Seth D. Kaplan is a leading expert on fragile states, societies, and communities. He is a Professorial Lecturer in the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Adviser for the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), and consultant to organizations such as the World Bank, U.S. State Department, and U.S. Agency for International Development. His latest book, FRAGILE NEIGHBORHOODS: Repairing American Society, One Zip Code at a Time, is an urgent exploration of why American society is in trouble—and how to fix it.

Ashleigh Gardere is a leader dedicated to a future where everyone in the nation can thrive, and has remained committed to making that future real in partnership with common and uncommon partners. Throughout her 20+ year career, she has witnessed the power of collaboration to deliver meaningful change, as she helped accelerate systems transformation and equity through executive roles in government, business, and the nonprofit sector. Now Ashleigh serves as President of PolicyLink, a research and action institute, where she is focused on redesigning the nation to work for all. She understands that realizing a flourishing multiracial democracy requires new values and governing standards in service of our collective flourishing; new ways of working between government and community; and new ways of being, individually and as part of institutions.

Ashleigh has raised over $350 million to support social innovation and institution-building towards this future of collective liberation. She was also recognized by Living Cities as one of the nation’s Top 25 Disruptive Leaders working to close racial opportunity gaps. Before joining PolicyLink, Ashleigh served as Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of the New Orleans Business Alliance; Vice President of Community Relations at Chase Bank for Louisiana; and a senior advisor to former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, where she was the chief strategist of the Mayor’s Economic Opportunity Strategy.

Ashleigh is the Board Chair of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, which partners with organizations and networks to alleviate poverty and increase social and economic justice in 11 Southern States. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from New York University and a master’s degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Public Policy and International Affairs Fellow. She is proud to be from New Orleans, where she lives with her husband and two sons.

Hahrie Han is the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Professor of Political Science, the inaugural director of the SNF Agora Institute, and the director of the P3 Research Lab at Johns Hopkins University. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she has published four previous books: Prisms of the People, How Organizations Develop Activists, Groundbreakers, and Moved to Action. Her most recent book was awarded the 2022 Michael Harrington Book Award from the American Political Science Association for “scholarship contributing to the struggle for a better world,” and she was also named a 2022 Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year by the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation. She has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, among other national publications. The daughter of Korean immigrants, she lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

Co-Founder & Chief Strategies Officer, UNDIVIDED

Evangelical Strategies, Faith In Action

Troy Jackson is co-founder and Chief Strategies Officer of Undivided, a racial solidarity, healing, and justice movement that has moved thousands from passivity and isolation to community and action to address racism. Jackson is also leads Evangelical Strategies for Faith in Action (formerly PICO National Network), and has worked for the organization since March 2018. Troy is co-author with Chuck Mingo of Living Undivided: Loving Courageously for Racial healing and Justice (2024), a book by and for practitioners who want to lead well on race.

From 2014-2018, Jackson served as the executive director of the AMOS Project, a faith-based organizing effort that regularly engages more than 50 congregations in Greater Cincinnati to work for racial and economic justice. AMOS has helped lead the fight for high quality preschool for children who need it most in Greater Cincinnati, and helped pass Issue 44, which secures resources for Cincinnati Public Schools and invests $15,000,000 annually in high quality preschool for children who need it most. Beginning in 2015, Jackson joined a team at Crossroads Church to develop UNDIVIDED, a racial reconciliation and justice 6-week experience that has engaged over 5000 people since 2016.

Jackson served on staff of University Christian Church (UCC) in Cincinnati for nearly 19 years, and served as the congregation’s Lead Pastor from 1996-2013. Under Jackson’s leadership, UCC established Rohs Street Café, a seven-day-a-week community coffee shop committed to community engagement, the arts, and social justice. Dr. Jackson has been involved in Community Organizing over the past decade, first as a volunteer leader, and more recently as a faith organizer in Cincinnati, the state of Ohio, and nationally. In 2011, Jackson served as faith outreach director for the highly successful We Are Ohio campaign that led to the repeal of Ohio Senate Bill 5 by a 61-39 margin. Troy is a co-author of Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014), which explores the historic sins of the American Church.

