Bayo Akomolafe (Ph.D.), rooted with the Yoruba people in a more-than-human world, is the father to Alethea and Kyah, the grateful life-partner to Ije, son and brother. A widely celebrated international speaker, posthumanist thinker, poet, teacher, public intellectual, essayist, and author of two books, These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home (North Atlantic Books) and We Will Tell our Own Story: The Lions of Africa Speak, Bayo Akomolafe is the Founder of The Emergence Network and host of the online postactivist course, ‘We Will Dance with Mountains’.
Yuria Celidwen is a native of Indigenous Nahua and Maya descent, born into a family of mystics, healers, poets, and explorers from the highlands of Chiapas, Mexico. She teaches Indigenous epistemologies and spirituality and her work pioneered the Indigenous contemplative experience within contemplative studies. In addition, she leads workshops on prosocial practices (such as mindfulness, compassion, kindness, gratitude, etc.) from an Indigenous perspective.
Dr. Eboo Patel is one of America’s foremost experts on religious diversity and bridgebuilding. He is founder and president of IFYC, the largest interfaith organization in North America, and served on President Obama’s inaugural Faith Council. For twenty years, Eboo has worked with governments, social sector organizations and private companies on productively engaging religious diversity towards the achievement of interfaith cooperation. Eboo is the author of five books: Acts of Faith, Sacred Ground, Interfaith Leadership: A Primer, and Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise.
Mayor Betsy Hodges’ work with the Othering & Belonging Institute entailed building a framework through which white people can work with one another on race and whiteness and has belonging and bridging at its core. Mayor Hodges began her commitment to racial equity work in the wake of the 1992 Rodney King verdict. She realized then that racism is inherently a white people problem and made the decision the night of the verdict to enroll white people in the work of racial equity. This commitment has been at the core of her work ever since.
Mina Girgis is the producer & CEO of the Nile Project, an ethnomusicologist and a serial entrepreneur specialized in building innovative spaces and tools for cross-cultural musical learning. In 2011, he started the Nile Project – an international nonprofit that promotes the sustainability of the Nile River by curating innovative collaborations among musicians, university students, and professionals. In 2009, Mina founded Zambaleta, a community World Music school based in San Francisco, California. Mina has received awards and fellowships from Wired Magazine, National Arts Strategies, Synergos and Seeds of Peace.
Victor Pineda was a Senior Research Fellow and visiting scholar at the Othering & Belonging Institute. Victor had been appointed by President Obama to the US Access Board. Victor worked on expanding the scholarship and research from the OBI Disability Studies Cluster as well as in elevating our work more globally.
Sonali Sangeeta Balajee is a mother, artist, organizer, facilitator, mindfulness / yoga instructor, and emerging health practitioner who works at the intersection of spirit, politics, belonging, equity, and deep transformative change. She is the founder of Our Bodhi Project, a spiritual and political project that supports healthy movement-building and organizing through deepening our critical analyses, centering the health of all living systems, and enlivening the connection between social and collectively spiritual wellness.
Gary Delgado was one of the initial organizers for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now or ACORN, a collection of community-based organizations that advocated for the rights of low-income communities. Delgado has amassed an impressive portfolio of civil rights contributions and achievements, including as a campaign advisor, visiting professor, researcher, community organizer, founding director of the Center for Third World Organizing (CTWO) and later served as the founding director of the Applied Research Center, (now Race Forward) until 2007.
Julie Nelson was a Senior Fellow at the Othering & Belonging Institute where she worked with Director john powell on a national project to support and expand local government’s work on racial equity. Julie was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights for the City of Seattle from 2007 to early 2014, where under her leadership a vision was crafted for the city where all people enjoy equity, opportunity and freedom from illegal discrimination and institutionalized inequities. Julie led the Office for Civil Rights in its pursuit of racial and social justice for everyone in Seattle through education, policy work, and enforcement of civil rights laws.
Ian Haney López holds an endowed chair as the John H. Boalt Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches in the areas of race and constitutional law. One of the nation’s leading thinkers on racism’s evolution since the civil rights era, he is also a Senior Fellow at Demos. Haney López has been a visiting law professor at Yale, New York University, and Harvard, where he served as the Ralph E. Shikes Visiting Fellow in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
Stephen Rosenbaum, JD, MPP, is an Othering & Belonging Institute Visiting Researcher Scholar (Disability Studies Cluster). He has taught professional skills courses on social justice, mental health, civil rights and Spanish language and cultural competency at Berkeley Law, where he was awarded the title of Frank C. Newman Lecturer. He has also taught law and policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy, as well as disability rights and justice courses at Stanford Law and University of Washington (UW), where he is an Affiliate in the Disability Studies Program and periodic Lecturer-Part Time.
