Dr. Jamila Lyiscott is a Harry Potter enthusiast, a community engaged scholar, a nationally renowned speaker and a spoken word artist. She serves as an Assistant Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Senior Research Fellow of Teachers College, Columbia University's Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME). Across these spaces, Jamila's work focuses on racial justice, community engagement, and youth activism in education through the lens of what she has termed, "Vision-Driven Justice." She has been invited to over 100 institutions throughout the nation where she works with youth, educators, and people across disciplines to inspire vision and action. Her scholarship and activism work together to prepare educators to sustain diversity in the classroom, empower youth, and explore, assert, and defend the value of Black life. As a testament to her commitment to educational justice for students of color, Jamila is the founder and co-director of the Cyphers For Justice (CFJ) youth, research, and advocacy program, apprenticing NYC high school youth, incarcerated youth, and pre-service educators as critical social researchers through hip-hop, spoken word, and digital literacy.

Jamila is the author of Black Appetite. White Food. Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom (Release date: May 2019). She is most well know for being featured on Ted.com where her video, 3 Ways to Speak English, was viewed over 4 million times, and for her commissioned TED Talk, 2053 in response to the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States. She has also been featured in Spike Lee's "2 Fists Up," on NPR, Huffington Post, Lexus Verses and Flow, Upworthy, The Root, and many other media outlets nationally and internationally. Her poetry and scholarly work have been published in several peer-reviewed scholarly journals.

Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, President Emerita of Spelman College, is a clinical psychologist widely known for her expertise on race relations and as a thought leader in higher education. Her visionary leadership as president of Spelman College (2002-2015) was recognized in 2013 with the Carnegie Academic Leadership Award.

Author of several books including the best-selling “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?” and Other Conversations About Race (updated for the 20^th anniversary edition in 2017), she was the 2014 recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to Psychology. She holds a B.A. degree in psychology from Wesleyan University, and M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan as well as an M.A. in Religious Studies from Hartford Seminary.

She has served as a faculty member at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Westfield State University, and Mount Holyoke College where she also served as dean and acting president. In Spring 2017 she was the Mimi and Peter E. Haas Distinguished Visitor at Stanford University. She currently lives in Atlanta and serves on several local and national boards, including the Georgia Power Company, Educational Testing Service, Smith College, and Morehouse College.

She is married to Dr. Travis Tatum; they are the parents of two adult sons.

Dr. Love is a speaker, presenter, consultant and writer on social justice education and critical liberation theory. She is a Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her educational background includes teacher education and staff development, curriculum development, and multicultural organizational development, also with degrees in History and Political Science.

She consults nationally and internationally on organizational and individual empowerment and transformation. She works with institutions of higher education and with school systems throughout the U.S. She has served as Chair of the local School Committee. She has worked with organizations in the business and public sector in North America, the Caribbean, Europe and Africa on issues of diversity and inclusion. She works from a unique set of assumptions about the nature of humans and the process of personal, organizational and social change which participants have found empowering, enabling and effectively motivating.

Dr. Love has published widely on social justice and liberation issues such as internalized racism, self-awareness for liberation workers, building alliances for change, and critical liberation theory.

As the director of Cornell’s Intergroup Dialogue Project, Adi develops a variety of structured processes and programs for students, faculty, and staff that foster communication across difference and influence campus climate. Adi leads the expansion of the program in a direction that supports the evolving needs of the University and provides strategic guidance to the Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education on the development and implementation of curricular and co-curricular programs. Adi’s doctoral research examined the Israeli Left and political activism in Israel/Palestine. Before coming to Cornell she served as the Academic Administrator for Experiential Learning at Brandeis University, where she worked with faculty to incorporate experiential learning and reflective practice into their courses. Her experience at the Branco Weiss Institute (an Israeli educational NGO) allowed her to work with educators from different social and cultural backgrounds in Israel. She developed educational programs for high school students and led multicultural teams of educators to implement them nationwide. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell University, her M.A. in Cultural Production from Brandeis University and her B.A. in History from Tel Aviv University.

After completing her B.A. at William Smith College Rachel worked as a research assistant on a longitudinal study testing a social psychological intervention aimed at reducing the racial achievement gap in middle school. Rachel completed her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at Cornell with a dissertation exploring the development of purpose in life and identity among college students and adults. Rachel then spent a year doing research and evaluation at a nonprofit organization, supporting after-school program providers in New York City, Newark, and Las Vegas in their efforts to use data in goal-setting and decision-making processes. In 2016 Rachel returned to Cornell as a postdoctoral associate in the Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research. In that role she collaborated with researchers and youth work practitioners to investigate how youth programs promote adolescents cultivating their own identities and purpose. In January 2017 Rachel participated in the second IDP session for graduate/professional students and postdocs, after which she served as a co-facilitator and coach assisting with IDP’s offerings for Cornell students, faculty, and staff.

Jazlin was first introduced to IDP as an undergraduate at Cornell, and since then has been a facilitator, coach, curriculum developer, and student engagement coordinator. Jazlin studied inequality through majors in Sociology, English, and Performing and Media Arts as an undergraduate, and went on to complete her MPA in Human Rights and Social Justice at the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. As IDP’s pedagogy specialist, Jazlin is responsible for providing leadership and implementation of Intergroup Dialogue programs for a wide range of campus constituents. She is also the co-instructor for EDUC 2610 (Intergroup Dialogue) and for our course for graduate students. She supports our training and curriculum development for student facilitators.

