Virginia was a top entertainment executive with Norman Lear’s production company, helping to develop popular shows such as All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, One Day At A Time, Facts of Life, and The Jeffersons. As an independent producer, Virginia earned an Emmy and two Peabody awards. Virginia began her career as a space scientist who conducted important satellite-based experiments measuring properties of the atmosphere. Her success helped open the way for other female scientists. She holds a BS from McGill University, a Master of Science from the University of Southern California, and an honorary Doctorate of Science from McGill University.
Staff & Boards
We love to roll the credits, celebrating our dedicated community of team members, social scientists, supporters, and advocates. We maintain offices in South Burlington, Vermont and in active countries around the world. We also have staff who work remotely from around the world, including Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles and Montreal.
Mary el-afandi
Ronald Ahirirwe
Ana Akin
Sandy Bender
Guy BOKONGO
Elizabeth Borg
Natalia Cereser
Samuel DiChiara
Jean Luc Dushime
Katie Elder
Hailegnaw Eshete, PhD, MPH
MIKE FICKLING
Christina Guérin
Todd Hawk
Barbara Johnson
Susan Jones
Sandy Jonah, MA
Charles Kalonga, MBA
Tom Kazungu
Erik Mandell
Berlyn Joseph
Cecilia Orvañanos
Rajan Parajuli
Cody Peluso
Aziah Kamari Pless
William J. Rider, CPA
Amy Henderson Riley, DrPH
Lamoussa Robgo
Moussa Abdou Saley
Tiffany Simmons
Wendi Stein
Missie Thurston
Virginia Carter, MS
Randy Freer
Randy, CEO of The Freer Company, is a media, sports, and technology executive who excels in building innovative, consumer-focused, digital platforms for entertainment, education, gaming, and sports. Previously, Randy served as the CEO of Hulu, where his strategic initiatives helped attract 30+ million subscribers in just two years — a nearly 50% annual increase across multiple years. He has also led 21st Century Fox global entertainment and sports television assets and was the President and COO of the Fox Networks Group. In 2021, Randy became a Senior Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow.
Kristina Hare Lyons, MPH, MALD
Kristina is a humanitarian, filmmaker, consultant, entrepreneur, and mother. She started her own business in 2007, Portobello Road, a retail store that emphasizes fair trade and eco-friendly products. Previously, she worked at Physicians for Human Rights on a landmark study on war-related sexual violence in Sierra Leone, at Elle Magazine as West Coast Editor, as an Associate Producer at Frontline, and with filmmaker Oliver Stone on numerous projects. More recently, she consulted with the Ministry of Health in Liberia through the Harvard Ministerial Leadership program on efforts to address tragically high rates of maternal mortality and is developing content at her film company, Lyonshare Pictures. Kristina currently sits on the directors of Urban Improv in Boston and holds a Masters in Public Health and Population from Harvard, a Masters in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, and a BA from Tufts.
Penny Hawkins
Penny is an evaluation specialist with over 30 years of experience. Prior to establishing her own business in 2016, she was Head of Evaluation at the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for several years. Penny has served in evaluation leadership and management roles in government, philanthropy, and NGOs, including at The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Ministry of Social Development in New Zealand. She is a former Chair of the OECD-DAC Network on Development Evaluation (2013-16) and former President and Fellow of the Australasian Evaluation Society (AES). Penny’s publications include a book – Evaluation Cultures: Sense Making in Complex Times, and she is currently co-editing a book on ethics and evaluation. Penny is the founder and CEO of a woman-owned international development evaluation consultancy – Creative Evaluation Limited, working with philanthropic, multi-lateral, and private sector organizations to develop relevant and effective measurement and learning systems for impact management.
Ron Hoge, MBA
Ron is the Chairman of Pinnacle Engines, a venture-backed energy tech startup. Ron has 40 years of global business experience in a wide range of industries with leadership roles in several Fortune 500 companies. He also serves on the directors of microfinance leader ACCION and is a trustee at EARTH University in Costa Rica. Ron has a B.A. in Mathematics from Amherst College and an M.B.A in Marketing from Stanford University.
Jotham Musinguzi, MD, MPH
Dr. Musinguzi is an advisor to the President of Uganda. Previously, he served as the Director General of the National Population Council of Uganda and Regional Director of Partners in Population and Development (PPD) Africa Regional Office (ARO) based in Kampala, Uganda. Dr. Musinguzi is a Public Health Physician. He received the 2013 United Nations Population Prize from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at UN Headquarters in New York in recognition of his outstanding contribution to implementing the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) Programme of Action. He also received the 2014 International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement from the University at Albany Alumni Association. He serves on several boards, including Women Deliver of New York and Commonwealth Medical Trust of London. In 2012, Dr. Musinguzi was actively involved in the landmark London Family Planning Summit, culminating in FP2020, supported by the Gates Foundation, the United Kingdom Government, and UNFPA.
Chris Purdy
Chris is the president and CEO of DKT International. From 1996 to 2011, he served as country director of DKT programs in Turkey, Ethiopia, and Indonesia, where he managed the largest private social marketing family planning program in the world. He is also the Founder and CEO of carafem, a network of reproductive health centers serving populations in the USA. He is the author of numerous articles on family planning, social entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. He received his BA from Carleton College and an MA from Cornell University.
Alechia Reese
Alechia Reese is a versatile professional, serving as a strategic transformation coach, project manager, best-selling author, and international speaker. She’s the principal of RGLP Group, LLC, and co-hosts the Triggered AF & Got Value? Podcasts. With expertise in neuro-linguistic programming, she helps executives and leaders leverage their personal and professional value to boost impact and reduce burnout. Her strategies foster strong professional relationships, leading to successful careers, thriving businesses, and fulfilling lives.
Alechia has a rich career history, including leadership roles in project management and public relations. Her clients have been featured in top publications, including the New York Times, Forbes, and more. She’s also known for creating MoveOn.org’s first external strategic communication strategy and producing their groundbreaking Election Night Watch Party show, reaching over 300,000 viewers. Alechia’s training in andragogy has positively impacted adult learners globally. She’s organized events ranging from small gatherings to large-scale conferences and has spoken for diverse organizations and leaders, including Flaviana Matata, Zendaya Coleman, Verizon, and Bank of America, among others.
William Ryerson, MPHIL
Bill is President and Founder of PMC, representing the organization in various capacities and helping to set the direction for PMC. He has a half-century of experience working in the field of reproductive health and more than three decades in Social Behavior Change Communication in various cultural settings worldwide.
Jerri Lea Shaw
Jerri is the co-founder and former President and Co-CEO of JBS International, a consulting firm focused on strengthening health care and social service policy, financing, and service delivery in domestic and international systems. JBS is one of the largest women-owned firms in the Washington metropolitan region, and Jerri has received multiple awards for corporate social leadership. She has been working to address women’s empowerment and reproductive health challenges for decades. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and a Master of Regional and City Planning from the University of North Carolina.
Fran Stoddard
Fran Stoddard has been involved in education, public relations, media production, facilitation, and strategy development for over 30 years. A national award-winning media producer, Fran is the current host of “Across the Fence,” America’s longest running daily community television program that airs on WCAX-TV in Burlington, Vermont. She has also served as producer/host of Vermont Public Television’s weekly “Profile,” an interview program, a health care series “Vital Signs,” and Vermont Public Radio’s call-in program, “Switchboard,” as well as other public broadcasting programs. Stoddard was an adjunct associate professor of media studies and production at Champlain College, where she developed and ran the media communications program. She frequently serves as moderator/host for community events, panels, and debates. Fran holds a master’s degree in psychology from Goddard College and a bachelor’s degree in communications from Northwestern University.