Troy earned his M.Div. at Princeton Theological Seminary and received a Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Kentucky. Troy’s book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) explores the critical role the grassroots Montgomery Movement played in the development of King. Troy’s other publications include his work as an editor on The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel (September 1948-March 1963) [Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007). Troy lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Amanda and near their three adult children.

Jason Van Driesche is Chief of Staff at Front Porch Forum, Vermont's online neighbor network, where he works on strategy, partnerships, new features, and more. He has a master’s degree in urban and regional planning and a second master’s in environmental science, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Jason grew up mostly in a small town in western Massachusetts, and has lived in Burlington, Vermont since 2008. He is much happier biking than driving, loves climbing Vermont's (spectacular but very manageable) mountains, and spends slightly more time digging in his garden than makes sense. He can be reached at [email protected].

Cary Simmons is the Director of Community Strategies at Trust for Public Land, where he serves as the organization’s leading expert on public spaces that bring people together to build community. Previously, Cary worked as a forester and a landscape architect, collaborating with communities in the United States and abroad to plant thousands of street trees and build dozens of parks.

At TPL, Cary leads the organization’s advocacy and policy agenda for community engagement and community-based partnerships, and he serves as a national leader in research and evaluation methods for the social benefits of parks and public space activation. Cary’s work has been published in top publications like the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Daily Yonder, the Journal of Ecopsychology, and Parks and Recreation Magazine.

He is passionate about the role of organizing and movement-building in strengthening communities and civic life in the United States. For more than 20 years, he’s worked with a wide range of communities to connect everyone to the outdoors, from a farmworker community in central Washington to the site of the 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan. Originally from a rural farming community in Arkansas, Cary lives with his partner in rural central Washington State.

Linda R. Tropp is Professor of Social Psychology and Faculty Associate in Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (USA). For more than two decades she has studied how members of different groups experience contact with each other, and how group differences in status affect cross-group relations. Her work seeks to foster the dual goals of promoting positive relations between groups while achieving ever-greater levels of societal equality and justice. She has worked with U.S.-based organizations on initiatives to promote racial integration and equity, and with civil society organizations around the globe to bridge group differences and address social division. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Tropp has received distinguished research and teaching awards from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues and the International Society of Political Psychology. Tropp is coauthor of When Groups Meet: The Dynamics of Intergroup Contact(2011) and editor of several books, including Moving Beyond Prejudice Reduction: Pathways to Positive Intergroup Relations (2011), the Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict (2012), and Making Research Matter: A Psychologist’s Guide to Public Engagement (2018).

Marjan H. Ehsassi is the Executive Director of FIDE – North America (the Federation for Innovation in Democracy North America; fide.eu/north-america). She is a Future of Democracy Fellow (non-resident) at the Berggruen Institute and a Senior Innovations Fellow at the Institute for Democratic Engagement and Accountability (IDEA at OSU). A former litigator, she is a skilled advocate, strategic policy advisor and a movement builder. She has been deeply involved in the research, design and implementation of several citizens’ assemblies in France, Belgium, Canada and the US. She served as one of four guarantors of the French Citizens’ Convention on the End of Life and on the Oversight Committee of the G1000 We Need to Talk Citizens’ Panels. Marjan’s first book Activated Citizenship - The Transformative Power of Citizens’ Assemblies was published in August 2024.

Linn co-leads program development at Healthy Democracy, a US-based nonprofit that is a global leader in designing Civic Assemblies. These unique democratic innovations bring together everyday people, selected by democratic lottery, to take on our toughest policy questions with unusual depth and efficacy.

