed a keen dedication to constituent services, smart business strategy and consumer-friendly policy reform.

Kavita Khory is a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College, where she has taught since 1990. She regularly offers courses on international security, nationalism and ethnic conflict, comparative politics of South Asia and global migration. She has been involved in a number of curricular initiatives at Mount Holyoke, including serving as co-director of a project funded by the Hewlett Foundation for promoting the case method across the curriculum. Khory is the recipient of a Pew Faculty Fellowship from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She has written about nationalism and ethnic politics in Pakistan, regional security problems in South Asia, and the impact on Pakistan of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Her current project explores forms of transnational mobilization and activism among South Asian diaspora populations in North America and Europe. Khory is the editor of Global Migration: Challenges in the Twenty-First Century (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012).

Kavita Khory is offering opening remarks on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Daniel Elihu Kramer is chair of the theatre department at Smith College and associate atistic director at Chester Theatre Company. He holds an MFA in directing from Yale University School of Drama. As a director, Kramer received an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Boston Theatre Works in 2007. His 2008 production of The Pillowman at the Contemporary American Theatre Company received awards for best production and best direction. His Chester Theatre Company production of Tryst received a 2011 Notable Director award. His first feature film, Kitchen Hamlet, won awards as an official selection at film festivals throughout the U.S. Kramer’s play Jane Eyre: A Memory, A Fever, A Dream premiered by Available Light Theatre in 2013. His play Pride@Prejudice is published by Playscripts, and was produced by Capital Repertory Theatre, Chester Theatre Company and Available Light Theatre, and won multiple awards. Other plays include Coyote Tales, Love Suicide, and commissioned adaptations of Babar and James Thurber’s Many Moons.

Daniel Elihu Kramer is advising the student directors of the play SEVEN, which will be performed on May 31 and June 1 at Smith College.

Janet Lansberry oversees student leadership programs, teaches leadership classes and workshops, and administers the core operations of the Weissman Center for Leadership at Mount Holyoke College. She previously served as a grant maker for a social justice foundation, as a trainer to community-based organizations and as a union leader and tenant organizer. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Pennsylvania State University and a master’s in business administration from Simmons College.

Janet Lansberry is a facilitator on May 25 at Mount Holyoke College.

Josh Levy leads in the work of Free Press to protect Internet freedom, stop government and corporate surveillance, secure public use of the public airwaves and promote universal access to high-speed Internet.

Josh Levy is a panelist on June 4 at Smith College.

Nita Lowey is serving her thirteenth term in Congress, representing parts of Westchester and Rockland counties in New York. She was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1988 and served in the Democratic Leadership in 2001 and 2002 as the first woman and the first New Yorker to chair the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Congresswoman Lowey is also the first woman to lead either party on the powerful House Appropriations Committee. Lowey is a strong advocate for women, children and families. She has been a champion of education throughout her career, fighting for school modernization, teacher development and literacy programs. A longtime champion of human rights and enhancing the role of women in development, Lowey has taken a key role in fighting for democracy, justice and economic opportunity around the world.

Nita Lowey is a featured speaker on May 25 at Mount Holyoke College.

Kathleen McCartney is the eleventh president of Smith College, a position she assumed in July 2013. In this new role, she has launched important conversations on higher education access and affordability, innovative approaches to the liberal arts, and the capacities needed for women to succeed and lead around the world. McCartney was previously dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education—only the fifth woman dean in Harvard’s history. Her research has focused on childcare and early childhood experience, education policy, parenting, poverty and behavior genetics. She has authored more than 150 articles and book chapters and was a principal researcher for a 20-year study of the effects of childcare on child development. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. She has won awards and recognition for her exceptional leadership, including the 2013 Harvard College Women’s Professional Achievement Award. A summa cum laude graduate of Tufts University, McCartney earned master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from Yale University.

President McCartney will offer opening remarks on June 2 at Smith College.