For six years, she worked extensively with the Orton Family Foundation and their Community Heart & Soul planning process that strengthens rural towns as a communications consultant. With a deep interest in helping organizations move forward, Fran has facilitated retreats and summits for nonprofit Boards and towns in strategic planning processes and has served on many non-profit boards. In 2010, she became a Quebec Labrador Foundation Fellow and traveled to the Middle East. Soon after, she co-founded the Vermont Global Exchange, a network of NGOs and businesses working internationally with a home base in Vermont.
Itang H. Young, Mdiv.
Itang is a global public servant with passion-led experience in gender-based advocacy, leadership for social equity, and economic development initiatives. An engineer by training, she has a unique combination of skills, background, and experience, including international social enterprise leadership, change management expertise, and extensive leadership experience with major corporations, non-profit, and international entities. Itang most recently served as Assistant Pastor at the world-renowned Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, NY, and as the Executive Director of The Abyssinian Fund, Inc., which worked to reduce poverty in Ethiopia and increase girls’ access to education in Kenya. Itang holds a certificate in Eastern European Business, Law & Diplomacy from Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia); a BS in Industrial Distribution Engineering from Texas A&M University; a M.Div. in Theology from the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University; and a Ph.D. in Leadership and Management from Fordham University.
Earl Babbie, Ph.D
Earl Babbie, Ph.D., served 15 years on the PMC Board of Directors. An emeritus professor of Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University, he is the author of The Practice of Social Research and The Basics of Social Research, among other textbooks and scholarly works. He serves as a pro-bono research advisor to PMC. He received an A.B. from Harvard College and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Neal A. Baer, MD
Executive Producer of the CBS drama “A Gifted Man.” Was Executive Producer and Writer, “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,” NBC, 2000-2011; Executive Producer and Writer, “ER,” NBC, 1994-2000. Adjunct Professor, University of Southern California, 2001-2005. Co-established the Institute for Photographic Empowerment at USC’s Annenberg School of Communications, to link photographic story-telling projects around globally and make them available to NGOs and policymakers. He has published articles regarding the depiction of health and health care providers on television. Political Science, magna cum laude, Colorado College; Ed.M., Education, Harvard University, 1979; M.A., Sociology, Harvard University, 1982; M.D., Harvard, Medical School, 1996.
Amy Blackstone
Professor of Sociology and the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine where she directs Maine NEW Leadership, a residential institute for undergraduate women interested in civic and political leadership. Volunteers for her local feminist health center, Mabel Wadsworth Center, and serves on the advisory boards of the NotMom Summit and the documentary film To Kid or Not to Kid. Her research on topics ranging from the childfree choice to civic engagement has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and featured in such media outlets as TIME, CNN, Elle, BuzzFeed, Bloomberg News, and The Atlantic.
Florence Blondel, MS
Ms. Blondel was born and raised in Uganda and holds an M.S. in Population & Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is an award-winning journalist and digital storyteller with a passion for the environment, health, science, and the rights of women and girls. She’s worked at U.K.-based Population Matters as the Campaigns and Project Officer and currently hosts a live, online show on sexual and reproductive health issues. Ms. Blondel is also working on a new project, FlowReady, a menstruation awareness campaign to prepare girls in rural communities for their periods.
Sarah L. Bosha
Sarah L. Bosha is an international human rights lawyer and passionate advocate for advancing and protecting the right to health. She is the director of Capacity-Building and Health Law Programs at O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches a course on Global Health Law, and a class focused on Decolonization, Global Health and the Law. In addition, Sarah is a member of the Secretariat supporting the work of the O’Neill Lancet Commission on Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health.
Sarah’s work focuses on health, gender, and human rights and, in particular, advancing accountability and justice for violations of the right to health. She was part of the legal team that presented a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human & Peoples Rights, challenging Jamaica’s homophobic Offences Against the Person Act, for its violation of the right to health and other human rights of LGBTQ+ Jamaicans. Additionally, she worked with colleagues at the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa, to support of victims of Yahya Jammeh’s fraudulent HIV cure, in their quest for justice and reparations. She actively supports the work of local organizations working to advance health and other human rights for persons with albinism in Zimbabwe and the Southern Africa region.
Sarah holds an LLBS (Honours) degree from the Faculty of Law at the University of Zimbabwe, an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the Klau Center at the University of Notre Dame, and an M.A. in International Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
Lester Brown
Described as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” by the Washington Post, Brown is President of Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit environmental research organization, which he founded in May 2001. Some 30 years ago, he pioneered the concept of environmentally sustainable development. He is widely known as the founder and former President of the Worldwatch Institute. Brown has been awarded 25 honorary degrees and has authored or co-authored over 50 books (including his most recent, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse), 19 monographs, and countless articles. He is a MacArthur Fellow and the recipient of many prizes and awards. In 1985, the Library of Congress requested his personal papers, noting that his writings and work had “already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”
Simona Carniato
A Clinical Psychologist, CBT Psychotherapist, and Behavioral Change Communication Expert, with over two decades of experience, she is dedicated to applying best practices in cognitive and behavioral sciences. Her career focuses on promoting psycho-social health and human rights through evidence-based approaches. Since 2006, Simona has been a key contributor to Behavioral Change Communication, serving as an expert for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Her impactful work spans educational health programs across Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Uganda, Nigeria, and the Palestinian Territories. She significantly contributed to the expert consensus study, “Theories and Techniques of Behavior Change Project,” led by Professor Susan Michie at the University College London (UCL) in 2015. As Co-founder and President of Studioo Onlus (2011-2023), Simona has actively led efforts to promote empowerment and sustainability through media and art. In 2019, Simona authored “The Pervasiveness of Art: How and how much Art Influence Us?” — a book that explores the psycho-social impact of the opening art performance at the Biennale di Venezia in 2017: “Mama Say Make I Dey Go, she She Dey My Back” by Jelili Atiku, using a mixed-method research approach. An accredited member of professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association (APA), European Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies (EABCT), Italian Association for Behavior Analysis and Modification (AIAMC), and the European Society for Research on Interventions on the Internet (ESRII). Simona’s diverse expertise and unwavering dedication make her an invaluable asset to any initiative promoting human rights and psycho-social well-being.
N. Kate Cho, MHS
Ms. Cho has nearly 15 years of international public health experience with a focus on family planning and reproductive health issues. She currently serves as the Senior Program Officer for Advocacy for The Challenge Initiative, where she works to increase government financial commitment and programmatic capacity in family planning and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. She began her international public health career at Population Media Center, as Program Assistant to PMC’s inaugural radio programs in Ethiopia and Mali, after being inspired by a university class taught by another Program Advisory Board member, Robert J. Wyman on Global Problems of Population Growth. She graduated from Yale University in 2003 with a BA in history and from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 2007 with a Master of Health Science, specializing in population, family, and reproductive health.
Zoanne Clack, MD, MPH
Writer and Co-Executive Producer on the award-winning ABC television hit Grey’s Anatomy. Dr. Clack has been with the show since it began and also acts as a medical advisor, assisting in production of all medical aspects of the show. She has a B.S. in communications from Northwestern, an MD from UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas, and an MPH in behavioral sciences from Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. She completed a residency in Emergency Medicine, a fellowship in Injury Prevention, and spent a year at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in International Emergency Medicine developing and expanding the concept and practice of emergency medicine in Tanzania and the South Pacific island of Palau.