He consults with local governments across the US on deliberative engagement, and he specializes in HD’s systems-level democracy innovations, from charter review to state engagement policy to initiative reform. Since joining Healthy Democracy in 2016, he has co-designed and -managed over a dozen of HD’s groundbreaking Civic Assembly projects.

He holds a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from Portland State University and a BA in History from Grinnell College. In his spare time, he plays music and volunteers as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains.

Angelica Quicksey is a civic designer and user experience researcher. Angelica currently serves as the interim Head of the Local Lab in addition to leading research and co-design at New_ Public, a start-up nonprofit focused on developing healthy, flourishing digital public spaces.

Angelica’s design practice is rooted in her training as an urban planner, and emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration and community-centered design. Prior to her work at New_ Public, Angelica delivered modern government digital services as a public servant and a consultant, at the local, state, and federal levels. She also writes and speaks widely about civic tech, community-centered research, and service design for public policy.

Angelica holds a BA from Claremont McKenna College and two Masters degrees from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and Graduate School of Design. She is based in her hometown of Seattle, WA.

An award-winning journalist, Sam Ragland is a dynamic educator and strategist serving as Vice President of Journalism Programs at the American Press Institute. A proud Southerner, Samantha’s work empowers local news organizations to connect with diverse communities through cultural transformation, community engagement and sustainable practices for both the journalists and the business of journalism. A former Poynter faculty member and director of the flagship Leadership Academy for Women, she has trained journalists globally on resilience, creativity, and innovation. She is most called upon to facilitate cross-generational conversations on workplace well-being, inclusion and leadership. Samantha believes local news should be bold, inclusive, and built to last — for future generations and beyond.

Donna Ladd is Editor & CEO and co-founder of the Mississippi Free Press, Mississippi Youth Media Project and formerly Jackson Free Press, and created the Mapping Mississippi/solutions circles/network mapping of state journalism for Mississippi (and loves to talk about it). She and MFP co-founder Kimberly Griffin won the Poynter Prizes’ 2024 Robert G. McGruder Award for Diversity Leadership, and her investigative reporting helped land a Klan murderer in prison and a Jackson mayor on trial … twice. In June 2024, the Mississippi Business Journal named her a top CEO in Mississippi.

Dr. Mylien Duong is the Senior Director of Research at the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI), a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to equipping the next generation of Americans with the mindset and skill set to engage in dialogue across differences.

Trained as a clinical psychologist, Mylien Duong has spent the last 13 years developing and testing psychology-based tools for educational spaces, with an emphasis on tools that are evidence-based, easy to implement, and practical. She has secured over $25 million in grant funding and published over 50 scientific articles and book chapters, and her educational tools have been used by over 100,000 educators across the United States. She’s interested in how cultures–in big groups and in small ones–can take on a life of their own, and how human needs for belonging and connection have fueled polarization but can also be its antidote.

When she’s not working, you can find her rehabilitating land with her husband in Washington State.

Since September 2023, Camila Nardozzi has served as the inaugural Director for Harvard College’s Intellectual Vitality Initiatives, in addition to her decade long work leading the College’s Office of International Education. In her role within Intellectual Vitality Initiatives, Camila works across the College to infuse the virtues critical to intellectual vitality (humility, curiosity, and respect) in order to establish a culture in which all members are able to freely speak, listen, and ask questions of each other – and ourselves – with a spirit of open and rigorous inquiry. In its second year, Intellectual Vitality initiatives has focused on supporting students in the social and residential spaces, as well as within the classroom, providing pedagogical training for faculty and other teaching staff.

