Coyle Scholar

Professor Daniel Willingham is a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at the University of Virginia who is widely recognized for his best-selling books, including his latest publication, "Outsmart Your Brain: Why Learning is Hard and How You Can Make It Easy." His expertise lies in unraveling the intricacies of how the brain learns. Notably, Professor Willingham has gained significant popularity on platforms like TikTok, amassing millions of likes through his concise "how-to" guides on study mindsets and strategies.

Click here to watch Professor Willingham's keynote address at GFA in October 2023.

Dr. Haidt, social psychologist, NYU professor, and New York Times bestselling author of titles including "The Righteous Mind: Why Good

People are Divided by Politics and Religion" and "The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure," made a return visit to Greens Farms Academy on November 10, 2022. Jonathan spent the afternoon with Upper School students and faculty and presented his keynote, "What is Happening to Gen Z: How to Make Our Kids Smarter and Stronger" for the broader community that evening. Dr. Haidt is a regular contributor to The Atlantic. Recent work has focused on civil discourse and the impact that social media is having on adolescents and democracy (a compendium of those pieces can be found here.) 

Click here to watch Dr. Haidt's keynote address at GFA.

In her highly acclaimed talk, the New York Times bestselling author of the anti-helicopter parenting manifesto How to Raise an Adult, Julie Lythcott-Haims, shared "How to Raise Successful Kids Without Over-Parenting". Lythcott-Haims, who served as the Dean of Freshmen and Student Advising at Stanford University for over a decade, drew on research, on conversations with admissions officers, educators, and employers, and on her own insights to examine the ways in which over-parenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large.

This Coyle Scholar offered practical strategies that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success. Watch her TED Talk here, learn more about her here.

Earlier in the day, Lythcott-Haims delivered her talk "What it Means to be Black in White Spaces" to our GFA Upper School students and faculty and staff. In Lythcott-Haims' Real American: A Memoir, she writes a powerful and award-winning reflection of identity, belonging, and community, and details growing up Black and biracial in white spaces. She shared how she found self-acceptance through the healing power of community. Her story is deeply personal, but its message is universal: people from marginalized communities will recognize echoes of their own experiences, and allies will learn how they can better show up, listen, and advocate for others.

While her cross-country travel has come to a halt recently, Lythcott-Haims has been busy helping parents cope with COVID-19 and our new reality offering free live webinars titled "How are you BEING with All that is Occurring?" The virtual workshops tackle "how to listen consciously, reduce drama, and create a win-win in times of stress and conflict." 

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson is the co-author (with Dan Siegel) of two New York Times best sellers: The Whole-Brain Child and No-Drama Discipline, as well as The Yes Brain and the upcoming The Power of Showing Up. In her books and acclaimed talks, Dr. Bryson artfully distills current neuroscience research around emotional regulation, resilience, and empathy to help parents, educators, and students develop strategies that will help young people thrive. In this keynote, Dr. Bryson demystifies the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining in a clear and practical way the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures. Dr. Bryson uses stories and humor to introduce parents to 12 whole-brain strategies.

Lisa Damour, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, teacher, speaker, and consultant who directs Laurel School’s Center for Research on Girls, writes the monthly Adolescence column for the Well Family section of the New York Times, is a regular contributor at CBS News, and serves as a Senior Advisor to the Schubert Center for Child Studies at Case Western Reserve University. Her New York Times best selling book, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood, was released by Random House in February 2016. Dr. Damour draws on years of clinical experience and the latest research to provide sound, practical guidance to girls as well as to their parents, teachers, and advocates. 

Captain Jeromy Williams, former commander in Naval Special Warfare and former fellow at Council on Foreign Relations, joining us as our Coyle Scholar.  In addition to meeting with our children about his path to a life of purpose through service, he will be providing a talk for parents that evening about the unique challenges facing our military today. In addition to commanding the Navy Special Warfare Development Group, Captain Williams has led at the platoon, troop, squadron and joint task force Brigade levels while serving in five geographic combatant commons.  His staff assignments include the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM), the Joint Special Operations Command, (JSOC), Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR), and the Navy Personnel Command. He was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations last year and is now working in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.  He holds a BS from US Naval Academy and an MA from the Naval War College, where he was a distinguished graduate.