John Coulter, MD
Dr. Coulter is the National Vice-President of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) (www.population.org.au). Dr. Coulter’s career has been a mix of medical research, environmental activism and lecturing, and politics. In 1987, he was elected as a Democrat Senator for South Australia. He was leader of the party, 1990-1993. While in the Senate he introduced the first legislation in the Australian Federal Parliament to control the use of CFCs and the first legislation to protect threatened species. In 1989, he initiated a Senate Inquiry into Climate Change. He has run major conferences on Climate Change, starting with a national conference in Adelaide in 1986, as well as conferences on population and environmental sustainability. Dr. Coulter has been active in the conservation movement for over 50 years. He was a founding member of the Conservation Council of South Australia (1971) and former President (1984), Councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation 1973-1990 and from 2003 to the present and a former Vice President. He recognised early that population growth was one of the key drivers of environmental deterioration and in 1971 helped form ZPG Australia.
Eileen Crist
Eileen received her Bachelor’s from Haverford College in sociology in 1982 and her doctoral degree from Boston University in 1994, also in sociology, with a specialization in life sciences and society. Between 1989 and 1991 she lived in Amherst, MA where she studied environmental evolution (Gaia theory) with Lynn Margulis. Following two post docs after graduating from Boston University (at University of California, San Diego and Cornell), she accepted a position at Virginia Tech in the Department of Science and Technology in Society where she has been teaching since 1997. She is author of Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind. She is also coeditor of a number of books, including Gaia in Turmoil: Climate Change, Biodepletion, and Earth Ethics in an Age of Crisis, Life on the Brink: Environmentalists Confront Overpopulation, and Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth. Eileen is author of numerous papers and contributor to the late journal Wild Earth.
Ann DeMarle
Champlain College Faculty Emeritus Ann DeMarle is a futurist with expertise is in education, arts, technology, immersive media, and collaborative leadership. She is an Apple Distinguished Educator, an IBM Faculty Fellow, and has served on numerous international boards. Since 2019 she is a consultant applying communication technologies for social benefit working with: UNICEF Rwanda hosting BREAKAWAY, a game-driven intervention against gender-based violence into the Mahama Refugee Camp; and Population Media Center to launch BREAKAWAY in Guatemala through Universidad Raphael Landívar and into Peruvian schools. In 2020, she served as Presidential Advisor to foster innovation across Champlain College’s academic portfolio leading the development of the 2030 Strategic Plan; in 2022 Ann assumed the role of acting dean of Stiller School of Business; and in 2023, led development of an innovative degree in Cybersecurity in collaboration with industry. Day-to-day, Ann is an artist living in Vermont with her three Springer Spaniels.
Madeline Di Nonno
Chief Executive Officer of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, the leading research driven advocacy organization working within the entertainment and media industry to create gender balance, foster inclusion and reduce negative stereotyping in family entertainment media. Di Nonno leads the Institute’s strategic direction, fundraising, programs, research, financial and operational activities. Di Nonno brings a track record of successful executive leadership in the entertainment, non-profit, digital and consumer packaged goods industries. Di Nonno is an Executive Producer on the Emmy nominated, People’s Choice and Gracie award winning television series Mission Unstoppable and the Gracie award winning feature film documentary This Changes Everything. Previously, Di Nonno has served in Executive leadership positions for Anchor Bay Entertainment/Starz Media, Nielsen Entertainment, Hallmark Channel, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and ABC Television Network. Di Nonno is U.S. State Department Speaker Specialist and is also a frequent speaker at global conferences, corporations, governmental organizations and festivals, such as AdWeek, Cannes Lion, Chatham House, CES, Kidscreen, London Film Festival, New Zealand Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, The White House, UNESCO, and the United Nations. Di Nonno has been featured in global media outlets such as Adweek, Ad Age, Cosmo, Fast Company, FOX 11, Forbes, Glamour, The Guardian, MediaWeek, Huffington Post, Spectrum TV, The Hollywood Reporter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and Variety. Di Nonno holds a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. Di Nonno is an appointed Arts Commissioner the Los Angeles County Arts Department. serves on the Board of Directors for the Television Academy Foundation; and Friends of the Erben Organ. Di Nonno is on the Advisory Board for the Johnny Carson Center for Emerging Media Arts.
Paul R. Ehrlich, PhD
Bing Professor of Population Studies and President of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. Dr. Ehrlich is the recipient of numerous international honors such as the Crafoord Prize in Population Biology and Conservation of Biological Diversity, the MacArthur Prize Fellowship, and the United Nations Environment Programme Sasakawa Environment Prize. Author of more than 1000 scientific papers and articles and more than 45 books, he is best known for his ground-breaking volume The Population Bomb released in 1968, which gave a dire forecast of impending international famine, climate disruption, and other environmental problems caused in part by unrestrained population growth. His 2008 book, The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, deals with human cultural and biological evolution: how those evolutions have impacted the environment and what that means for our future. Most recently he has published (with psychologist Robert Ornstein) Humanity on a Tightrope: Thoughts on Empathy, Family, and Big Changes for a Viable Future, which deals with the steps required to reach a sustainable society.
Robert Engelman
Mr. Engelman was the past President and now Senior Fellow of the Worldwatch Institute. As Vice President previously, Engelman wrote extensively on population and the environment, reproductive health, and climate change. Previously, he was Vice President for Research at Population Action International. A former newspaper reporter, Engelman has served on the faculty of Yale University as a visiting lecturer and was founding secretary of the Society of Environmental Journalists. The Population Institute, where he currently serves as a Senior Fellow as well, awarded his book, More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, the 2008 Global Media Award for Individual Reporting on Population. His writing has appeared in scientific journals and news media including Nature, Scientific American, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Brenda Feigen
Former Population Media Center board member Brenda Feigen is a feminist activist, lawyer, author and producer. She is an experienced women’s rights, civil rights, employment and entertainment law attorney. She has worked on sex discrimination cases that involved violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, including harassment and wrongful termination on both the federal and state levels, as well as landmark constitutional cases. She sat at the counsel table as then Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg argued the landmark case, Frontiero v. Richardson, in which it was established that discrimination on the basis of gender would receive more than the cursory review it had previously garnered. Brenda continues with litigation today, as she is joined by co-counsel from the ACLU and several private law firms in a class action brought on behalf of pregnant and lactating dockworkers against the Pacific Maritime Association and the ILWU.
After co-founding the Women’s Action Alliance and its “newsletter” Ms. Magazine, with Gloria Steinem, she accepted the position of Director (with then Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg) of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, becoming one of its two co-founders. After Roe v. Wade was decided, Brenda expanded the scope of the Women’s Rights Project to include the Reproductive Freedom Rights Project. She took on multiple cases involving the involuntary sterilization of poor young women in the South.
In the entertainment field, Brenda has handled matters involving the motion picture, television, literary and other intellectual property areas. Her practice has also been enhanced by her own experience as an agent at the William Morris Agency and then as the producer of a big-budget Hollywood movie, NAVY SEALS (Orion, 1990). Her book, NOT ONE OF THE BOYS: LIVING LIFE AS A FEMINIST, was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. in 2000 and then in 2022 with a new chapter, “The Wheel of Feminism.” The book is available in both digital and audible formats.
In 2018, Brenda appeared in the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning documentary RBG. In early 2020, she was depicted in the widely acclaimed Mrs. America limited series (Available on Hulu), with actor Ari Graynor portraying Brenda.
In 2021, Brenda wrote tributes to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews. In both, Brenda says how much working with Ruth influenced her entire legal career. Brenda has served as a member of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the National Employment Lawyers Association.