Melissa is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Resetting the Table (RT), an organization dedicated to countering toxic polarization and building a shared society in the U.S. Melissa is a veteran social entrepreneur and peace-builder, having founded and built two recognized non-profit organizations (RTT and Encounter Programs) that open up transformative communication across divides; overcome dehumanization and distrust; and work toward pluralism, social cohesion, and resilience against violence. In addition to Resetting the Table, Melissa was the founding Executive Director of Encounter, an organization dedicated to Jewish-Palestinian peacebuilding. Melissa spent two decades working on people-to-people initiatives surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and was awarded the Grinnell Prize Innovator for Social Justice Prize “for extraordinary accomplishment in effecting positive social change,” selected as one of four inaugural winners out of 1000+ nominees in 66 countries. A noted speaker and educator, Melissa has lectured and taught in hundreds of public forums on four continents. Her work has been cited and featured in many media outlets, including the Washington Post, Deseret Magazine, Inside Higher Ed, Time Magazine, and Chronicle of Philanthropy. She was ordained as a Conservative Rabbi at the Jewish Theological Seminary and graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude.

Writer and Executive Producer Dave Caplan has enjoyed a 35-year career in prime-time television and feature films. He is currently writer/Executive Producer and co-showrunner of the ABC hit “The Conners,” and previously served as writer and Co-Executive Producer on the acclaimed “Roseanne” revival, the highest-rated scripted show in a decade. Caplan has written and executive produced other hits like “George Lopez,” “The Drew Carey Show”, FX series " Anger Management. Other notable shows include “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” TNT’s police/medical drama “Rizzoli and Isles” and the ‘90s cult hit “Dinosaurs.” Caplan has won numerous awards, including the Humanitas certificate and multiple Environmental Media Awards. He holds a PhD in Psychology, focusing on media-related issues, from Fielding Graduate University. A regular speaker at schools and universities, Caplan is an advisor to the Bridge Entertainment Labs, which aims to decrease toxic polarization. Caplan is managed by Odenkirk-Provissiero Entertainment.

Scott Shigeoka is an internationally recognized curiosity expert, TED speaker, and the award-winning author of Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. His work focuses on how we can strengthen our well-being and relationships, including at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and through his groundbreaking courses at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a screenwriter, playwright, and installation artist.

David French is a columnist at The New York Times. He was formerly a senior editor for The Dispatch, contributing writer for The Atlantic, senior writer for National Review, and a columnist at TIME. A New York Times bestselling author, he has written or co-written several books, including Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can’t Ignore, and his most recent work, Divided We Fall: America’s Succession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation, among others. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the past president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and a former lecturer at Cornell Law School. He has served as a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom. French is a former major in the U.S. Army Reserve. In 2007, he deployed to Iraq, serving in Diyala Province as Squadron Judge Advocate for the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, where he was awarded the Bronze Star.

Clinical Psychologist and Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, Dr. Briscoe-Smith has dedicated her career to supporting schools, families, and the systems that shape young people’s lives through teaching and advocacy. With expertise in cultural accountability and trauma-informed care, Dr. Briscoe-Smith works closely with organizations, hospitals and non-profits to build stronger, more inclusive communities. She also serves as the Diversity Lead for Student Life at the University of Washington.

Liz Hume, Executive Director, the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She is an international lawyer and a conflict expert with more than 25 years of experience in senior leadership positions in bilateral, multilateral institutions and NGOs. She has extensive experience in policy and advocacy and overseeing sizeable and complex peacebuilding programs in conflict-affected and fragile states in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Africa. From 1997-2001, Liz was seconded by the US Department of State to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo as the Chief Legal Counsel. After 9/11, Liz worked for the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She served in leadership positions and helped establish the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation at USAID developing programs and policies to improve the USG’s ability to address the causes of violent deadly conflict. Liz also managed conflict and governance programs in Ethiopia and the Casamance. Liz holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from Vermont Law School, and an MA in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding from California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is a frequent guest lecturer and an author on conflict and violent extremism prevention and peacebuilding.