Mr. Strouse has written scores for over 30 stage musicals, including 14 for Broadway. He has also composed scores for five Hollywood films, two orchestral works and an opera.  He has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Theatre Hall of Fame. He is a three–time Tony Award winner, a two–time Emmy Award winner, and his cast recordings have earned him two Grammy Awards. Charles Strouse is a Broadway legend. His musicals Annie and Bye Bye Birdie are among the most popular of all time–produced by regional, amateur and school groups all over the world. Mr. Strouse has penned many highly successful film scores as well — including Bonnie & Clyde, for which he received a Grammy nomination and the animated feature All Dogs Go To Heaven. His song "Those Were the Days," one of the most popular television themes of all time from All In The Family, continues to reach new generations of television audiences in syndication. Over the years, his music has attracted top recording artists such as Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, Duke Ellington, Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand — and more recently, Harry Connick, Jr. and Jay–Z.

Thinking creatively, learning faster, and leading change — these abilities are at a premium in a highly competitive world. What if you could call on history’s greatest genius, Leonardo da Vinci, to be your personal mentor? Michael J. Gelb, provided an interactive presentation bringing da Vinci’s genius to life. Gelb will introduce seven principles for thinking “a la Leonardo," which can be applied through practical exercises to overcoming life's challenges. 

Damon M. Wilson is executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, where he is responsible for programs and strategy. His work is committed to advancing a Europe whole, free, and at peace; to strengthening the NATO Alliance; and to fostering a transatlantic partnership capable of tackling global challenges and promoting its common values. From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Wilson served as special assistant to the president and senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council. He managed interagency policy on NATO, the European Union, Georgia, Ukraine, the Balkans, Eurasian energy security, and Turkey, and planned numerous Presidential visits to Europe, including US-European Union and NATO summits. Mr. Wilson has also served at the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq as the executive secretary and chief of staff; at the National Security Council as the director for Central, Eastern, and Northern European affairs; and as deputy director in the Private Office of NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson. Prior to serving in Brussels, Mr. Wilson worked in the US Department of State in various positions dealing with European security and China and served in Rwanda with Save the Children. He is a graduate of Duke University, studied at the University of Grenoble in France, and completed his graduate studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. Mr. Wilson also worked with the Unaccompanied Children in Exile refugee program in Croatia and Turkey, and has been decorated by the presidents of Estonia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, and Poland for his efforts to advance transatlantic relations.

Sennott is the Founder and Executive Director of The GroundTruth Project, dedicated to training the next generation of international journalists for the digital age. He is an award-winning foreign correspondent, author, and editor with 30 years of experience in journalism. Sennott has reported on the front lines of wars and insurgencies in at least 15 countries, including the 2011 revolution in Cairo and the Arab Spring. Previously, Sennott served as the Boston Globe’s Middle East bureau chief based in Jerusalem from 1997 to 2001 and as Europe bureau chief based in London from 2001 to 2005.

Stroupe has been an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 2003, working on the Mars Exploration Rovers. She works on building sequences for rover driving and operating the robotic arm as well as doing long-term planning for the rover’s route. Stroupe also has the distinction of being the first woman to drive the Mars Rover.

Susan Rodriguez, Founding Partner and Design Principal of Ennead Architects, is the recipient of the AIA NY Medal of Honor, Smithsonian Institution-Cooper Hewitt National Design Award and the National AIA Firm Award.  Rodriguez’s portfolio includes projects for civic, cultural and educational institutions as she has sought to create an architecture fused with its surroundings and inspired by its program.  She also lectures frequently and has taught numerous design studios at Cornell, Columbia and City College.  

Justin Hall-Tipping is CEO of NanoHoldings, a company that funds scientific breakthroughs. Mr. Hall-Tipping’s effort has funded some of the world’s top scientists to find new sources of energy and water using nanotechnology. He has been driven by the question: “What if the answer to some of our biggest problems could be found in the smallest of places?”