In 2022, Brenda Feigen was the recipient of one of Vassar College’s most distinguished awards: The Spirit of Vassar. Selected from a pool of over 40,000 graduates, it is given only to one alumna/us each year. In late 2023, Brenda was honored to participate in a Cambridge University debate on the American Constitution. While there, she also addressed a large group of students, members of the Cambridge Union for Reproductive Rights. Her trip to England was followed by an interview for a podcast with The Economist that will be available in mid-2024.
Brenda received her Vassar degree with honors in Mathematics and a double minor in Economics and Russian. Her first year at Harvard Law School, where women constituted 6% of the class (up from 3% in RBG’s years there ten years earlier), raised her consciousness so high that she emerged from the Law School, graduating in 1969, a radical feminist.
Lucy Lee Grimes Evans
Ms. Grimes is the district representative for Population Connection and a long-time population stabilization advocate. She is a supporter of domestic and international family planning and the Chair of Sierra Club of Connecticut’s Nuclear-Free Committee.
Robert W. Gillespie
Mr. Gillespie is the President of Population Communication. From 1962 to 1963, Mr. Gillespie was at Pathfinder in Asia, where he manufactured the Lippes loop in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China. With Pathfinder, he traveled to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Province of China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia to report on family planning and population policies. From 1964 to 1976, he served as Resident Representative for the Population Council in Taiwan, Province of China, Turkey, and Iran and as a consultant for SIDA, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation in Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Egypt, the Philippines, and Thailand. He founded Population Communication in 1977. He authored the Statement on Population Stabilization that was presented by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, with signatures of 40 heads of government. At the 50th UN anniversary, the Statement was presented by President Suharto to Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, with the signatures of 75 heads of governments. Gillespie has designed 181 family planning and population policy instruction and evaluation materials that have been used in program and policy development in 10 countries. He co-produced the feature-length documentary, No Vacancy (www.novacancythemovie.com). Complimentary copies of either the 60 or 90-minute version are available with a companion book that summarizes the interviews in Iran, Ghana, Nigeria, Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, India, and the US. His email address is popcommla@aol.com.
Lindsey Grant
A writer and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Environment and Population. His books include Juggernaut: Growth on a Finite Planet; How Many Americans?; Elephants in the Volkswagen; Foresight and National Decisions: The Horseman and the Bureaucrat; Too Many People: The Case for Reversing Growth; The Collapsing Bubble: Growth and Fossil Energy; and The Age of Overshoot. His shorter pieces (and most of his recent work) are to be found at www.npg.org under Publications.
Lynn Gutstadt
Ms. Gutstadt is an independent marketing and media research consultant based in Los Angeles with extensive experience in strategic research for program development and impact evaluation for traditional and new media. In addition to managing online research panels for two current TV Network clients, she partners with companies Research Narrative in Los Angeles and Ascension Strategies in Atlanta, GA. She has held senior research positions at or consulted with television, internet, and non-traditional media companies including Facebook, Vulcan Productions, Ovation, CBS Interactive, CNET Networks, Premiere Retail Networks, TechTV, and CNN, where she was Vice President of Audience Research for the News Division. She holds an MA in Communication Research from Stanford University and has spoken at numerous national and international media conferences.
Yasmeen Hassan
Yasmeen Hassan is a human rights lawyer who served as the Global Executive Director and previously Deputy Executive Director of Equality Now, a human rights organization focused on equality for women and girls (2008-2023). Yasmeen has worked at the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women (2003-2008) where she led the Secretary General’s first study on violence against women (2006) and the Secretary General’s campaign on violence against women (2008). She practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and California (1995-2003). She serves on the boards of Musawah (a movement for equality in the Muslim family) and Women for Women International and on the advisory boards of Gucci Chime for Change and Gucci Changemakers. She has served on the Council on Foreign Relations’ Advisory Board on Child Marriage, provided expert guidance to the U.N. Trust to End Violence Against Women, and advocates for women’s rights through appearances in numerous media outlets, including CNN, Al Jazeera, the Huffington Post, the New York Times and the Washington Post. She was named as Forbes 50 Over 50, received Stanford Law School’s National Public Service Award, SAKHI’s Gender Justice Award and the Government of Finland’s International Gender Equality Prize on behalf of Equality Now. Yasmeen is a native of Pakistan and authored the country’s first study of domestic violence, which ultimately became Pakistan’s submission to the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. Yasmeen holds a J.D., from Harvard Law School and a B.A in Political Science from Mount Holyoke College. She grew up in Lahore, Pakistan and lives in New York with her two wonderful sons.
Richard Heinberg
Mr. Heinberg is regarded as one of the world’s foremost advocates for a shift away from reliance on fossil fuels, having delivered hundreds of lectures on oil depletion and climate change to a wide variety of audiences around the world. He is the award-winning author of thirteen books including Our Renewable Future, The End of Growth, and Peak Everything. He has authored hundreds of essays and articles that have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The American Prospect, Reuters, Public Policy Research, European Business Review, Earth Island Journal, and Yes! Magazine, as well as on websites such as Resilience.org, Alternet.org, and Counterpunch.com. His monthly MuseLetter has been included in Utne Reader’s annual list of Best Alternative Newsletters. He has been featured in many film documentaries, including End of Suburbia and Leonardo DiCaprio’s 11th Hour.
Lucy Antek Johnson
Born and raised in New York City, she was an Associate Producer for comedy, variety, and dramatic television specials and series, working with such producers as Harry Belafonte, David Susskind, Alan King, and Martin Charnin. After moving to Los Angeles in 1978, she became VP Programming at NBC, and over the next few years supervised soap operas, game shows, animated, variety, and late night programs, as well as a series of prime time family specials, featuring “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin,” the Emmy and Academy Award winning special, starring famed dancer Jacques d’Amboise. In the mid-1980’s she formed her own production company, developing and producing movies for television as well as reality-based and animated programs. In 1989 she joined the CBS Television Network and became Senior VP of Daytime/Children’s Programs and Special Projects, responsible for the content, management, and marketing of the soap opera lineup, game and reality shows, new program development, and the Saturday morning kids’ schedule. She left CBS in 2003 and continues to develop and consult on various entertainment projects. She has moved back east and is currently VP Programming, riends of Westport Library, as well as enjoying painting, writing, and home renovations.
Jeremy Kagan
Mr. Kagan is an internationally recognized director, writer, and producer of feature films and television and a well-known teacher. He is founder of the Change Making Media Lab at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California where he is a tenured full professor. Many of his feature and television films have been about social and political issues like the box-office hits Heroes about returning veterans, The Chosen about tolerance, Katherine, The Making of an American Revolutionary about dissent, The Color of Justice about racism, and Bobbie’s Girl about lesbian relationships. Mr. Kagan won an Emmy for Dramatic Series Directing and directed episodes of West Wing and Spielberg’s Taken. His movie Crown Heights won the Humanitas Award in 2004 for “affirming the dignity of every person.” This film also received an NACCP Award and the Directors Guild Nomination for best family film. In 2007, he produced and directed the 10 part series Freedom Files, broadcast on Court and Link TV as well as the net. The series is about threats to civil liberties covering issues from the Supreme Court, and the Patriot Act, to Dissent, Gay and Lesbian Rights, and racial profiling. He has made films for The Doe Fund, which is the most successful program in America helping the homeless, and for The Bioneers, which organizes leaders in ecology and social justice. He has served as the Artistic Director of Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and is on the National Board of the Directors Guild and Chairperson of its Special Projects. His book Directors Close Up is published by Scarecrow Press. He is a Graduate Fellow of the American Film Institute, and has an M.F.A. from NYU and a B.A. from Harvard University. He has taught master seminars on filmmaking in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China, Hamburg, Jerusalem, Hanoi, France, and Ireland.
