Speakers

Leslie Marmon Silko, a former professor of English and fiction writing, is the author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry, articles, and film scripts. She has won prizes, fellowships, and grants from such sources as the MacArthur Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and The Boston Globe. She was the youngest writer to be included in The Norton Anthology of Women's Literature, for her short story "Lullaby." Her works include Ceremony (1976), Storyteller (1989), Almanac of the Dead (1992), Yellow Woman and Beauty of the Spirit, Essays on Native American Life Today (1997), and Gardens in the Dunes  (1999), in which she examines the inherent conflict, both physical and spiritual, between Native Americans and those who displaced and dishonored them.

An intellectual journalist who combines narrative writing with political thought, Packer has covered the Iraq War for The New Yorker for most of the decade. He wrote Interesting Times: Writings from a Turbulent Decade and The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq  covering his travels and research in the Middle East and Africa. In an era of sound bites and Twitter feeds, Packer relied on the long form narrative journalism model to help his readers understand what had happened to America and how America had responded, for good or ill. For these and other writings he received many awards, including New York Public Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award and an Overseas Press Club’s book award and was a Guggenheim Fellow. He has also written about the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast, the megacity of Lagos, and global counterinsurgency. Packer served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa and he has taught writing at Harvard, Bennington, and Columbia.

Chimamanda Adichie is the author of Purple Hibiscus (2003), which won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best First Book Prize in 2005. Half of a Yellow Sun (2006) was awarded the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck  (2009), was a finalist in the John Llewllyn Rhys literary prize competition. In 2008 Ms. Adichie was the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Fellowship. Since the early stages of her career, Adichie has displayed a keen awareness of the importance of ethnicity in Nigeria, but she has also paid attention to the hardship often endured by Nigerian immigrants in the United States and England.

Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times since 2001, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He has lived on four continents, reported on six, and traveled to 140 countries. After joining The New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics, he served as a correspondent in Los Angeles and as bureau chief in Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. In 2000, he covered the presidential campaign and is the author of the chapter on Bush in the reference book The Presidents. He later was associate managing editor of the Times, responsible for Sunday editions. In 1990 Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, also a Times journalist, won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of China’s Tiananmen Square democracy movement. Kristof and WuDunn are also authors of China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia, and Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. Haunted by what he has seen in Darfur, Kristof has traveled to the region four times to provide coverage of the genocide that is unfolding there. In 2006, he won his second Pulitzer Prize for Commentary “for his graphic, deeply reported columns that, at personal risk, focused attention on genocide in Darfur and that gave voice to the voiceless in other parts of the world.”

Former FBI Special Agent Richard A. Marquise was involved with the Lockerbie/Pan Am 103 investigation from its inception and, after being named to lead the task force, led the investigation through the return of the indictments in 1991 and the trial. He received the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service. He is an expert in the fields of counter-terrorism and crisis management. Marquise is currently a senior Research Associate with the Institute for Intergovernmental Research (IIR), Tallahassee, Florida. He holds a Masters degree from the George Washington University and memberships in the International Association of Chiefs of Police Terrorism Committee and the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI.

Bernard Amadei has focused on transforming the field of engineering by revamping traditional models and establishing professional standards to integrate the field of engineering more closely with pressing global issues and needs, such as redevelopment efforts in earthquake-devastated Haiti. He is the founder of Engineers Without Borders–USA and co-founder of the Engineers Without Borders international network. Amadei directs the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities, and leads its overall mission to educate globally responsible engineering students and professionals who can offer sustainable and appropriate solutions to the endemic problems faced by developing communities worldwide. Amadei’s goal is to promote sustainable development, appropriate technology, service learning, and system thinking in the curriculum and research of civil and environmental engineering programs at U.S. universities. Among other distinctions, Amadei is the 2007 co-recipient of the Heinz Award for the Environment, the recipient of the 2008 ENR Award of Excellence, and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He was elected an Ashoka-Knight Fellow in 2010. Amadei is currently at work on a book entitled “Engineering With Soul.”