Carol Klein Mack, a playwright who conceived the project Seven for Vital Voices Global Partnership and gathered the team of award-winning women playwrights that created it, began her own career at Mount Holyoke College studying playwriting with Denis Johnston. Premieres include: The Accident, American Repertory Theatre; In Her Sight, the Humana Festival, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville; Territorial Rights, The Women’s Project; and Without A Trace, Tron, Glasgow. Awards  include the Stanley Drama Award (A Safe Place ); Julie Harris/Beverly Hills Award (Borders ); and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at Bellagio. Mack’s one acts Halftime at Halcyon Days, Magenta Shift, Unprogrammed and The Courier were selected for four editions of The Best American Short Plays and Postcards & Other Short Plays. A Field Guide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels & Other Subversive Spirits (Profile Books, London, 2011), was written with her daughter, Dinah Mack, and was recently released as an e-book.    

Carol Mack will participate in the talk-back after the performance of Seven at Smith College.

Mahnaz Mahdavi is a professor of economics and the Ann F. Kaplan ’67 Faculty Director of the Center for Women and Financial Independence. Mahdavi received her doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been teaching courses on corporate finance, international finance and international financial markets since 1985 at Smith College. Mahdavi was a Massachusetts appointed delegate to the National Summit on Retirement Savings and a board member of the Financial Literacy Curriculum of Asia Pacific Foundation’s Akamai Initiative. Currently, Mahdavi is a member of the American Economic Association, serves on the boards of the Institute for Global Finance Research and Management and Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. Her scholarly work has focused on the areas of exchange rate determination, the behavior of stock markets in the United States and emerging markets, and the economic impact of financial education. She frequently lectures on topics related to global finance, debt and financial crises, and on the relevance of financial knowledge for sound financial behavior.

Mahnaz Mahdavi is a moderator on June 3 at Smith College.

Maureen Mahoney has long been involved with Smith’s global engagement initiatives, which include study abroad, global engagement seminars, concentrations and leadership programs for Smith students. She is a partner in the development of the Lewis Global Studies Center, committed to globalizing Smith’s curriculum and developing global fluency in every student. She also oversees the Wurtele Center for Work and Life, which is devoted to preparing women for rewarding lives that include satisfying work, effective leadership practices and habits of wellness. As a senior administrator at Smith, Mahoney oversees the offices of student engagement, residential life, multicultural affairs, health services, religious and spiritual life, career development, class deans, international study and the registrar. Working closely with the provost and dean of the faculty, her job is to ensure the integration of students’ experiences inside and outside the classroom. Mahoney holds a doctorate from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Maureen Mahoney will offer opening remarks on June 3 at Smith College.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka was appointed as the United Nations under-secretary-general and executive director of UN Women in 2013. She is responsible for leading the organization’s efforts in gender equality, women’s rights and women’s empowerment. She has devoted her career to issues of human rights, equality and social justice. From 2005 to 2008, she served as deputy president of South Africa. Prior to that she was minister of Minerals and Energy from 1999 to 2005. Mlambo-Ngcuka began her career as a teacher and gained international experience as a coordinator at the World YWCA in Geneva, where she established a global programme for young women. She is the founder of the Umlambo Foundation, which supports leadership and education. A longtime champion of women’s rights, she is affiliated with several organizations devoted to education, women’s empowerment and gender equality. She completed her Ph.D. on education and technology at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will offer videotaped remarks on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Sochua Mu formed the first organization for women in Cambodia and was in charge of the Ministry of Women’s and Veterans’ Affairs, one of only two women in the cabinet at the time. She mobilized 12,000 women candidates to run for commune elections, with over 900 winning. She helped create and pass the Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill, which imposes severe penalties on marital rape and abuse of minors. She received the Leadership Award from the Vital Voices Foundation, an organization co-founded by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Mu was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against sex trafficking of women in Cambodia and Thailand. Her work in Cambodia also includes working for the rights of female entrepreneurs and working for labor laws that provide fair wages and safe working conditions for female workers.

Sochua Mu is a panelist on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Amy Nechtem serves as an associate justice for the Massachusetts Juvenile Court and presides over cases of abuse and neglect of children, with the authority to terminate parental rights and delinquency cases involving youth between ages 7 to 18, with a focus on rehabilitation. Judge Nechtem is a past president of the National Association of Women Judges. The 1,300 members of the NAWJ are drawn from all levels of the judiciary, federal, state, administrative, military and tribal judges and is affiliated with the International Association of Women Judges. Nechtem is the national co-chair of the NAWJ Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare Committee. She serves on the board of directors for the Massachusetts Judges Conference, is a member of the Juvenile Court’s Education Committee and serves as a Trial Court mentor. Prior to her appointment to the bench in 2001, Nechtem was a prosecutor responsible for the litigation of major felony and child abuse cases. She received the Judicial Excellence Award in 2011. Nechtem was awarded the Community Service Award by Simmons College in 2013. She graduated with honors from Suffolk University Law School.

