Speaker(s): Wes Cowan

Wes Cowan, Contemporary Issues Forum

Wes Cowan, founder and owner, Cowan's Antiques, Inc.; featured appraiser, PBS's "Antiques Roadshow" 

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Recap

Aja Gabel, CLSC Author, The Ensemble 

Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who's always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. After the group's youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other - by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.

Following these four unforgettable characters, Aja Gabel's debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cutthroat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.

Aja Gabel's writing has appeared in BOMB, The Kenyon Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A former cellist, she earned her B.A. at Wesleyan University, her MFA at the University of Virginia and has a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Aja has been the recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee Writers'' Conference, Literary Arts Oregon, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Linda P. Fried

Linda P. Fried
Dean, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health

Linda P. Fried, Dean of Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, is a leader in the fields of epidemiology and geriatric medicine. A geriatrician also trained in cardiovascular and chronic disease epidemiology, she has dedicated her career to the science of healthy aging and prevention of frailty, disability and cardiovascular disease, and defining how to transition to a world where greater longevity benefits people of all ages.

At Columbia, Fried is also the DeLamar Professor of Public Health Practice and senior vice president at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Fried is the co-designer and co-founder of Experience Corps, and since 2006 has served as a member of the international Network on an Aging Society. She is also global chair of ILINK, the International Loneliness Knowledge Network. She has proposed the concept that it is possible to create a Third Demographic Dividend that enables society and individuals of all ages to experience the benefits of our now-longer lives, based on innovation in health promotion and design of society’s environments and roles for older adults.

Prior to Columbia, Fried worked at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, where she served in a number of capacities, including as director of the pan-medical Center on Aging and Health. She is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Aging. She is the recipient of numerous honors and award, most recently the 2016 French INSERM International Prize in Medical Research and the 2018 Crain’s Notable Women in Health Care.

Fried received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin; her M.D. from Rush Medical College; and her Master of Public Health degree from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Vishakha Gupta

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Amani M. Allen

Amani M. Allen
Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Community Health Sciences, UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Amani M. Allen is Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, where her research focuses on race and socioeconomic health disparities and the measurement and study of racism as a social determinant of health.

Her broad research interest is to integrate concepts, theories and methods from epidemiology and the social and biomedical sciences to examine racial inequalities in health as they exist across populations, across place, and over the life-course. Allen is Principal Investigator of the African American Women’s Heart & Health Study, which examines the association between racism stress, cardiometabolic risk, and biological stress more generally, among African American women in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Bay Area Heart Health Study which examines similar associations among African American men with an emphasis on coping and internalized racism. Her research has included work on doctor-patient race-concordance; the intersection of race, socioeconomic status, and gender on risk for psychological distress, disability, adult mortality, and child health and development; racial segregation; income inequality; and racism stress and a range of mental and physical health outcomes. Dr. Allen has published numerous academic articles in top scientific journals including the American Journal of Public Health, American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Annals of Epidemiology, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences and Psychoneuroendocrinology, where her recent paper examining racial discrimination, educational attainment and biological dysregulation among African American women was recently named Editor’s Choice. Dr. Allen’s work has been featured on NPR, CBS, The Guardian, and the SF Chronicle, among others. She has received numerous awards for teaching excellence and as a junior faculty member was honored with the singular award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring at the University of California Berkeley.

Allen received her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park, her Master of Public Health (MPH) from the George Washington University; and her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the Johns Hopkins University. She was also a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Alexander Wadley

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Laura L. Carstensen

Laura L. Carstensen
Founding Director, Stanford Center on Longevity 

Laura L. Carstensen is Professor of Psychology and the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy at Stanford University where she serves as founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, whose Week Four work with Chautauqua will feature morning lectures, master classes, and special programs. SCL is doing groundbreaking work with a “New Map of Life” Project, recognizing that longer lives present one of the greatest challenges — and one of the greatest opportunities — of the 21st century.

Carstensen’s research has been supported continuously by the National Institute on Aging for more than 25 years and she is currently supported through a prestigious MERIT Award. She is the author of numerous academic articles and the book A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. Carstensen has served on the National Advisory Council on Aging and the MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on an Aging Society. In 2016 she was inducted into the National Academy of Medicine. She has won numerous awards, including the Kleemeier Award from the Gerontological Society of America, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the Master Mentor Award from the American Psychological Association.

Carstensen received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Rochester and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from West Virginia University.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Mhari Shaw

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Heather J. Koldewey | Lillygol Sedaghat

Heather J. Koldewey
National Geographic Fellow

Heather J. Koldewey is a 2018 National Geographic Fellow and scientific co-lead of the National Geographic Society’s work to better understand the impact and scope of plastic pollution in our waterways through scientific research and exploration. She currently serves as Zoological Society of London’s Senior Technical Advisor.