Fred Newman is a writer, actor, sound designer, musician and storyteller. He creates sounds and voices on A Prairie Home Companion and can be seen daily on the PBS reading show Between the Lions for which he has won several Emmy Awards. Fred graduated with honors from the University of Georgia and Harvard Business School, worked at Newsweek Magazine and there authored his award-winning, multi-media book MouthSounds (www.mouthsounds.info). He went on to become a writer and puppeteer for Jim Henson and then host several series for Nickelodeon and Disney, including The New Mickey Mouse Club (the one with Britany, Justin, and Ryan Gosling). Fred has created many voices, characters and sounds for film, stage and television, including Saturday Night Live, the cartoon series DOUG, and dozens of films such as Gremlins, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Cocoon, Practical Magic, Wolf, and Men in Black. Fred’s first, full symphony debuted in San Francisco in May with the 180-person, Marin Symphony Orchestra and Chorus — a new work he created with Rob Kapilow commemorating the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge. Having “given up the concept of adulthood,” Fred performs and lectures (sometimes on the decided advantages of dyslexia), around the country, often with his invented instruments, drawing upon his Southern storytelling roots.

Spending summers on Nantucket in his youth, Jeremy Barlow washed dishes at the White Dog Café, moved quickly to cooking and continued working summers while attending Vanderbilt University. 

After graduation, Jeremy attended the Culinary Institute of America, where he worked with some of the world’s best chefs and graduated with honors, receiving the Francis L. Roth award of excellence for academic and extracurricular performance. He interned at the Inn at Blackberry Farm with John Fleer.  

After six years in various chef positions in Nashville, Jeremy opened his first restaurant, Tayst Restaurant and Wine Bar, in February 2004, just south of Hillsboro Village in Nashville. 

In 2008 Tayst was the first in Nashville to become a Certified Green Restaurant (www.dinegreen.com). It represented Jeremy’s dedication to sustainability – an emphasis on local food served in a restaurant operating with environmentally responsible practices. 

Jeremy was named the 2011 and 2012 Sustainable Food Leader of the Year by the Lipscomb University Institute of Sustainable Practice’s Green Business Leadership Awards. He was named a “40 Under 40 Chef” by Mother Nature Network in 2009, and he was winner of the 2009 Iron Fork competition in Nashville. In 2010 Jeremy was named to the “40 Under 40” list by the Nashville Business Journal. Jeremy and Tayst received many awards during their time together, including Best Restaurant by Nashville Lifestyles magazine, Best Trendsetter and Best Environmentally Friendly Business by Nashville Scene, Most Creative Chef by the Nashville Scene, Best Menu Award by the Flavors of Nashville and Best Culinary Instigator by the Nashville Scene. 

In October 2011, Jeremy opened his second restaurant venture, Sloco, a sandwich shop in the 12 South live/work/play district of Nashville. With Sloco, Jeremy is proving that local and organic food also can be affordable and fast. To spend more time on his “food fast” concept, he closed Tayst at the end of 2012.

In 2011, Jeremy was a featured chef at the revered Beard House in New York and in 2012 prepared the James Beard Foundation Leadership Dinner, with Jeremy Bearman of Rouge Tomate.

Jeremy serves as co-chair of the Food Policy Council for Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County. The council was formed to advise the city on policy decisions involving food-related matters. He is also working on the development of a statewide Food Policy Council for Tennessee.

In 2012, Jeremy released his first book, Chefs Can Save the World, a call to action to everyone who dines and those who cook for them to use their collective power to change the food system and ultimately solve the most pressing crises of our time. The book’s foreword was written by renowned food activist Kelly Brownell and has received endorsements from food justice champion John Egerton and prominent sustainability chef Michel Nischan. 

In the summer of 2012, Jeremy attended the Chefs Boot Camp for Policy and Change hosted by the James Beard Foundation and sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trust. The event trained 13 like-minded chefs and other food professionals to be effective advocates for food system reform.

Jeremy speaks regularly on the topic of food system restoration. Recent appearances have included the keynote address for the Tennessee Organic Growers Association, featured author at the James Beard “Enlightened Eaters” series and speaking engagements at Vanderbilt University, Lipscomb University, Belmont University and University School of Nashville.

Jeremy and his ventures have been featured in the New York Times, Zagat online, the in-flight magazines of Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Continental Airlines, CNN, Martha Stewart Weddings, Cooking with Paula Deen, Breathe magazine, Plate, USA Today’s Guide to Green Living, Food Network Magazine and Food + Wine.