Amy Nechtem is a featured speaker on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her work centers on human rights and women’s issues. She has worked with refugees and marginalized communities from Saudi Arabia to Syria and from Timor Leste to the Philippines. By bringing their voices to the forefront, she has often helped them bring about a critical change in their community. Obaid-Chinoy has made over a dozen multi-award-winning films in over 10 countries. In 2012, Time Magazine included her in its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2013, Obaid-Chinoy was the recipient of the Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum for her work in documentary filmmaking, making her the first Pakistani to receive this honor.

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a featured speaker on June 3 at Smith College.

Becky Wai-Ling Packard is a professor of psychology and education, and the director of the Weissman Center for Leadership. In the Weissman Center, Packard works to provide opportunities through programs, courses and seminars for students to become inspired, build leadership capacities, develop effective mentoring relationships and set goals for the future. She also develops initiatives to support faculty across their careers to engage in their teaching, advising and scholarly work. A nationally recognized scholar in the area of mentoring, she has focused on the persistence of women, first-generation college students, and persons of color in higher education and work.

Becky Wai-Ling Packard is a facilitator on May 25 at Mount Holyoke College.

Farah Pandith was appointed the first-ever special representative to Muslim communities in June 2009 by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Under the leadership of Secretary John Kerry, the Office of the Special Representative is responsible for executing a vision for engagement with Muslims around the world based on a people-to-people and organizational level. In the years since her swearing in, Pandith traveled to more than 80 countries and launched youth-focused initiatives, including Generation Change, Viral Peace, the Transatlantic Leadership Network and Hours Against Hate (a campaign that was a partner with the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.) She is also a key architect of the Women in Public Service Project. In January 2013 she was awarded the Secretary’s Distinguished Honor Award for “exceptionally outstanding service to the agencies of the U.S. government resulting in achievements of marked national or international significance.” Pandith has received numerous honors for her work in public service and was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian Magazine. She received a master’s degree from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree in government and psychology from Smith College. Pandith was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, India, and raised in Massachusetts.

Farah Pandith is a featured speaker on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College and on June 5 at Smith College.

Suzanne Parker, the executive director of Girls Inc. of Holyoke, Massachusetts, since 2006, works closely with the community, the staff and the board of directors to inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold. A native of western Massachusetts, Parker earned a bachelor’s degree in music education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a J.D. from Western New England College School of Law. She is an appointee of Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and trustee of Holyoke Community College and was recently elected to the national board of directors for Girls Inc. Parker also serves on the advisory board for the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts’ LIPPI program. She is married and has an 8-year-old daughter.

Suzanne Parker is a featured speaker on June 4 at the Holyoke site visit.

Lynn Pasquerella is a philosopher and ethicist who has combined teaching and scholarship with civic engagement. Her first four years as Mount Holyoke’s president have been marked by a robust strategic planning process, a commitment to a vibrant campus community, and outreach to off-campus communities and a global network of alumnae. Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, theoretical and applied ethics, metaphysics, public policy and the philosophy of law. As president, she has focused especially on strategic planning, shared governance, long-term financial sustainability, access for students from all socioeconomic backgrounds and increased visibility for Mount Holyoke. After graduating magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke in 1980, Pasquerella earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Brown University in 1985. She then joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Rhode Island, rising to the position of vice provost for academic affairs and dean of the graduate school. In 2008 she was named provost at the University of Hartford. In 2010, she became the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College.

