ETHNOMUSICOLOGY PROFESSOR

Fredara is currently teaching at the prestigious Juilliard School. Her work has been featured in press outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Billboard Magazine, and in academic publications such as American Music. She has contributed to the PBS docuseries, Gospel, Little Richard: I am Everything, and the Emmy-award-winning The 1619 Project.

CHAMPION of EQUITY & INNOVATION

He is the CEO and Managing Partner of the Equity Alliance, a fund dedicated to providing capital to emerging, underrepresented venture capitalists and early-stage founders who are women or people of color. He is the founder of TRACE and TRUE Africa (funded by Google), two media companies focused on Black culture. He is a Visiting Social Innovator at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Social Innovation and Change Initiative.

AUTHOR, WRITER, LECTURER, CURATOR, ARTS & CULTURE CRITIC

She is a weekly columnist for the Financial Times weekend newspaper. Her column, “The Art of Life,” reflects her broader research and writing interests: how the intersection of art, philosophy, spirituality, ecology and culture can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live with ourselves and one another, and how we relate to the more-than-human.

POET & WRITER

He holds a BA from the University of Chicago and an MFA from New York University. The author of Leadbelly (2005) and Olio (2016), winner of the Pulitzer Prize, his other honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Chicago Sun-Times Poetry Award, a Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. He is President of Cave Canem, a nonprofit championing Black poets.

JOURNALIST, WRITER, & AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKER

Widely recognized for her work which dismantles the barricades of racism and sexism through the promotion of equality and pluralism, she is a contributing writer to the Washington Post and a researcher in residence for the Gender+Justice Initiative in Georgetown University, Washington D.C. She is a commentator for leading French news channels and RTL radio station.

CHARTERED ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT ANALYST

He is a seasoned leader in the London hedge fund industry, and has driven operational excellence at firms such as SS&C Globeop, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Lighthouse Partners LLP. Marcus is also the Founder & Managing Director of PointGuard Investments, focusing on residential and commercial property conversions in London. ​

AUTHOR & PHOTOGRAPHER

Born in London and raised in Boston, she holds a BA in American Studies from Yale and an MP in International Relations from Oxford. In 2005, she published the seminal essay “Bye-Bye, Babar (Or: What is an Afropolitan?),” sparking a movement among transnational Africans. Her debut novel, New York Times bestseller, Ghana Must Go, was on The Economist’s 10 Best Books of 2013 list.

ATTORNEY, AUTHOR, & HISTORIAN

Jacques holds degrees in economics and law from Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, and George Washington University. Fluent in French and Spanish, he has worked globally with institutions like the World Bank and traveled extensively across Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. He wrote the historical fiction book “The Master and the Diva” about African-American pioneers Will Marion and Abbie Mitchell and their contributions to American music and culture, blending a poignant love story with a narrative of triumph over racism. They also happen to be his grandparents.

TECH INDUSTRY LEADER

Named one of the Top 15 People in Enterprise Artificial Intelligence by Business Insider in 2023, she has led engineers, designers and researchers at top companies such as Microsoft and Capital One, designing and developing machine learning, artificial intelligence and enterprise software solutions for over a decade. She is currently the Director of UX, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at Google.

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR of HISTORY & FRENCH

She earned her A.B. in Comparative Literature at Princeton University and her Ph.D. in French Studies from Stanford University. She is the Director of Faculty Diversity in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University, and a thought leader in Critical Race Theory, anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.

CREATIVE ENTREPRENEUR

Nova Reid is a TEDx speaker, producer, and best-selling author of The Good Ally. With a background in mental health, she works internationally with leading organizations, fostering transformative change through courageous conversations. Nova’s powerful storytelling and advocacy for healing and equity have her featured in The Guardian, Vogue, and Elle, and she was named one of Black Magic Network’s Top 100 Black British Women and a Precious Award recipient for Social Impact.

STORYTELLER, AUTHOR & CULTURAL GEOGRAPHER

Deeply interested in issues related to identity, difference, creativity, and resilience, she aims to develop greater cultural competency within environmental organizations and institutions, challenge media outlets on their representation of difference and increase awareness of how privilege shapes who gets to address environmental issues and determine policy.