Karina Eileraas Karakus
Ms. Eileraas Karakus received a BA in Women’s Studies, International Relations and French from Wesleyan University in CT and was the first graduate of the Ph.D. program in Women’s Studies at UCLA. She specializes in feminist and postcolonial theory; autobiography, diaspora and cultural memory; visual culture, film, media and performance studies; nationalism, sexuality, and revolution in the Middle East and North Africa; and the relationship between fantasy, violence, and misrecognition. She is currently revising a paper on the French-Lebanese film “Lila dit ca” and contributing to an “invisible archive” of Marilyn Monroe, female embodiment, and celebrity culture. She most recently published an article in SIGNS on nude protest as feminist site of rage and as means of reformulating the public square with respect to the Egyptian nude blogger Aliaa al-Mahdy.
Shiv Khare
Mr. Khare is the former Executive Director of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. He has also served as the Secretary-General of the World Assembly of Youth in Copenhagen, the Executive Director of the Youth and Family Planning Program Council of India, and as a member of the board Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights, Canada.
Bram Kleppner
Bram is the CEO of Danforth Pewter and is a Commissioner on the Vermont Tax Structure Commission. He previously served as Chair of PMC’s Board of Directors for seven years and on its Board for 18 years. In addition, he is past Co-Chair of Vermont’s Medicaid & Exchange Advisory Board and has served as a member the Governor’s Advisory Board on Health Care Financing. Bram is an award-winning leader in socially responsible business, with a career that included ten years at Ben & Jerry’s, where he led International Marketing and co-led the company’s first anti-global warming campaign. He holds an MBA from the University of Vermont and a BA from Middlebury College.
Doug La Follette, PhD
Mr. La Follette is the Secretary of State of Wisconsin, a former University of Wisconsin professor, and a long-time activist and speaker on environmental, energy, and population issues. He has served as Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands from 1991 to the present. He previously served as a Wisconsin State Senator, as Assistant Director of the Mid-American Solar Energy Complex in Minneapolis, and as Public Affairs Director at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, DC. He is a recipient of the Environmental Quality Award from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Eugene Friesen
Four-time Grammy Award-winner Eugene Friesen is active internationally as a cellist, composer, conductor and teacher. His unique original repertoire and improvisational style has been featured in concerts internationally with the Paul Winter Consort, and with Trio Globo (Howard Levy, Glen Velez and Friesen). Eugene has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” has recorded with artists as diverse as Renée Fleming, Dream Theater, Will Ackerman, and Dar Williams, and is a pioneer in the teaching of improvisation to classically-trained musicians. His book, Improvisation for Classically Trained Musicians (Hal Leonard/Berklee Press) was published in 2012. He is an artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and Professor of Music at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he founded and directs the genre-busting string orchestra, Berklee World Strings.
Daniel C. Maguire
Mr. Maguire is the President of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics and Professor of Ethics at Marquette University. Mr. Maguire was formerly President of the Society of Christian Ethics. He is the author of several books and articles including Sacred Choices: The Right to Contraception and Abortion in Ten World Religions; What Men Owe to Women: Men’s Voices from World Religions, co-edited with Harold Coward; Different But Equal: A Moral Assessment of Woman’s Liberation; and Sex and Ethical Methodology.
Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD
Ed Maibach is a university professor and director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD Ed. Maibach is a university professor and director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University. A highly experienced researcher and practitioner of public health communication and social marketing, Ed now focuses exclusively on how to mobilize populations to adopt behaviors and support public policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help communities adapt to the unavoidable consequences of climate change. Ed previously had the pleasure to serve as Associate Director of the National Cancer Institute, as Worldwide Director of Social Marketing at Porter Novelli, as Chairman of the Board for Kidsave International, and in academic positions at George Washington University and Emory University. He earned his doctoral degree at Stanford University and his MPH at San Diego State University.
Cynthia McClintock, Ph. D
Frederick Meyerson, PhD, JD
Dr. Meyerson is an ecologist and demographer and a former board member of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the Allen Guttmacher Institute. Dr. Meyerson’s research and writing focus on population policy and the interactions between human demographic change and the environment, particularly climate change and the loss of biological diversity. He is the author of more than 40 scientific and popular articles and book chapters and was one of the writers of the State of World Population 1999 and State of World Population 2001, the annual report of UNFPA.
Leilani Münter
Leilani Münter is a biology graduate, race car driver and environmental activist. Discovery’s Planet Green named her the #1 eco athlete in the world, ELLE Magazine awarded her their Genius Award, and Sports Illustrated named her one of the top ten female race car drivers in the world. In 53 starts, Leilani has scored 9 top fives and 20 top ten finishes. Since 2007, Leilani has been adopting an acre of rainforest for every race she runs. She uses her race car to spread environmental awareness among millions of race fans in the U.S., Leilani sits on the board of EARTHx Film, Empowered by Light, and the Oceanic Preservation Society, the Academy Award winning filmmakers behind “The Cove.” She is featured in their 2015 documentary “Racing Extinction.” Leilani is vegan, her personal car is an electric Tesla Model S, which she charges with solar power. Leilani’s motto is: never underestimate a vegan hippie chick with a race car.
Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, MP
Mr. Musyoka is the party leader for the Wiper Democratic Movement in Kenya; Partner for the Coalition for Reform and Democracy; and Chancellor of Uganda Technology and Management University in Uganda. Mr. Musyoka is the former Vice President and Minister for Home Affairs of Kenya. He has held many positions in the government of Kenya, including Minister for Environment and Natural Resources, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Minister for Tourism and Information, and Minister for Education and Human Resource Development. He received his Bachelor of Law at the University of Nairobi, his Post-Graduate Diploma in Law at the Kenya School of Law, and his Post-Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the Mediterranean Institute of Management in Nicosia, Cyprus.
Negussie Teffera, Ph.D.
Dr. Negussie Teffera was the Ethiopia Country Representative of Population Media Center from January 2000 to late 2019. Previously, he was a senior radio program producer at the former international radio station RVOG (1972-1975); chief political commentator and pioneer in investigative journalism at Radio Ethiopia (1975-1980); Chief Media for Development Coordinator at the Central Planning Supreme Council (1979-1989; Head of Foreign Affairs, Justice and Information Bureau in the Office of the Prime Minister, with the rank of Vice-Minister (1989-1993) and Head, National Office of Population, Office of the Prime Minister in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (1993-2000).
He was Chairman of the National Committee that wrote Ethiopia’s first National Population Policy. He was also the Chairman of the Task Force that developed the first National Population Communication IEC and Advocacy Strategy for Ethiopia. He was also involved in developing the HIV/AIDS Communication Framework and National Health Communication Strategy. He was a member of the international team that developed the Swaziland, IE/BCC, and Advocacy Strategy for addressing Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS. He was the President of the Ethiopian Journalists’ Association for five years (1976-1980). He has been a professional trainer and faculty member of the Hawaii-based (USA) Haggai Advanced Leadership Training Institute since 2005. He is the author of several research papers and articles on aspects of media communication strategy for behavior change communication.
Dr. Negussie is the author of Innovative Media and Communication Strategy for Development: Ethiopia’s Experience, Communication for Social Development: An Overview and the Ethiopian Experience, and The Ethiopian Media Profile. He is the co-editor of two English-translated books, Blood Price and Ditched in the Jungle, real-life stories related to harmful traditional practices in Ethiopia.