Jonathan Haidt, author of The Happiness Hypothesis and The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, spoke at Greens Farms Academy on Tuesday, May 1.  Haidt’s most recent book about why people hold their particular religious and political beliefs has hit a nerve during this election year.  It stirred debate in the pages of The New York Times, inspired an interview with Bill Moyers and brought him an invitation to the Colbert Show.  Paul Bloom of Yale University calls Haidt, “one of the smartest and most creative psychologists alive….”

Jacqueline Novogratz is the founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Acumen Fund aims to create a world beyond poverty by investing in social enterprises, emerging leaders, and breakthrough ideas. Under Jacqueline’s leadership, Acumen Fund has invested more than $60 million in companies in South Asia and Africa, all focused on delivering affordable healthcare, water, housing and energy to the poor. These companies have created more than 35,000 jobs, leveraged an additional $200 million, and brought basic services to tens of millions. Prior to Acumen Fund, Jacqueline founded and directed The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation. She also founded Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank. She is currently on the advisory boards of Stanford Graduate School of Business, MIT’s Legatum Center, and Innovations Journal published by MIT Press. Jacqueline serves on the Aspen Institute Board of Trustees and the board of IDEO.org, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Social Innovation. She was recently named to Foreign Policy’s list of Top 100 Global Thinkers and The Daily Beast’s 25 Smartest People of the Decade. Jacqueline is a frequent speaker, including the Clinton Global Initiative, TED, Aspen Ideas Festival, and other global forums. Her best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World chronicles her quest to understand poverty and challenges readers to grant dignity to the poor and to rethink their engagement with the world. 

Dr. Joia Mukherjee, Medical Director for Partners In Health (PIH), will speak at Greens Farms Academy on Tuesday, May 10, at 8 pm  on the topic, “From Haiti to Rwanda: Building Health Systems to Save and Transform Lives.” The presentation is free and open to the public.  

In the face of the AIDS and TB pandemics, Joia has pursued the specialties of internal medicine, pediatrics, infectious disease as well as training in public health to bring the fruits of modern medical treatment to places in desperate need. She currently leads a multi-disciplinary, trans-national team in nine countries in the design of systems to treat patients for HIV and TB. Joia was one of the creators of the DOTS-Plus model, the World Health Organization’s standard for the treatment of drug resistant tuberculosis, and contributed treatment guidelines and international trainings that have led to the implementation of DOTS-Plus in thirty countries. The work she contributed to treating AIDS in Haiti led to the government of Rwanda inviting PIH to replicate the model in 2004.  The governments of Lesotho and Malawi are adopting some part of the model in their national AIDS plan as well. The model of public sector support and community health workers was also central to the PIH and Harvard Medical School response to the Haitian Earthquake of January 2010, as well as to the subsequent cholera outbreak of October 2010.

Christopher Lydon has carried on a long conversation with America on topics such as technology, the arts, humanities, politics and international relations.  Starting as a journalist with the New York Times, he moved on to anchor the evening news on WGBH in Boston, and then to Public Radio where he spent six years hosting The Connection. During his tenure on The Connection, Lydon frequently discussed Internet topics, and his Radio Open Source blog became a launch pad for international broadcasts and other activities. While a fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society in 2003, Lydon began recording in-depth interviews focused on blogging and politics, posting the downloadable audio files as part of his blog. Dave Winer, also a Berkman Fellow, created an RSS enclosure feed for Lydon's MP3 interview files, dubbing Lydon "the original podcaster." Lydon also launched the political site Bopnews (for "Blogging of the President") during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. On May 30, 2005, Lydon returned to the air on University of Massachusetts Lowell's radio station WUML and Boston's WGBH with a new show called Open Source, syndicated through Public Radio International. In November 2007, Lydon partnered with Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies to continue producing Radio Open Source. Today, Lydon is the host of Radio Open Source, which he calls "a conversation on arts, ideas and politics".