Sohad Murrar is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. She researches how to change people's attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors with subtle messaging to create positive social change. Her research focuses on (i) how entertainment media (e.g., TV shows) can be leveraged to deconstruct prejudices, (ii) how norms messaging shapes intergroup attitudes and behaviors, and (iii) how being a social minority affects psychological and professional outcomes in different contexts (e.g., higher education, academic medicine). Leveraging her expertise, Murrar consults on the representation of minorities in films, television, and educational materials. She received her Ph.D and M.S in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.A. in Comparative Human Development from the University of Chicago, and B.A in Psychology and Asian & Middle East Studies from Northwestern University.

Theresa L. Miller is a Director of Research at FrameWorks and oversees the organization’s health equity and international research. Her work focuses on developing new narratives to advance social justice and equity in the U.S. and internationally. She has experience reframing issues related to health equity, racial equity, education, housing, economic inequality, criminal legal reform, child development, and environmental justice in the U.S., UK, Australia, and Brazil. Across her work, Theresa combines her ability to think strategically to overcome communications challenges with her commitment to social justice and systemic change.

Theresa’s expertise conducting collaborative, mixed methods ethnographic research with Indigenous communities in Brazil, Peru, and Colombia informs her partner-centered approach to framing research and strategic communications. She holds a DPhil (PhD) and MPhil in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and a BA in International Studies and Spanish from American University. She speaks Portuguese and Spanish. Theresa is the author of “Plant Kin: A Multispecies Ethnography in Indigenous Brazil” (2019) published by the University of Texas Press.

Micah Hendler is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Jerusalem Youth Chorus (JYC), an Israeli-Palestinian music and dialogue project he has brought from a dream to the global stages of TED and America’s Got Talent to the New York Times and the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Through the co-creation of music and the sharing of stories, JYC empowers young singers from East and West Jerusalem to speak and sing their truths as they become leaders in their communities and inspire singers and listeners around the world to join them in their work for peace, justice, inclusion, and equality. Even in times of war, JYC continues to meet, and its singers’ commitment to each other, and the power of their voices raised in harmony, has only grown.

In addition to his ongoing bridge-building work in Jerusalem, Micah has brought his JYC experience back home, collaborating with several organizations working to depolarize America: Braver Angels, the One America Movement, Convergence, and Constructive Dialogue Institute. Music is a powerful access point for Americans to engage with one another differently, and by leading community singing, facilitating deep dialogue, and weaving disparate voices together through collaborative songwriting, Micah is working to build bridges in the US as well.

Micah has a degree in Music and International Studies from Yale and brings decades of musical experience from different global traditions to this work: he has founded, directed, sung with, or played with dozens of musical ensembles of varying styles, including the Yale Whiffenpoofs, and has studied Community Singing and CircleSinging with GRAMMY-winning composers Ysaye Barnwell and Roger Treece, using these techniques to open up the concept of who is allowed to sing and what singers can do together. He has also been involved in dialogue work for 20 years and has written and presented in many local and global fora about his work with the Jerusalem Youth Chorus, including in a main stage TED Talk with JYC Executive Director Amer Abu Arqub, and the keynote presentation of the East-West Philosophers’ Conference with leading Palestinian intellectual and peacemaker Dr. Sari Nusseibeh.

Micah was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Music in 2017 and has written extensively for Forbes.com on music, society, and social change in a global context, using this platform to uplift marginalized voices that are not often heard in mainstream media. He currently lives in Washington, DC, where he leads regular community sings.

Jon Gruber is a Strategy Lead at Einhorn Collaborative, a foundation dedicated to advancing the science and practice of social connection and cohesion to address America’s growing crisis of distrust and division. Jon leads Einhorn’s Building strategy, which works in a range of ways to ensure more people have experiences of connection and collaborative action at the community level. Jon is a funder co-lead of New Pluralists and recently served as board chair of PACE (Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement). Before joining Einhorn Collaborative, Jon worked as a management consultant advising clients across sectors, as director of education for a nonprofit that supports Holocaust rescuers and preserves their legacy, and as a teacher in England. Jon lives with his family in NJ, where he is also on the board of his local synagogue.