Dr. Negussie won The 2011 African Chairman’s Award for Excellence in Communication Strategy Development for Reproductive Health. He is also one of the two recipients of the Ethiopian Government and UNFPA-sponsored special Medal for his 20 years of outstanding contribution to the writing and implementation of the Ethiopian National Population Policy. He also won the ninth Bego Sew National Award in the Media Section. He also received the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) Lifetime Award for his long-time achievements in radio journalism. As a volunteer, he serves as the Ombudsman of the Ethiopian Media Council.
He received a Ph.D. from the University of Wales (UK) in Communication Studies in 1988; a Master’s of Education in Journalism and Media Studies from University College Cardiff in Wales; a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Government from Addis Ababa University; plus a certificate in Communication and Radio Broadcasting from All African Communication Training Institute, Nairobi. Other short-term specialized courses and studies in media and communication were carried out at Cornell University, Johns Hopkins University; the UN Regional Population Communication Training Institute (Nairobi); International Health Program IHP (Santa Cruz, California); Haggai Advanced Leadership Institute in Maui, Hawaii; and the Steinhardt School of Education, New York University, New York.
George Orbelian
George Orbelian is a lifelong motorcyclist, with expertise in both building competition motorcycles and experience in racing motorcycles; masters swimmer; lifelong surfer, former Surfboard Design Editor for SURFER Magazine and author of Essential Surfing; real estate owner and manager (Orbelian Holdings, L.P.); and environmentalist (Co-founder or Project Kaisei, which funded Scripps Institution of Oceanography SEAPLEX research and received Google Earth Hero recognition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf9W3VDf9Bk). He is a technology entrepreneur (lead investor in Ojingo Labs, Inc. https://ojingo.com/) and is a member of the board of the Buckminster Fuller Institute, the Walter Munk Foundation of the Oceans, and the San Francisco State University School of International Business. He is an advisor to Planet Positive Ventures and Bay.Org and an advocate for disaster preparedness and community resilience. George is interested in identifying and sharing comprehensive solutions that will allow humanity to regenerate the ecosystems that sustain all life on this planet and integrating those solutions into resilient communities that incorporate lessons learned in his decades of experience with emergency preparedness.
Jane O’Sullivan
Dr. O’Sullivan is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, Australia, an Executive member of Sustainable Population Australia, and a co-convenor of The Overpopulation Project. Trained as an agricultural scientist, she has led international research on tropical root crops in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming systems in the Pacific and South East Asia, before shifting her focus to the threats posed by population growth to food security, economic development and ecological sustainability, and the effectiveness of measures available to limit population growth. In this work, she has participated in numerous collaborations with international colleagues in ecological economics, environmental philosophy, climate change responses and family planning promotion and implementation.
Sir Richard Ottaway
Mr. Ottaway is a former member of Parliament for Croydon South, UK. Ottaway is past Chairman and member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Population, Development and Reproductive Health and has been active with this group since 1983. As Chair, in 2007, he oversaw the Group’s publication of Return of the Population Growth Factor: Its impact on the Millennium Development Goals. In 1986, Mr. Ottaway became a founding member of Population Concern after its separation from the Family Planning Association. In 1991, he published Less People, Less Pollution. He and researcher Genevieve Hutchison coauthored Sex, Ideology and Religion: 10 Myths about Population Growth in 2011. He was first elected to Parliament as the Member for Nottingham North from 1983-87, returning to Parliament in 1992 as the Member for Croydon South, and he was re-elected in 1997, 2001, and 2005. From 2005 to 2010, he was a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee and Vice Chairman of the 1922 Committee. In 2010, he became the first elected Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. As Chair in 2014, he led the production of the report The UK’s Response to Extremism and Instability in North and West Africa, which stressed the links between rapid population growth and political instability. In 2014, he was also awarded Population Matters’ Population and Sustainability Awareness Award for the person, program, or institution doing most to promote public debate on population growth.
Chris Palmer
Chris Palmer is a retired professor, speaker, author, and an environmental and wildlife film producer who has swum with dolphins and whales, come face-to-face with sharks and Kodiak bears, camped with wolf packs, and waded hip-deep through Everglade swamps. Over the past 30 years, he has led the production of more than 300 hours of original programming for prime time television and the giant screen (IMAX) film industry. His films have been broadcast on numerous channels, including the Disney Channel, TBS Superstation, Animal Planet, and PBS. His IMAX films include Whales, Wolves, Dolphins, Bears, Coral Reef Adventure, and Grand Canyon Adventure. Chris is currently president of the One World Ocean Foundation, which has launched a $35 million global media initiative to save the oceans. He is also president of the MacGillivray Freeman Films Educational Foundation, which produces and funds IMAX films. From 2004 to 2018, he was with American University’s full-time faculty as Distinguished Film Producer in Residence at the School of Communication. There he founded the Center for Environmental Filmmaking, whose mission is to train filmmakers to produce films and new media that effectively strengthen the global constituency for conservation. His book, Shooting in the Wild: An Insider’s Account of Making Movies in the Animal Kingdom, was published in 2010 by Sierra Club Books and has been widely praised.
Alexandra Paul
Ms. Paul is an actress who has starred in over 70 films and television shows. She is most known for her five seasons on the TV show Baywatch. In 1991, Alexandra co-developed a 50 minute introduction to the human overpopulation issue. She then taught it, classroom-by-classroom, to over 6,000 Los Angeles teenagers. Alexandra wrote, produced, and hosted the award winning films Jampacked, about the human overpopulation crisis, and The Cost of Cool, on happiness and materialism. In 1997, the United Nations commended Alexandra for her environmental activism. In 1999, she won the International Green Cross award. Alexandra was honored by the ACLU of Southern California as their 2005 Activist of the Year for her long history of fighting for the environment, voting rights, and non-violence. In 2003, Alexandra spent 5½ days in jail after peacefully protesting the Iraq War. In 2005, Alexandra garnered worldwide attention when she was arrested for protesting the crushing of General Motor’s electric vehicle, the EV1. She has committed civil disobedience about a dozen times at the Nevada Test Site. You can watch Alexandra’s TEDx talk online about the benefits of the one child family. She continues to speak on the issue in classrooms and conferences.
Roger Pereira
Over 50 years’ experience in communications in India. Pereira has been involved in health care and population communications since 1972 in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Mali and the U. S. Producer of Humraahi, a family planning soap opera in India. He was also involved with promoting the Green Revolution in 1965 to 66 and the White Revolution from 1978 to 2005. He worked in entrepreneurial development from 1971 to 1985.
David Pimentel, PhD
Dr. Pimentel is a professor of Ecology and Agricultural Sciences at Cornell University. Dr. Pimentel is a prolific author and speaker about population issues.
Barbara Pyle
Documentary film maker and media consultant. As the co-creator and producer of the animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Barbara is responsible for helping shape the world view of a generation. Working in partnership with now adult Planeteers, they are organizing a Global Planeteer Movement. Their website www.captainplanet.me launched in 2010 on Captain Planet’s 20th Anniversary and already has traffic from 127 countries speaking 76 different languages. Their Planeteer fan page has well over 400,000 members on Facebook. Barbara Pyle specializes in using media for social change and was the pioneer of television content on population and environmentally sustainable development worldwide. As Corporate Vice President of Environmental Policy for the Turner Broadcasting System, she was not only in charge of Environmental Programming but also launched the Corporate Social Responsibility efforts and initiated all environmental infrastructures and policies. She produced almost 60 films covering a wide range of global issues earning over 200 industry awards, many Emmy nominations and numerous personal awards. In 1997, Barbara was chosen for the United Nations Environment Programme’s Sasakawa Prize for lifetime achievement. Her recent awards include recognition from the Federation of American Scientists, Caribbean Media Exchange, and Artivist for using art for activism. She has also served on numerous boards. Barbara’s premier documentary in her People Count Series highlighted population issues and the empowerment of women. It featured the social-content soap opera produced by Cecile Alvarez in the Philippines and was broadcast worldwide during the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994.