Lynn Pasquerella will offer opening remarks on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Eva Paus is the author and editor of numerous books and articles on development strategies and globalization. She has consulted on economic development issues with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean and the International Labor Organization. Her current research focuses on the middle-income trap, the implications of the rise of China for the prospects for economic development in (other) developing countries, and policy space for productive transformation in developing countries. Her latest book is Getting Development Right: Structural Transformation, Inclusion and Sustainability in the Post-Crisis Era (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Eva Paus is a panelist on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Jyoti Puri is a professor of sociology at Simmons College. She writes and teaches in the areas of sexualities, states, nationalisms, and transnational and postcolonial feminism. Her book, Woman, Body, Desire in Post-colonial India (Routledge, 1999), addresses how constructs of gender and sexuality are shaped across national and transnational contexts. Encountering Nationalism, (Blackwell Publishers, 2004), is a feminist sociological exploration of nationalism and the state. Puri has also co-edited a special issue on gender, sexuality, state and nation for the April 2005 issue of the journal Gender & Society, as well as the October 2010 issue on sexuality and the state for Rethinking Marxism. Puri’s current book, Sexual States: Governance and Anti-Sodomy Law in India’s Present, is under contract with Duke University Press. Puri is the recipient of fellowships and grants, including a Rockefeller Research Fellowship and a Fulbright Senior Research award. She is currently a a co-editor for the journal Foucault Studies.

Jyoti Puri is a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Andrew Reiter teaches and researches on issues related to political violence, peacemaking and post-conflict justice and reconciliation. He is co-founder of the Transitional Justice Data Base Project and a member of the Transitional Justice Research Collaborative, two major initiatives that collect, analyze and disseminate data on trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations and other transitional justice mechanisms used around the world. The projects have been supported by grants from the United States Institute of Peace, National Science Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation and the Arts & Humanities Research Council. He is the co-author of Transitional Justice in Balance: Comparing Processes, Weighing Efficacy (United States Institute of Peace, 2010) and the author or co-author of numerous articles and book chapters that examine the implementation and effectiveness of transitional justice policies.

Andrew Reiter is a moderator on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Karen Remmler‘s fields of research and teaching include contemporary culture in Germany and Austria, the memory of the Holocaust in film and literature, Jewish German relations in post-wall Berlin, contemporary literature by Jewish and German women writers living in Germany, the politics of memory and space in present-day Berlin, and politics in the former GDR. Her work combines training in German literature and language, critical social thought, gender studies and Jewish studies. Remmler is the author of Waking the Dead: Correspondences between Walter Benjamin and Ingeborg Bachmann (Ariadne Press, 1996) and the co-editor, with Sander Gilman, of Reemerging Jewish Culture in Germany: Life and Literature Since 1989 (NYU Press, 1994). In 2002, she co-edited, with Leslie Morris, the anthology Contemporary Jewish Writing in Germany (University of Nebraska Press, 2002).

Karen Remmler, who serves on the executive and curriculum committees for this Institute, will offer introductory remarks on May 26 at Mount Holyoke and is also serving as a faculty director.

Carol Rodley joined the leadership team of the Institute for Inclusive Security as the director of Resolution to Act. Rodley has more than 30 years of experience as an American diplomat. Most recently, she served as dean of the School of Leadership and Management at the U.S. State Department’s Foreign Service Institute and was the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia from 2008 to 2011. In that role, Rodley promoted foreign investment in Cambodia by reducing corruption, advocated strongly for the U.S. government to remove Cambodia from its Marxist-Leninist country list, and eliminated barriers for small and medium enterprises to obtain financing. Rodley also played an important role in shaping the human rights dialogue in Cambodia, combatting human trafficking. She advocated for the establishment and upkeep of the Cambodia Tribunal to help Cambodians come to terms with the Khmer Rouge genocide after waiting decades for justice. Prior to her service in Cambodia, Rodley was counselor for political-military affairs in Afghanistan. She also held posts in Pakistan, Germany, South Africa and the Dominican Republic. Rodley is the recipient of the U.S. State Department’s Human Rights and Democracy Award, the American Foreign Service Association’s Christian Herter Award for creative dissent, the James Clement Dunn Award for leadership and a Presidential Performance Award.

Carol Rodley is a panelist on May 27 at Mount Holyoke College.

