Elise (Lise) Breen has investigated the practice of slavery on Cape Ann, resurrecting profiles of individuals who resisted their enslavement as well as their enslavers. She has identified Cape Ann citizens’ participation in the slave trade, surfacing evidence from international archives as well as overlooked local materials from 1685 through the mid-nineteenth century. Lise has shared her research in her many public talks and with local institutions and scholars. Her essay, “Hidden City: Slavery and Gloucester’s Quadricentennial” in Gloucester Encounters: Essays on the Cultural History of the City 1623-2023 was published by the Gloucester Cultural Initiative. Lise co-authored Objects of Myth and Memory, American Indian Art at the Brooklyn Museum. Nerissa Williams Scott is the founder of the Boston-based company That Child Got Talent (TCGT) in 2009 and the producer of Dill. Her career experience includes more than 30 years in performing and media arts and the production of two feature films. Over the past 10 years, Nerissa has served as Production Manager for a variety of live events, theater, fashion films, documentaries, narrative shorts, and music videos in New England. Nerissa also leads the operations of Next Leadership Development Corporation and serves on the board of Women in Film and Video New England (WIFVNE). She received her MFA in Film Production (Emphasis in Producing) from Emerson College.
Old South Meeting House
A global leader driving public health research, policy, and practice, Dr. Ashish Jha joined the Brown School of Public Health as dean in September 2020. An accomplished and practicing physician, Dr. Jha is recognized globally as a trusted expert on major issues impacting public health, and a catalyst for new thinking and approaches. A long-time leader on pandemic preparedness and response, from directing groundbreaking research on Ebola to serving on the frontlines of the COVID-19 response, he has led national and international analysis of key issues and advised local and federal policy makers around the world. Matt McKnight is General Manager for Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks. Biosecurity at Ginkgo is Ginkgo’s new $200M business unit focused on national security, public health, and pandemic response. Prior to building the Biosecurity business, Matt spent 4 years as Ginkgo’s Chief Commercial Officer and 7 years as an investor at IndUS Growth Partners where he was also the President and COO of Decision Resources Group. Matt has worked supporting business development at Palantir Technologies and is an active seed stage venture investor. Early in his career, he served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Matt completed a degree in History at Dartmouth College and is a graduate of the joint degree program at the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government where he was a Zuckerman Fellow.
Boston Public Library - Rabb Lecture Hall
Ada Ferrer
Boston College - Gasson 100
Jeffrey Rosen and Mary Sarah Bilder
John F. Kennedy Library
Sam Ransbotham is a professor of analytics at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management. He teaches “Analytics in Practice” and “Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.” Ransbotham served as a senior editor at Information Systems Research, associate editor at Management Science, and academic contributing editor at MIT Sloan Management Review. He co-hosts the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, available on all major platforms. Ransbotham received a National Science Foundation Career Program award “in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education,” for his analytics-based research in security. He was also honored with an INFORMS ISS Sandra A. Slaughter Early Career Award, which recognizes “early-career individuals who are on a path towards making outstanding intellectual contributions to the information systems discipline.” Ransbotham earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, an MBA, and a doctorate, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before earning his doctorate, he founded a software company with a globally diverse client list including the United Nations IAEA (Vienna), FAO (Rome), WHO (Geneva), and WMO (London). Since 2015, he has been an editor for MIT SMR’s Big Ideas initiatives, including Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy, and Competing With Data & Analytics.
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
Sarah Lohman is the author of Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Formerly the Curator of Food Programming at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, she currently works with institutions around the country to create public programs focused on food. She lives in Las Vegas.
Museum of Science
Daniel Alarcón
Boston College - Gasson 100
Museum of Science
Odie Henderson, Boston Globe Chief Film Critic in conversation with Candace McDuffie, nationally acclaimed senior writer at The Root.
Arsenal Center for the Arts
George Mutter trained in medicine at Harvard and Columbia, and is currently a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. He is a prolific scientist and educator, having authored over 120 scientific papers, and delivered numerous invited lectures internationally. Bernard Fishman is an Egyptologist trained at Columbia U. and U. of Pennsylvania. He worked in Egypt with the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago before becoming a nonprofit institution administrator. He is presently the Director of the Maine State Museum in Augusta, Maine.
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
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