Bill Raffety
Mr. Raffety is a commodities executive with more than 25 years’ experience in: production, quality control, logistics, risk management, farm audits and sustainability. He has held key executive positions in new line development, sales, client relationship management and trading, with experience across multiple production/end user supply chains, including North and South America, Europe, Central Asia, Africa, India and China. Currently, Mr. Raffety heads up sales in the agriculture space for an international assurance company. He manages business flow in oilseeds from the Americas to Asia, along with management support to the cotton and cocoa product lines. Mr. Raffety built the new service offering in farm audits and sustainability covering economic, environmental and social topics. Mr. Raffety also spent 12+ years in New York covering futures markets in agriculture and soft commodities, where he developed an analysis and risk management service that was utilized by physical hedgers, end users and spec traders. Prior to the futures industry, Bill was with an international cotton merchant, focused on Central Asia. He was responsible for business development, including management, logistics and clients, local governments and partner relations.
Kate Randolph
Associate Director, Program on Forced Migration and Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Formerly, she was International Programs Director, Graduate School of Business Administration at Fordham University and Senior Technical Advisor for Business Development at EngenderHealth. She also served as Vice President for International Programs at Population Communications International (PCI), overseeing the development and broadcast of entertainment-education programs worldwide.
Jonathan Salk, MD
Dr. Salk is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine and in private practice in West Los Angeles where he treats adults, children, and adolescents. His is the co-author, with his father, Dr. Jonas Salk, of A New Reality: Human Evolution for a Sustainable Future (City Point Press, 2018). The book looks at human social evolution through the lens of worldwide human population growth and describes the adaptive transformation of human attitudes, values, and behavior that must occur in the process of arriving at a sustainable future. In his psychiatric practice and teaching he integrates both biological and psycho-social treatment with a particular focus on trauma. He is also Senior Fellow of the Design Futures Council, an organization that brings architects, designers, and engineers together to address architectural approaches to solve the problems of the future.
SD Shantinath, DDS, MPH, PhD
SD Shantinath is former associate professor of Public Health at A.T. Still University of Health Sciences in Mesa, AZ, USA and the founder and director of Woman to Woman International, an NGO based in Zurich, Switzerland, which is a member of the Violence Prevention Alliance of the World Health Organization. Her early-stage innovations in violence prevention and related mental health promotion have been supported by foundations in Switzerland, UK, US and UNICEF. She is working to promote to world-wide diffusion and adoption of research-based violence prevention methods and to advance women’s literacy, which is a major social determinant of health.
Jerri Lea Shaw
Jerri is the co-founder and former President and Co-CEO of JBS International, a consulting firm focused on strengthening health care and social service policy, financing, and service delivery in domestic and international systems. JBS is one of the largest women-owned firms in the Washington metropolitan region, and Jerri has received multiple awards for corporate social leadership. She has been working to address women’s empowerment and reproductive health challenges for decades. She holds degrees from Oberlin College and a Master of Regional and City Planning from the University of North Carolina.
Mohamed Abdikadir Sheikh
Dr. Mohamed A. Sheikh is the Director General of the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) of Kenya, a semi-autonomous government agency under the National Treasury and Planning Ministry that is mandated to advise and coordinate on population issues in Kenya.
Dr. Sheikh is a medical doctor and holds a Master’s Degree in International Public Health and Maternal and Child Health. He has over twenty years of experience in health system management, leadership, governance and research. He started his career as a medical officer and grew through the ranks to a Provincial Medical Director and Deputy Director of Medical Services. Before he was appointed the Director General of NCPD, he held several leadership positions at the Ministry of Health, including as a District Medical Officer, Provincial Medical Officer, County Director of Health, and lastly as Head of the Department of Family Health in the Ministry of Health in charge of key maternal and child health programs in Kenya.
As a Director General of NCPD, he has spearheaded the development of Kenya’s population policy for sustainable development, overseeing the coordination of the national campaign to end teenage pregnancy and the implementation of Kenya’s commitments from the International Conference on Population and Development. He also spearheaded the development of the Kenya Family Planning 2030 commitments and advocated for increased funding for family planning services.
Dr. Sheikh is currently a board member at the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics and an Executive Board Director of the Partners in Population and Development (PPD).
O. J. Sikes
Mr. Sikes is a retired Deputy Director of the Latin America and Caribbean Division at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). Mr. Sikes was formerly the Chief of UNFPA’s Education, Communication and Youth Branch. He developed UNESCO’s population education program in the early 1970s and designed innovative approaches to population communication and education with the Carolina Population Center in the 1960s.
Steven W. Sinding, PhD
Former Director General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London from 2002 to his retirement in 2006. Dr. Sinding began his career in 1971 at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Following assignments in Washington, Pakistan and the Philippines, he served from 1983 to 1986 as Director of the USAID Office of Population. From 1986 to 1990 he was the Director of USAID’s Mission to Kenya. Following this 20-year career at USAID, Dr. Sinding served for a year as senior population advisor to the World Bank and then moved to the Rockefeller Foundation where, from 1991 to 1999, he was Director of the Population Sciences program. From 1999 to 2002, he was Clinical Professor of Public Health at Columbia University. He is now a senior fellow at the Guttmacher Institute, serves on a number of boards, and works as an international consultant. Dr. Sinding received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1970.
Arvind Singhal, PhD
Dr. Singhal is the Samuel Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Endowed Professor of Communication and Director of the Social Justice Initiative at The University of Texas at El Paso. He is also appointed, since 2010, as the William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow at the Clinton School of Public Service, Little Rock, Arkansas, and since 2015, Distinguished Professor 2, Faculty of Business Administration, Inland University of Applied Sciences, Norway. Dr. Singhal teaches and conducts research on the diffusion of innovations, the positive deviance approach, organizing for social change, the entertainment-education strategy, and liberating interactional structures. His outreach spans public health, education, human rights, poverty alleviation, sustainable development, civic participation, democracy and governance, and corporate citizenship. Singhal is co-author or editor of 14 books. Three of Dr. Singhal’s books won awards for distinguished applied scholarship. In addition, he has authored some 180 peer-reviewed essays in outlets such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Communication Monographs, Health Communication, Management Communication Quarterly, Communication Quarterly, and Journal of Health Communication.
Katherine Spillar
Katherine Spillar is the Executive Director of the Feminist Majority Foundation and the Feminist Majority, national organizations working for women’s equality, empowerment, and non-violence. One of the founders, Spillar has been a driving force in executing the organizations’ diverse programs securing women’s rights both domestically and globally since its inception in 1987. She has played a leading role in national and state level campaigns to win women’s rights legislation, and leads the organization’s efforts to counter the effects of extremist anti-abortion groups that target women’s reproductive health clinics. She has been key in the Feminist Majority Foundation’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan to counter the Taliban’s abuse of women; for this work, the organization was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Spillar is the Executive Editor of Ms. magazine, which the Feminist Majority Foundation took over publishing in 2001. Under her oversight, Ms. has increased its investigative reporting, winning the prestigious “Maggie Award” for best feature article for its investigation into the network of extremists connected to Scott Roeder, who murdered Dr. George Tiller. Spillar is a trained economist and researcher and a specialist in community organizing. She speaks to diverse audiences nationwide on a broad range of domestic and international feminist topics and appears frequently on television and radio. She has appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition, 60 Minutes, the Rachel Maddow Show, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terri Gross and Tell Me More with Michel Martin, the O’Reilly Factor, CNN, ABC Nightly News, CBS News, NBC, FOX, the Tavis Smiley Show, Politically Incorrect, and Hannity & Colmes.