Stan Rosenberg was elected state senator in September 1991. Prior to that, he represented the communities of Amherst, Pelham, Granby and Belchertown in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Rosenberg earned a bachelor’s degree in community development and arts management from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. During his undergraduate career he served as the founding director of the Arts Extension Service and then as director of the community development and human service programs in the Division of Continuing Education. Throughout his career, Senator Rosenberg has been a champion for education at all levels; fair and progressive taxation to support the public services we all need and want; environmental protection, with an emphasis on recycling, conservation, and alternative energy; economic development for our region; and social justice for all. In 2013, Rosenberg was appointed to the prestigious position of majority leader of the Massachusetts State Senate. This appointment came after his distinguished service as president pro tempore, assistant majority leader, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means. Rosenberg is currently the dean of the State Senate, an honorary title recognizing his tenure as the longest serving member of the Upper Chamber.

Stan Rosenberg is a featured speaker on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Victoria Sanford is a professor of anthropology and founding director of the Center for Human Rights and Peace Studies at Lehman College and doctoral faculty at the City University of New York Graduate Center. She is a research associate at Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution and an affiliated scholar at Rutgers University’s Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights. She is the author of Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala; Violencia y Genocidio en Guatemala; Guatemala: Del Genocidio al Feminicidio; La Masacre de Panzos: Etnicidad, Tierra y Violencia en Guatemala; and co-author of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation’s report to the the Guatemalan Truth Commission. She served as an invited expert witness before Judge Santiago Pedraz in the Spanish National Court’s international genocide case against the Guatemalan generals. She is currently writing This is How It Works: Violence and Traumatic Memory Across Generations.

Victoria Sanford is a panelist on May 28 at Mount Holyoke College.

Marilyn Schuster has been serving as provost and dean of the faculty at Smith College since 2009. She earned her B.A. in French from Mills College and her M. Phil. and Ph.D. in French language and literature from Yale University. She joined the Smith faculty in 1971 and is a founding member of the Program for the Study of Women and Gender; she has been a member of the French studies department and the comparative literature program. Her research has focused on contemporary writers such as Jane Rule, Marguerite Duras and Monique Wittig. Her books include Passionate Communities: Reading Lesbian Resistance in Jane Rule’s Fiction (NYU Press, 1999) and Marguerite Duras Revisited (Twayne Publishers, 1993). With Smith colleague Susan Van Dyne, Schuster has worked on incorporating feminist and ethnic studies scholarship in the curriculum. They co-edited and contributed to Women’s Place in the Academy: Transforming the Liberal Arts Curriculum (Rowman & Littlefield, 1985).

Marilyn Schuster will offer opening remarks at the closing ceremony on June 5 at Smith College.

John Scibak was first elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in November 2002. Representative Scibak was most recently appointed as House Chairman of the Joint Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure. He previously served as the House Chairman of the Joint Committee on Public Service. Throughout his career, Scibak has served as a strong advocate for disabled persons, infant and youth services, senior programs, veterans’ benefits and reducing the high cost of prescription drugs. He is also committed to ensuring equal access to affordable, comprehensive healthcare for all who live in Massachusetts. Furthermore, he has concentrated on improving the quality of education at all levels, from preschool programs to higher education, as well as increasing access to workforce training and economic development programs across western Massachusetts.

John Scibak will offer opening remarks on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Mary Shapiro has been on the faculty at Simmons for more than 25 years. She specializes in team building and leadership, influential communication across diverse stakeholders and strategic career management. She researches and publishes in the areas of women, their careers, their risk-taking and their use of power. She co-authored two books on interviewing and career management and two books on career management. Throughout her career, Shapiro has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, private institutions and nonprofits to create vision, mission and strategic plans; launch teams with process infrastructure; and intervene in teams in crises. She works with numerous boards of directors as a consultant guiding strategic planning efforts, and as a member of the executive committee of the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts. She received her M.B.A. and M.S. in economics from Wright State University.

Mary Shapiro, who is on the executive and curriculum committees of the Institute, is a faculty director.