Sedick Levy was born in South Africa, and during his youth the country officially implemented the apartheid system. As a teenager, Sedick became an activist and began to protest the government's policies. In 1963, he was arrested and sentenced to two years and several months in prison on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was also imprisoned the next year. Sedick's time on Robben Island in the stone quarry, in a cell, and always at the mercy of the white guards as well as more hardened criminals, left him with memories of how "low the South African government had stooped in its treatment of human beings." Years after apartheid ended, Sedick began to work on Robben Island, which had become a museum and tourist destination. He now gives tours of the prison, adding bits and pieces of his own story during his presentation. Sedick's message of "forgiveness, love and reconciliation" as well as his stories of how the prisoners lived their motto of "each one teach one" resonate across cultures and ask his audience members to examine their own attitudes and beliefs. 

Andrew Zolli, expert in global foresight and innovation, speaks to corporations, governmental organizations and NGO's about trends in technology, sustainability and global society.  Currently the Executive Director of Pop!Tech (www.poptech.org), Zolli presides over a group of leaders in science, technology, business, design, media and the arts who explore ways of addressing humanity's most difficult challenges.  The organization facilitates initiatives in areas like HIV, poverty, water and development around the world. Also a Fellow of the National Geographic Society, Zolli has served as "Futurist in Residence" at Popular Science Magazine and National Public Radio's Marketplace program.

Environmentalist Philippe Cousteau is the grandson of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. As a member of the legendary family, Philippe primarily continues the work of his father and grandfather through EarthEcho International, a non-profit organization that empowers people to use the resources that can restore and protect Earth's ocean and freshwater systems. Cousteau is also the Chief Ocean Correspondent for Animal Planet, where he works on various ocean documentary programs, including "Ocean's Deadliest," which he completed after his co-host Steve Irwin was fatally wounded during their expedition. He is currently a host for “Oceans,” a new High Definition Discovery Channel/BBC co-production that explores the state of our world's oceans and major seas.

Smithsonian Magazine’s recently named Cousteau to its list of “37 under 36, America’s Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences.” His many board memberships include the The Ocean Conservancy, Marine Conservation Biology Institute, and the National Environmental Education Foundation, as well as the Advisory Board of Discovery Communications Inc.’s Planet Green and Oceana's Ocean Council and he is a member of the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Initiative Council. He holds a Master's degree in history from the University of St. Andrews.

Cousteau's travels have taken him diving, rock climbing, trekking, and snowboarding around the world. From expeditions in the highlands of Papua New Guinea to war-torn Sarajevo, where he provided humanitarian aid, he has learned that exploring the connections between humans and the environment are as important as exploring nature itself.

Robert McDuffie has appeared as soloist with most of the major orchestras of the world. This season is highlighted by the premiere of Concerto for Violin No. 2, The American Four Seasons, a new work by Philip Glass written for Robert McDuffie: World premiere with the Toronto Symphony, European Premiere with the London Philharmonic, US premiere in Aspen. He will record the concerto, along with the Vivaldi Four Seasons, for Telarc.  He also returns to the Rome Chamber Music Festival, where he is Founder and Artistic Director.  McDuffie played with the National Symphony Orchestra on the West Lawn of the Capitol in the annual Memorial Day Celebration, which was televised live over PBS. 

Future plans include several tours with the Venice Baroque Orchestra, performing the Glass Concerto for Violin No. 2 and the Vivaldi Four Seasons: US (30 cities) fall of 2010; Europe fall of 2011; Asia fall of 2012.  A US tour with the Dűsseldorf Symphony and Andrey Boreyko is scheduled, as well as a performance of the Vivaldi and Glass Four Seasons in Düsseldorf. He will perform and record the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Houston Symphony.

McDuffie is a Grammy-nominated artist with CDs on Telarc and EMI. He plays a 1735 Guarneri del Gesu violin. He is a Distinguished University Professor of Music at Mercer University in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. This fall, the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings at Mercer University entered its third academic year. The Mayor of Rome has recently awarded McDuffie the prestigious Premio Simpatia in recognition of his contribution to the cultural life of that city. McDuffie has been profiled on NBC's "Today", "CBS Sunday Morning", PBS's "Charlie Rose", and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York with his wife and two children.