Jonathan Stack
Jonathan Stack is an Emmy Award-winning and two-time Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker. In 1991, he founded GABRIEL FILMS and has since gone on to produce over fifty films for dozens of cable channels in the US and many television partners abroad. He has released several films theatrically and shown his work at many of the major festivals, including Sundance, where he won the Grand Jury Prize in 1998.
While working as an independent filmmaker, Stack has earned a reputation for his unique ability to gain access into forbidden worlds. His exclusives include President Charles Taylor’s farewell speech to the nation of Liberia, a year in the presidency of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and a rare interview with David Miscaivage, head of the Church of Scientology. He has documented life inside Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison for over 15 years, traveled with militias in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and filmed in Harlem during the height of the crack addiction plight.
In 2013, committed to combining traditional storytelling with cutting interactive media tools, he founded World Vasectomy Day to inspire men worldwide to join in one of the most important decisions of our lives. Today, with over 1200 providers in 50+ countries, it is the largest male focused family planning movement in the world.
Gloria Steinem
Ms. Steinem is the co-founder of New York Magazine, Ms. Magazine, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the Women’s Media Center. Steinem is an advisor to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and is on the board of Equality Now, the international human rights/women’s rights organization, as well as an author, lecturer, and traveling feminist organizer.
Theresa Thomason
Thomason is a vocalist who performs with the Paul Winter Consort and other performers. Her vocal talent began to emerge as she grew up singing in church. Jazz, pop, and R&B later followed. Her winning performance at the world-famous Apollo Theatre was a stimulus for her to love the stage.
Theresa has had a succession of sold-out concerts in the U.S. and over 170 cities in Europe, where she spent 17 years headlining in a theatrical concert she wrote and produced.
Her career has spanned almost three decades of performances and recordings with seven-time Grammy Award winner Paul Winter, and she remains a featured artist with Winter’s Consort, performing regularly at the world-renowned annual Winter Solstice Celebration and Earth Mass at New York’s celebrated Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. Several of these performances have aired on NBC and PBS.
Thomason appeared on Broadway in the musical, Hot Feet, featuring the music of Earth Wind and Fire, directed by Maurice Hines. Returning to the Apollo Theatre in 2012, Thomason performed for the Harlem Jazz Shrines “Jazz al a Carte” with Wycliffe Gordon, Savion Grover, and Maurice Hines. The Wall Street Journal named this event “the best Jazz event.”
In 2023, she worked with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr. to tour France in a musical presentation of his book “The Black Church.” In addition, she is participating in the anniversary celebration this year of WPKN Radio. She has been privileged to work with artists in diverse genres as she continues to tour the U.S., Europe, New Zealand and the Caribbean using her gifts to serve a greater purpose.
She has done performances with and for Stevie Wonder, The Dalai Lama, Renato Braz, Ivan Lins, Noel Paul Stookey, Jamey Haddad, Eugene Friesen, Glen Velez, Valerie Simpson and more.
Monique Tilford
Ms. Tilford is the past Deputy Director of the Center for a New American Dream, past Executive Director of Wild Earth, and past Executive Director of Carrying Capacity Network. Ms. Tilford is co-author of the updated best-selling book Your Money or Your Life, published by Penguin in 2008.
Sunita Viswanath
Ms. Viswanath is a co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR), a U.S.-wide human rights advocacy group that is committed to the ideals of multi-religious pluralism both in the United States and India, the country of her origin. HfHR is committed to opposing and challenging bigotry, exclusion, and discrimination, especially on the basis of religion. Ms. Viswanath’s Hindu values and beliefs inform her sense of justice and human rights. Finding that movements for justice were bereft of a Hindu voice, she co-founded Sadhana: Coalition of Progressive Hindus in 2011 to weld her human rights activism with her Hindu identity. Sadhana is now a leading platform advocating worldwide for social justice principles that are at the heart of Hinduism. She was honored by President Obama at the White House in 2015 as a “Champion of Change” for her work. Ms. Viswanath is also the co-founder of Women for Afghan Women (WAW), an organization started in 2001 and dedicated to protecting and promoting the rights of Afghan women and girls. Sunita has edited Women for Afghan Women: Shattering Myths and Claiming the Future (Palgrave McMillan), a book of essays.
Paul Winter
Mr. Winter’s musical odyssey has long embraced the traditions of the world’s cultures, as well as the wildlife voices of what he refers to as “the greater symphony of the Earth.” From the early days of his college jazz sextet, which toured 23 countries of Latin America for the State Department and performed the first-ever jazz concert at the White House for the Kennedys in 1962, to his later ensemble, the Paul Winter Consort, his concert tours and recording expeditions have taken him to 52 countries and to wilderness areas on six continents. He has traveled on rafts, dog sleds, mules, kayaks, tug-boats and Land Rovers. He has recorded 45 albums, of which seven have been honored with Grammy® Awards. Since 1980, Mr. Winter and his Consort have been artists-in-residence at the world’s largest cathedral, New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where they have presented over 200 unique events, including their famed annual Winter Solstice and Summer Solstice Celebrations, as well as the performance each October of their ecological mass (Missa Gaia/Earth Mass).
Robert J. Wyman, PhD
Dr. Wyman is a professor of biology at Yale University. Dr. Wyman is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies and the Program Director at Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Science Education Program. He teaches Yale’s only course on population issues: Global Problems of Population Growth. He is a member of the Leadership Council, Planned Parenthood of Connecticut (PPC), as well as a former board member of PPC, Connecticut NARAL, Urban League of New Haven, Center for Children’s Environmental Literature, and Horizon Communications. Dr. Wyman received an AB from Harvard College and an MS and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.
Philip Zimbardo, PhD
Internationally recognized as the ‘voice and face of contemporary American psychology’ through his widely seen PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology; his classic research, The Stanford Prison Experiment; authoring the oldest current textbook in psychology, Psychology and Life, in its 18th Edition; his popular trade books on Shyness; and his exploration of the psychology of evil in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Dr. Zimbardo is professor emeritus at Stanford University, professor at the Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, and the Naval Postgraduate School at Monterey, California. Zimbardo has been the president of the American Psychological Association, the Chair of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP), and now executive director of a Stanford center on terrorism — the Center for Interdisciplinary Policy, Education, and Research on Terrorism (CIPERT). His more than 350 professional publications and 50 books convey his broad range of research interests in the domain of social psychology, but branch out to education, time perspective, madness, political psychology, torture, terrorism, and evil.
Robert Zinser, PhD
Dr. Zinser is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Rotarian Action Group for Population & Sustainable Development (RFPD) and Past District Governor of Rotary International. Dr. Zinser initiated RFPD’s first pilot project “Child Spacing, Family Health and AIDS Education” in six states of Northern Nigeria in 1995 and its large-scale follow-up in 2000. In 2005, he started the large-scale project “Improvement of Maternal Health – Prevention and Treatment of Obstetric Fistula” in Kaduna and Kano State. With this project, maternal mortality was reduced by 60% in ten selected hospitals within 2.5 years, focused on continuously improving the quality of structure, process and outcome by collecting data, analyzing and discussing it in a benchmarking process. Stakeholders regard this project as a model to contribute to MDG 5. As project coordinator, Dr. Zinser is leading a project team with volunteering German and Austrian gynecologists and Nigerian project staff. He was president of BASF Asia Pacific and is an Honorary University Professor for International Management in Germany.