Susan Shirk is the chair of the 21st Century China Program and Ho Miu Lam Professor of China and Pacific Relations at the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego. She also is director emeritus of the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. From 1997 to 2000, Shirk served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs, with responsibility for China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mongolia. Shirk’s publications include the books China: Fragile Superpower (Oxford University Press, 2008); The Political Logic of Economic Reform in China (University of California Press, 1993; How China Opened Its Door: The Political Success of the PRC’s Foreign Trade and Investment Reforms (Brookings Institute, 1994); Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China (University of California Press, 1981); and her edited book, Changing Media, Changing China (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Susan Shirk is a panelist on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Hedda Krausz Sjögren, a Sweden-based playwright and producer, created the concept for the international tour of documentary play Seven. Touring 20 countries, with as many translations since 2008, she has put 600 politicians, media profiles and activists on stage to portray women’s activists. Readers include, amongst others, NATO generals and male and female politicians in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan. Seven has developed from a documentary play to a public diplomacy project with the support of the Swedish Foreign Ministry. The project, widely covered by media, reached 26 million people in the Balkan countries in 2013, contributing to public debate on gender-based violence in post-war Balkan states. Sjögren has received several awards, including the yearly prize of the Swedish National Touring Theatre, and she is currently at work on two new pieces, including an adaptation of Svetlana Alexiyevitch War’s Unwomanly Face, depicting female soldiers of the Red Army.

Hedda Krausz Sjögren will participate in the talk-back after the performance of Seven at Smith College.

Cristine Smith is in the international education concentration in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. There since 2006, she teaches undergraduate and graduate students about the research, theories, professional wisdom and strategies for improving the quality of education in developing countries. Her research and project work focuses on girls’ and women’s education, out-of-school literacy education for youth and adults, training and materials for early grade reading reform, professional development for literacy/reading teachers and faculty development for active teaching/learning in developing and fragile contexts. Before 2006, Smith worked for 18 years for the nonprofit organization World Education, directing research and training projects in the United States and South Asia.

Cristine Smith is a panelist on June 3 at Smith College.

Niloufer Sohrabji is an associate professor of economics at Simmons College. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Boston College. Her research examines rising financial instability due to globalization in emerging markets and developing countries. Sohrabji has published articles on exchange rate misalignment and current account sustainability in India. Also, she has published several co-authored articles on trade, current account and exchange rate issues related to Turkey and countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Sohrabji’s current project focuses on examining aid effectiveness in Ghana. Her articles have been published in Empirical Economics, Panoeconomicus, Indian Journal of Economics and Business, Journal of International Economics, and the African Finance Journal, among others. Sohrabji teaches international economics courses, including Comparative Economies of East Asia, International Trade and International Monetary Systems. In addition, she teaches Econometrics, in which students learn empirical tools used in economic research and apply them in their independently designed research projects.

Niloufer Sohrabji is a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor and feminist activist. She travels in the United States and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, nonviolent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice. Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem (Little, Brown, 1992); Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (Henry Holt & Co., 1987); Moving Beyond Words (Simon & Schuster, 1994); and Marilyn: Norma Jeane (Henry Holt & Co., 1988) on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Steinem lives in New York City and is at work on a book, due out in 2015, about her 30-plus years on the road as a feminist organizer.

Gloria Steinem is a featured speaker on June 2 at Smith College.

Ellen Story is serving her eleventh full term as the state representative from the 3rd Hampshire District, comprising the towns of Amherst, Pelham and precinct 1 of Granby. Representative Story was raised in Texas. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas, where she protested for an end to segregation on campus and in the city of Austin. After moving to the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1972, Story spent 17 years at the Family Planning Council of Western Massachusetts, rising to the position of associate executive director. During that time she became active in Amherst public education and town meeting. Story also worked on numerous local and statewide campaigns. In 1992, she became the first woman to represent Amherst in the legislature. Story holds a master’s of education from Cambridge College, and she received an honorary alumna award in 1998 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a member of the leadership team in the House of Representatives, serving as 4th Division chair. She also serves on the House Committee on Rules.

Ellen Story will offer welcome remarks on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Mona Sutphen was previously a managing director at UBS AG, covering geopolitical risk and macro-policy trends. She served as White House deputy chief of staff for President Obama from 2009 to 2011. From 2001 to 2008, she was managing director at Stonebridge International. Sutphen served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer, including assignments at the National Security Council, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Office of the High Representative in Sarajevo, the State Department and at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. She is a co-author of The Next American Century: How the U.S. Can Thrive as Other Powers Rise (Simon & Schuster, 2010). She is a member of President Obama’s Intelligence Advisory Board and serves on the boards of the International Rescue Committee, Drilling Info Holdings LLC and Human Rights First, and she is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Sutphen holds a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College and a master’s from the London School of Economics. She was awarded an honorary degree from Mount Holyoke in 2013.