Koldewey co-founded Project Seahorse in 1996, recognized as the world’s leading authority on seahorses and as an early pioneer of community-based marine conservation. More recently, Koldewey co-developed Net-Works, an award-winning project that addresses issues of marine debris and poverty alleviation in coastal communities in developing countries. She also leads the Bertarelli Programme in Marine Science. Koldewey uses collaborative, optimistic and values-based approaches to communicate and engage people in marine conservation, including One Less, a campaign to build a more ocean-friendly society through working to make London the first capital city to stop using single-use plastic water bottles. As a scientific co-lead of National Geographic Society’s plastic work, Koldewey will help lead a team in developing a scientific plan, starting with an initial expedition to study the type and flow of plastic in a river system. Through the expedition, the team will work to provide science-based, actionable information to help local and national governments, NGOs, businesses and the public more effectively invest in and implement innovative solutions to the plastic waste crisis.

An Honorary Professor at the University of Exeter, Koldewey graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences (Marine and Fish Biology) at the University of Plymouth, and earned her Ph.D. from Swansea University.

Lillygol Sedaghat
National Geographic Explorer and multimedia storyteller

Lillygol Sedaghat is a National Geographic Explorer and multimedia storyteller at the intersection of science, systems and people. Previously, she was a Fulbright–National Geographic Digital Storyteller documenting Taiwan’s waste management system, plastics recycling, and circular economy initiatives.

Through her work, Sedaghat hopes to inspire conscious consumerism — the realization that every choice we make affects the environment — and spark a global discussion on trash with #MyWasteMyWay. Using visual art and digital media to promote environmental education, she aims to transform people’s perceptions of trash from something disposable to something valuable. An active spokesperson for National Geographic’s global Planet or Plastic? Campaign, she has spoken at United Nations World Environment Day India, Influence Nation Summit, and the National Geographic Live series, among other events. She has been named “5 Under 25: Leaders in U.S.-China Relations” by China Hands magazine.

Sedaghat received her Bachelor of Arts in political economy from the University of California, Berkeley.

(Note: These biographies were up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Sarah Yenesel

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Rae Wynn-Grant

Rae Wynn-Grant

Conservation scientist, large-carnivore ecologist

Rae Wynn-Grant is a conservation scientist, large-carnivore ecologist, nature storyteller, and advocate with expertise in using emerging technology to identify how humans are changing the way carnivores use landscapes.

She is currently studying the ecological and social drivers of human-carnivore conflict and how human development can either facilitate or disrupt connectivity of carnivore habitat. She is carrying out this work in the Great Plains of northeast Montana where she is studying potential habitat corridors that can aid in grizzly bear conservation. She has worked on similar research with black bears in the Western Great Basin and African lions in rural Kenya and Tanzania, and grizzly bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Wynn-Grant is also a 2018 fellow with National Geographic Society working on carnivore conservation in partnership with the American Prairie Reserve.

Additionally, she is the Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Officer on the Board of Governors for the Society for Conservation Biology, focusing on providing the tools and strategies needed for embracing and advancing issues related to equitable opportunity and representation in conservation biology. She serves on the Board of Directors for The Explorer's Club, and the Board of Advisors for University of Florida's Doris Duke Conservation Scholars Program.

Wynn-Grant maintains a Visiting Scientist position at the American Museum of Natural History, and adjunct faculty positions at Columbia University and Johns Hopkins University. She received her Bachelor of Science from Emory University, her master’s from Yale University, and her doctorate from Columbia University. She completed a Conservation Science Research and Teaching Postdoctoral fellowship with the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Alexander Wadley

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Risa Goluboff

Risa Goluboff

Dean, University of Virginia School of Law

Risa Goluboff is the 12th, and the first female, dean of the University of Virginia School of Law. She is a nationally renowned legal historian whose scholarship and teaching focuses on American constitutional and civil rights law, and especially their historical development in the 20th century. After the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville in the summer of 2017, Goluboff led the University-wide committee charged with recovering from and responding to the events.

Goluboff is the author of The Lost Promise of Civil Rights and Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s, which both received numerous honors. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American LawInstitute, Goluboff received the University of Virginia School of Law’s Carl McFarland Award for excellence in faculty scholarship in 2008, and the University of Virginia's All-University Teaching Award in 2011. She also holds appointments as Professor of History in the Corcoran Department of History, Faculty Affiliate at the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies, and Faculty Senior Fellow at the Miller Center.