Scott Pelley has been a 60 MINUTES correspondent since 2004. Previously, he served as a correspondent for “60 Minutes II” and as Chief White House Correspondent for the CBS Evening News. In 17 years at CBS News, Pelley has worked as a war correspondent in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the former Yugoslavia. As a political reporter, he has covered numerous presidential campaigns and conducted four presidential interviews. Among his most memorable assignments was reporting from the World Trade Center as tower one collapsed on September 11, 2001. Pelley is honored to have received six Emmy Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award and the Writers Guild of America award. Pelley, a native of Texas, now lives in with his family in Connecticut.

Julius Coles, President of Africare, a nonprofit organization specializing in aid to Africa. Its programs address needs in the areas of food security and agriculture as well as health and HIV/AIDS. Africare reaches communities in 26 countries in every major region of sub-Saharan Africa. 

Before his inauguration as Africare’s second President, Coles spent twenty-eight years in the foreign service as a senior official with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).  During that time he worked with more than a dozen African and Asian countries to develop and implement programs for improved healthcare, education, and food security. While with USAID, Mr. Coles was Mission Director in Swaziland and Senegal and served in Vietnam, Morocco, Liberia, Nepal and Washington, D.C.   He retired from the U.S. Government’s Foreign Service in 1994 with the rank of Career Minister.

When Coles was honored recently at Princeton, the college described him as a "dedicated public servant, distinguished educator, role model in the African American community, loyal Princeton graduate alumnus, generous mentor to current students, and a man whose impact spans continents." 

Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D, was appointed the first Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City in 2006. She is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the field of modern Asian art for her landmark exhibitions and publications. Formerly Ms. Munroe served as Vice President of Arts & Culture at the Japan Society, New York, and Director of the Japan Society Gallery. For two consecutive years, The New York Times selected exhibitions that Ms. Munroe directed as the Number One Best Show of the Year. Her exhibitions include YES YOKO ONO (2000), which won high praise from the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) and drew one million visitors in its 13-city international tour. AICA also celebrated Ms. Munroe as project director for Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s  Exploding Subculture (2005), curated by Takashi Murakami. Ms Munroe holds a B.A. from Sophia University, Tokyo, an M.A. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and a Ph.D. in History from NYU.  

Ms. Munroe's forthcoming exhibitions are a major retrospective of Cai Guo-Qiang (2008); a commissioned installation by Anish Kapoor (2008) and a historical survey examining the influence of Asian art and thought on American modernism, tentatively titled American Art and the East (2009).  

Alan Mann is a physical anthropologist with a primary interest in the fossil evidence for human evolution.  His current research focuses on the evolution of the Neandertals and their relationships to modern peoples. A particular interest of his is the origin of language and its importance in the emergence of the quality of “humanness”.  

He has done field work in South and East Africa, Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany and now works primarily in the southwest of France.  He is co-director of the excavation of a Middle Paleolithic site in the Charente Department of southwest France where Princeton students excavated last summer as part of the university’s summer course on modern human origins.

He is the author of Some Paleodemographic Aspect of the South African Australopithecines and is the co-author, with Mark Weiss, of Human Biology and Behavior: an Anthropological Perspective, now being readied for its 6th edition as well as more than 50 articles in professional journals and popular magazines.  He has also written a children’s book on human evolution. He has been a consultant for the National Geographic Society and is the Anthropology consultant for the World Book Encyclopedia.  He has served as a consulting forensic anthropologist to many cities in the northeast and he says that discovering clues that helped to free an innocent young man from imprisonment was the best thing he has ever done.

Professor Mann teaches courses on human evolution, human adaptation, biological anthropology and the concept of race.  Professor Mann also teaches a summer course which is held at the University of Bordeaux, where he holds a research appointment.

Texas poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, dedicates herself to teaching enemies to see each other as ordinary people.  Calling herself a “wandering poet,” she has spent the last thirty years crossing the country—and the world—to lead writing workshops and to inspire students of all ages. Nye was born to a Palestinian father and an American mother, and grew up in St. Louis, Jerusalem and San Antonio.  Drawing on her Palestinian-American heritage, the cultural diversity of her home in Texas, and her experiences traveling in many parts of the world including Asia and the Middle East, Nye uses her writing to attest to our shared humanity.

Nye is the author and/or editor of more than twenty volumes.  Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, Red Suitcase, Words Under Words, Fuel, and You & Yours.  She is also the author of essays, picture books and Habibi, a novel for young readers.