Mona Sutphen is a featured speaker on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Anne Teschner is the executive director of The Care Center, a position she has held since 1998. She is responsible for fiscal management and fundraising; management of more than 35 government and private contracts; supervision of a 28-person staff; policy and program development; board development and public relations. She is a principal architect of New Directions/To College, a nationally acclaimed program for teen parents. Prior to joining The Care Center, Teschner was a program officer with the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and program coordinator with the Massachusetts Cultural Council from 1993 to 1996. She is the founder of a number of arts, cultural and education initiatives on the state and local levels. She holds a master’s in American Studies and a bachelor’s degree in public administration.

Anne Teschner is a speaker during the delegate visit to the city of Holyoke on June 4.

Niki Tsongas (MA-3) was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in a 2007 special election, becoming the first Massachusetts woman in 25 years to serve in Congress. Tsongas holds the same seat that was held three decades earlier by her late husband, former Congressman, U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Paul Tsongas. Congresswoman Tsongas serves on the Natural Resources Committee and holds a leadership position on the Armed Services Committee, where she is top Democrat on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. She co-chairs the Military Sexual Assault Prevention Caucus and is a founder of the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition. Congresswoman Tsongas’ work in the House of Representatives is motivated by a lifelong commitment to public service with deep ties to the communities she represents. She is a former dean of Middlesex Community College and started the first all-female law firm in Lowell.

Niki Tsongas is a keynote speaker on May 31 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Melanne Verveer most recently served as the first U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues, a position to which she was nominated by President Obama in 2009. She coordinated foreign policy issues and activities relating to the political, economic and social advancement of women, traveling to nearly 60 countries. Verveer worked to ensure that women’s participation and rights are fully integrated into U.S. foreign policy, and she played a leadership role in the administration’s development of the U.S. National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security. President Obama also appointed Verveer to serve as the U.S. representative to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. From 2000 to 2008, Verveer was the chair and co-CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, an international NGO that she co-founded to invest in emerging women leaders. During the Clinton administration, she served as assistant to the President and chief of staff to the First Lady. Verveer also led the effort to establish the President’s Interagency Council on Women and was instrumental in the adoption of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. She has a B.S. and M.S. from Georgetown University. In 2013, she was the Humanitas visiting professor at Cambridge University. Verveer is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations and the World Bank Advisory Council on Gender and Development. She holds several honorary degrees and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. Secretary of State’s award for distinguished service.

Melanne Verveer is a featured speaker on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Janie Victoria Ward holds a doctorate in human development and a master’s in counseling and consulting psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The author of four books, Ward was the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for the Study of Black Literature and Culture, at the University of Pennsylvania (1990–1992), and a Visiting Scholar Fellowship at the Wellesley College Centers for Women (1996–97). From 2000 to 2003, Ward served as the director for the Alliance on Gender, Culture and School Practice at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and with Harvard Professor Wendy Luttrell, Ward was co-principal investigator of Project ASSERT, a five-year school-based research study and curriculum development project exploring issues of gender, culture and school practice for urban teachers. Spring semester 2014, Ward held an appointment at Colgate University as the A. Lindsay O’Connor Professor in American Institutions in the Department of Educational Studies. Ward’s research interests have centered on identity and moral development in African American children and families. Her current research project explores questions of how racializing processes are enacted, evaded and imposed on Chinese daughters and experienced by their white adoptive mothers.

 Janie Victoria Ward is a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Samantha Washburn-Baronie is the executive director of MWPC, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization committed to maximizing the number of women elected and appointed to public office and public policy positions. Previously, Washburn-Baronie served as the associate director of MWPC, overseeing all educational programs, events and communications. Prior to joining MWPC, she served on the staff of State Representative David P. Linsky, Chairman of the House Committee on Post Audit and Oversight. In the office of Chairman Linsky, Washburn-Baronie was the point person for all constituent services, and assisted with the passage of landmark legislation. A graduate of Eugene Lang College at the New School, she brings to the MWPC extensive experience in political campaigns, having helped on the campaigns of Hillary Clinton, Governor Deval Patrick, Elizabeth Warren and several other candidates in Massachusetts and in other states in the Northeast. Washburn-Baronie sits on the board of the Women’s Pipeline for Change.