Prior to joining the Law School in 2002, Goluboff clerked for Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court. She holds degrees from Harvard (A.B.), Princeton (M.A., Ph.D.), and Yale (J.D.) and served as a Fulbright Scholar to South Africa.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Alexander Wadley

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Anna Clark | Jiquanda Johnson | Lev Hunter

Anna Clark
Journalist, author, The Poisoned City

Anna Clark is a journalist in Detroit. She’s the author of The Poisoned City: Flint’s Water and the American Urban Tragedy, named one of the best books of the year by The Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Kirkus, the New York Public Library, Audible, Amazon, and others. It is the winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism and a Michigan Notable Book.

Clark’s articles have appeared in Elle, The New York Times, Politico, the Columbia Journalism Review, Next City, and other publications. She also edited A Detroit Anthology.Clark was a Fulbright fellow in Nairobi, Kenya, and a Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. She co-curates the Motor Signal Reading Series in Detroit's Eastern Market and she's been the longtime co-leader of an improv theater workshop in a men's prison in Macomb County.

Clark graduated Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers.

Jiquanda Johnson
Founder and publisher, Flint Beat

Founder and publisher of Flint Beat, Jiquanda Johnson is a Flint-area native with more than 16 years of experience in journalism including print, television and digital media. She has worked for The Detroit News, NBC25, Fox and MLive Media Group/The Flint Journal, where she covered the city of Flint.

As a reporter covering Flint for MLive, Johnson discovered that the community needed a news publication focused only on Flint, Michigan, covering the many issues facing the city beyond the water crisis that was widely reported by national news. Flint Beat, a hyper-local, non-profit digital news outlet, was launched on March 13, 2017, to fill that need. In a 2018 interview with Poynter Institute, a leading educational institution for journalists, Johnson explained that Flint Beat aims to highlight solutions-based journalism, bridge gaps in coverage and use the journalism model to help other underserved communities tell their stories.

Lev Hunter
Entrepreneur; founder and owner, The Daily Brew

Lev “LV” Hunter is the founder of The Daily Brew in Flint. Michigan, one of several new small businesses amid a growing culture of entrepreneurship in the city. Hunter currently operates online and serves as a “pop-up barist” for events around Flint and the region as he raises capital for a brick-and-mortar home for The Daily Brew. In addition to coffee beans and tea sales online, Hunter delivers Facebook livestreams every weekday morning and is the creator of The Daily Brew Podcast.

In a 2019 interview with Anna Clark for Citylab, Hunter explained that “people think you’re not able to have success or that a successful business can actually grow from Flint. But think about it. A successful entrepreneur has to have what some call grit, some call resilience. You’ve got to have resilience if you’re dealing with a water crisis.”

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources
Banner photo by Mhari Shaw

• The Chautauquan Daily lecture coverage:
  • Preview
  • Recap

Speaker(s): Donald Verrilli

Donald B. Verrilli Jr.
Former Solicitor General of the United States

Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., a former law clerk to United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit J. Skelly Wright and U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., is an acclaimed American lawyer and courtroom advocate.

Verrilli has argued 50 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court. Following two decades in private law practice, he served in the Obama Administration as Associate Deputy Attorney General, then as Deputy White House Counsel, and then as Solicitor General of the U.S.

As Solicitor General, Verrilli, among other highlights, successfully defended the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and the constitutional protection of marriage equality. Since 2016, Verrilli has been a partner in Munger, Tolles & Olson, handling matters before the Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals and representing and counseling clients on litigation, regulatory, and public policy problems. He is a graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School.

Chautauqua Institution’s Robert H. Jackson Lecture is named in honor of the former Chautauquan, Jamestown lawyer, New Dealer, Solicitor General, Attorney General, Supreme Court justice, and Nuremberg chief prosecutor. Every summer the Jackson Lecture is a leading expert discussing the Supreme Court, the Justices, signal decisions, and related legal developments.

Chautauqua’s previous Jackson Lecturers have been Geoffrey Stone (2005), Linda Greenhouse (2006), Seth Waxman (2007), Jeffrey Toobin (2008), Paul Clement (2009), Jeff Shesol (2010), Dahlia Lithwick (2011), Pamela Karlan (2012), Charles Fried (2013), Akhil Amar (2014), Laurence Tribe (2015), Tracey Meares (2016), Judge Jon O. Newman (2017), and Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella of Canada’s Supreme Court (2018).

Verrilli was, following Seth Waxman, Paul Clement, and Charles Fried, the fourth former U.S. Solicitor General to give Chautauqua’s Jackson Lecture.

(Note: This biography was up-to-date as of the date of the lecture. Biographies are not updated over time.)

Resources

• The Chautauquan Daily coverage:
  • Preview