Stephen Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in English with minor fields in Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies, Science & Technology Studies, and American Studies. He is also a Graduate Resident Fellow for Hans Bethe House in Cornell’s West Campus House System. He became involved with IDP after Cornell’s first IDP session for graduate/professional students and postdocs. He has facilitated the graduate course, designed a two-day training module for residential staff, coached undergraduate facilitators, and incorporated IDP into both his teaching and his dissertation research. He is excited to work in his new role as IDP’s designated support person for residential communities. He completed his B.A. at Yale University in English and Philosophy.

Deepika teaches in the Commonwealth Honors College at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She has been teaching postcolonial literature and theory in higher education in the United States for the past decade and a half. A dispute resolution trainer since 1997, Deepika introduced critical theory to the field of mediation and integrates conflict resolution theory with multicultural approaches to conflict resolution. She has trained at dozens of public and private educational institutions and organizations across the U.S. and provides consultation services for the development and implementation of peer mediation programs. She is co-trainer at the Social Justice Mediation Institute.

Leah is a member of the Legal Studies Program faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where her focus is the application of Critical Race legal theory to mediation. Since 1985, Leah has been a mediator and trainer for educational institutions, government agencies, and non-profits. She serves on the Boards of the International Council of Online Dispute Resolution, Conflict Resolution Quarterly, The International Journal of Online Dispute Resolution, and historically, Association of Conflict Resolution (2002-6). Leah co-directs the National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution and is co-trainer at the Social Justice Mediation Institute.

Tanya O. Williams’ mission is to provide and create spaces in relationships, conversations, communities for all people to feel seen and appreciated for their authentic selves. She believes that educating and working toward equity, as well as creating spaces of justice and communication all grow out of that desire. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, Tanya is based in both New York City and Oakland, CA and leads Authentic Coaching and Consulting (www.authenticseeds.org). Clients include NYU Stern School of Business, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), American College of Greece, Colorado State University, The Moth, Spence School, Harvard University Law School and others. She has over 20 years of diversity, inclusion, and social justice teaching, programming and facilitation experience in higher education including professional roles at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Mount Holyoke College, and Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. She holds a doctorate (Ed.D) in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and her dissertation focused on internalized racial oppression and process toward liberation. She also holds an MS in Educational Administration and BA in Journalism and English from Texas A&M University.

Javiera Benavente is an organizer, educator and facilitator who has been engaging the power of arts and culture to create resilient and equitable communities for over 20 years. She is the Director of the Ethics & Common Good Project at Hampshire College, which is dedicated to cultivating collaborative leaders who reflectively engage in creating a more resilient and equitable world.

Keri “Safire” DeJong, Ed.D. is a Social Justice and Equity Specialist at the Collaborative for Education Services. Safire provides social justice focused consulting and professional development for PK-12 schools with an array of talented and experienced co-facilitators. She supports school administrators, educators, and students to think proactively and act strategically to build resilient and liberatory school communities that keep young people's’ interests and voice leading our work.

Maya Sungold is a facilitator and fiber artist wrapping up their fellowship with the ethics & the common good project at Hampshire College. Their work aims to shape space and structure for connection and creation to resource us as we live into the world to come.

Desta is a queer artist, facilitator, organizer, and radical futurist, who is currently pursuing their B.A. in political theory and studio arts, as well as their certification as a doula. They are interested primarily in using art as a way to decolonize information and as a practice for restorative justice. They are dedicated to building relational leadership and using storytelling as a modality for connection.

Jules is a recent Hampshire alum who studies the group learning process, critical pedagogy, and experiential education. They worked closely with Ethics and the Common Good Project in their time at Hampshire College, organized the Five College Queer Conference for four years, and helped organize two retreats at Hampshire, one around the theme of radical care and one in collaboration with Relarional Uprising. They are inspired by the work of Relational Uprising and the writing of adrienne maree brown. They like poetry, cooking, and puns.

Founder of Art At Work (2007), a national initiative that increases cities’ resilience through strategic art projects and Executive Director of arts nonprofit Terra Moto Inc. Her plays have toured the United States and Europe since 1975. They include #PhillySavesEarth (climate change/history/time travel/personal tragedies/2016/ Painted Bride); ABUNDANCE: America & Money (interviews with 30 multi-millionaires & 30 minimum wage-workers/2004/ NYC, Philadelphia, Seattle, Burlington, Houston, Providence, Chicago); City Water Tunnel #3 (Obie-award, story of the building of NYC’s water tunne/1998/Judith Anderson NYC + ICA, London); Radio Calls (with police officers after fatal shooting/2010/Portland ME); home land security (intimate & societal impacts of 9/11 performed by Portland’s Mayor, Fire Chief, Sudanese Refugee, NAACP President, Mi’kmag Tribal member/ 2006 / Portland ME); All The Way Home (performances by veterans – Iraq & Afghanistan – battling PTS/2016/Portland ME). A MacDowell Colony Fellow, she is the creator, playwright and Executive Producer of ‘MAINEUSA’ an intimate epic performance to fight climate destruction with the history of Maine from the Ice Age till now. http://www.maineusa.us Many of her projects and plays can be found on YouTube, as well as her TEDx talk. Pottenger is grateful for the longtime support of Animating Democracy for its leading role in energizing creativity’s catalytic power in tackling the critical issues of the day.