Washburn-Baronie will offer welcome remarks on May 29 at the Massachusetts State House.

Ellen Doré Watson is the author of four full-length collections of poems, most recently Dogged Hearts (Tupelo Press, 2010). Among her honors are a Rona Jaffe Writers Award, fellowships to the MacDowell Colony and Yaddo, and a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship. Watson has translated a dozen books from the Brazilian Portuguese, including Ex-Voto, poems by Adélia Prado. She serves as editor of poetry and translation at The Massachusetts Review and is a core faculty member at Drew University’s Low-Residency MFA program in poetry and translation.

Ellen Doré Watson is the opening day poet on May 26 at Mount Holyoke College.

Jon Western is Five College Professor of International Relations at Mount Holyoke College and the Five Colleges Inc. and chair of the Five College International Relations Program. He also chairs the Mount Holyoke College Nexus on Law, Public Policy and Human Rights. Western’s teaching and research interests focus on U.S. foreign policy, international security, human rights and humanitarian affairs. He is the author of Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). He is the co-editor of The International Community and Statebuilding: Getting Its Act Together? (Rutledge, 2012) and co-editor of Global Giant: Is China Changing the Rules of the Game? (Palgrave, 2009). Western is currently managing two research projects on post-hegemonic global governance and on international responses to mass atrocity violence.

Jon Western is a program facilitator at Mount Holyoke College and one of the faculty advisers  for the play SEVEN, which will be performed on May 31 and June 1 at Smith College.

Gregory White is the author most recently of Climate Change and Migration: Security and Borders in a Warming World (Oxford University Press, 2011) and has published articles and book chapters on immigration, environmental security and North African politics. He is the co-editor of the Journal of North African Studies and serves as a North Africa analyst on Freedom House’s survey team. For 2009 to 2010, White was in residence at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he studied climate science under the auspices of a New Directions Grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The recipient of Fulbright scholarships to Tunisia and Morocco, White holds a Ph.D. in political science and African studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Gregory White, who is on the executive and curriculum committees of the Institute, will offer opening remarks on June 2 at Smith College and is also serving as a faculty director.

Renée White has served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Simmons since 2011. Seeking to further connect Simmons students to the larger world and foster leadership opportunities, White co-founded the first Vision 2020 college chapter in the nation at Simmons and initiated the college’s membership in the Clinton Global Initiative University Network. White is the editor of three books, including HIV/AIDS: Global Frontiers in Prevention/Intervention and author of Putting Risk in Perspective: Black Teenage Lives in the Era of AIDS. She has served as editor of the Journal of HIV/AIDS Prevention in Children & Youth and as editorial adviser to the Journal of HIV/AIDS and Social Services. Before her appointment as dean at Simmons, she served as a professor of sociology and black studies at Fairfield University, where she also was the inaugural academic coordinator for diversity and global citizenship. White was a WYE Faculty Fellow at the Aspen Institute and completed a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Fellowship in black film studies. She holds an A.B. from Brown University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Renée White is a program facilitator on May 30 at Simmons College.

Alicia Zoeller began her career with the City of Holyoke in 1997 as conservation director leading land protection projects; developing parks, including the Jones Ferry River Access Center; and ensuring wetlands and endangered species protection. She joined the Community Development Office as deputy administrator in 2010 and was recently promoted to the position of administrator overseeing the administration of federal funds for housing and economic development and urban revitalization. Zoeller is a graduate of Northern Essex Community College and Salem State College (marine biology) and the Western New England University School of Law. She is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar and is also a member of the Regional Housing Advisory Board, HAP Community Engagement Planning Group and Re-Build Springfield Vision Coalition, and she volunteers with numerous community groups. Zoeller and her spouse, Rosemary, recently completed reconstruction of their Springfield historic home following the devastating 2011 tornado.