Carrie Lowry Schuettpelz is an enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina and an Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Planning and Public Affairs (SPPA) at the University of Iowa. She also runs the Native Policy Lab. She is the winner of a Whiting Nonfiction Grant for her debut nonfiction book, The Indian Card, forthcoming from Flatiron in October 2024.  Her policy areas of expertise include Native policy, social policy, homelessness, and affordable housing. Her research focuses primarily on Native identity, particularly from a public policy lens. In addition to her writing, she is currently working on a project to return student records to survivors of Indian Boarding Schools.

Andrea Freeman is an author, law professor, and Fulbright scholar. She is a national and international expert on the intersections of race and food policy, health, and consumer credit. Her pioneering theory of food oppression reveals how food law and policy, influenced by corporate interests, leads to race and gender health disparities.

Wendy is a scholar of Middle East politics and author of the critically-acclaimed We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, a mosaic of first-hand Syrian testimonials that chronicles the Syrian uprising, war and refugee crisis. Wendy lectures around the world.

Author of Night in the American Village, Akemi strives to advance racial equity, social justice, and human rights in her writing and work. She is an educator at the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, where she teaches the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans and promotes the importance of remembering this history.

Doug is a writer and historian who regularly speaks at national and international conferences on the history of Rome, centering his talks on the interaction of pagans, Christians, and Jews in ancient Rome.

An anthropologist and graphic novelist, Sherine speaks nationally and internationally on the role of comics as a teaching tool and on social justice and representation in comics. In addition to her acclaimed academic work, she is the co-author of the graphic novel Lissa and author of the forthcoming YA graphic novel Jabs, the story of a Muslim-American girl’s coming-of-age.

Born in Harlem to Dominican parents, Raquel is an award-winning journalist, cultural activist, podcaster, and documentary filmmaker who travels widely to speak to diverse audiences about Latina identity, social justice, gentrification and inequality.

Nicholas Buccola is a writer, lecturer, and teacher who specializes in the area of American political thought.