In his journey from actor to producer, Salinger has been a star in film, theater and television, as well as a mentor to other performing artists and playwrights.  He formed New Moon Productions in 1993 and has produced 12 independent films. In 1996 he
discovered an acting exercise in Los Angeles that he later helped develop into the play, The Syringa Tree, which won an Obie for Best Play of the Year in 2002.

In Salinger’s 20-year career as an actor he had his own TV series twice on CBS, has starred in many Movies of the Week, and more recently has appeared on television’s 24 and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.   Film roles range from Captain America to Sidney Lumet's Power, to Under the Tuscan Sun.  He starred on Broadway in  Dancing in the Endzone and Off Broadway in The Sum of Us. As a producer, Salinger’s most recent project is the Off Broadway premiere of Richard Kalinoski's Beast on the Moon. Salinger is one of two producers introducing this love story between immigrants in 1915 to New York audiences. The play is directed by the award winning Larry Moss, who also
developed and directed The Syringa Tree and who, as their acting coach, helped both Leonardo Di Caprio and Hilary Swank to their Oscar performances this year. 

Salinger is an alumnus of Princeton and Columbia Universities.  He studied acting with Dan Seltzer at Princeton, with Stella Adler in New York, with Peggy Feury in LA, and at the Royal Academy of  Dramatic Art. Salinger has given many stars such as Angelina Jolie and Jon Bon Jovi their first big break, and particularly enjoys giving first time writers and directors a chance in the industry. He has a growing reputation for supporting people and projects who too often get ignored, co-opted or otherwise chewed up in Hollywood. 

Daniel Okrent was the first Public Editor of the New York Times for an 18-month run ending in May 2005.  Before that he worked at Time Inc as Editor-at-Large, Editor of New Media, and Managing Editor of Life magazine. 

Okrent has also worked extensively in book and magazine publishing.  He was an editor at Alfred A. Knopf and at the Viking Press, and editor-in-chief of general books at Harcourt Brace.  In magazines, he was president and editor of New England Monthly (twice winner of the National Magazine Award for General Excellence).  He was a featured commentator on Ken Burns’s PBS series, Baseball. As a writer, he has published four books – most recently Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center, which was named a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in History. His current project is a history of the U.S. during Prohibition, to be published in 2008 by Scribner, simultaneous with the PBS broadcast of a Ken Burns documentary based on the book.  Okrent is the inventor/founder of Rotisserie League Baseball, and is the author of several books about America’s greatest pastime including The Ultimate Baseball Book, Nine Innings and Baseball Anecdotes.

In the 1999-2000 academic year, Okrent was the Hearst Foundation Visiting Fellow in New Media at the Columbia University School of Journalism. He has also addressed classes at Stanford Business School, Harvard Business School, and several other colleges and universities. 

A native of Detroit and a graduate of the University of Michigan, Okrent lives in Manhattan and on Cape Cod with his wife, Rebecca. They have two adult children.  In the spring of 2006, Okrent will be a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Devra Davis, author, professor and environmental crusader, has counseled leading officials in the United States, United Nations, World Health Organization and The World Bank on environmental dangers. The sooty gray skies of Donora, Pennsylvania, the site of the first “killer smog” in the United States, are part of Dr. Davis’s earliest memories. Since college she has devoted her professional life to the study of environmental risk factors for cancer and other chronic diseases.

Designated a National Book Award Finalist for When Smoke Ran Like Water, Tales of Environmental Deception and the Battle Against Pollution (2002 Basic Books), Davis now heads up the world’s first Center for Environmental Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute.  The multidisciplinary center includes experts in medicine, basic research, engineering and public policy, who will develop cutting-edge studies to identify the causes of cancer and propose policies to reduce the risks of the disease.  Honored for her research and public policy work by various national and international groups, Davis is Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, Visiting Professor at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz School, Honorary Professor at London’s School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Expert Advisor to the World Health Organization. 

Dr. Davis holds a B.S. in physiological psychology and a M.A. in sociology from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed a Ph.D. in science studies at the University of Chicago, as a Danforth Foundation Graduate Fellow and a M.P.H. in epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University, as a Senior National Cancer Institute Post-Doctoral Fellow. She has authored more than 170 publications and has also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other mass media outlets.