Lalin Anık’s work in marketing and behavioral economics explores the multifaceted influence of social connection on behavior. Lalin works with companies, organizations and governments to design novel social interventions that help employees, consumers and communities lead healthier, happier and more productive lives. Previously, Lalin worked at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and received her doctorate from Harvard Business School. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, she was a competitive swimmer for almost two decades. Lalin now spends her days wondering about the human condition, running after a ball, or flying.
 

William Antholis has decades of government, non-profit, and academic experience. Prior to joining the Miller Center, Antholis served as Managing Director of the Brookings Institution. Previously he was Director of Studies at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, focusing on international trade and development issues. He worked at the White House, where he was Director of International Economic Affairs of the National Security Council and served as Deputy Director of the White House Climate Change Task Force. Antholis worked at the State Department on the policy planning staff and in the Bureau of Economic Affairs, where he was a member of the team responsible for developing responses to world financial  crises. Antholis holds a Ph.D. in politics from Yale University and a B.A. in government and foreign affairs from UVA. He is the author of numerous articles, essays and lectures, as well as two books.

 

Bob Cafaro played chamber music full time and served on the faculty of the University of Virginia until 1983 when he became a regular with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. He later joined the Baltimore Symphony and in 1985 became a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1999, Bob was stricken with a virulent case of Multiple Sclerosis, which left him nearly blind and without the use of his hands. Defying what doctors had told him, he made a complete and remarkable recovery and has since written a book, been a member of The Rachmaninov Trio since 2003, and has grown passionate in his involvement with volunteer and outreach activities.

Eric Dyer brings animation into the physical world with his sequential sculptures and installations. His work has been widely exhibited at events and venues such as the Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, Ars Electronica, the London International Animation Festival, and the Cairo and Venice Biennales. He has been honored as a Fulbright Fellow, Sundance New Frontier Artist, Creative Capital Artist, and Guggenheim Fellow. Dyer’s fervent exploration of expression through motion has placed his work in books such as Re-imagining Animation: the Changing Face of the Moving Image and Animation: A World History. He teaches Animation at UMBC in Baltimore and is represented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York.

Kelly Eplee has worked for more than 30 years combining grass-roots volunteerism with assistance programs for vulnerable populations, both in the U.S. and impoverished countries, especially in Latin America and the Caribbean. He joined the Building Goodness Foundation (BGF) as Executive Director in November 2009. His first order of business was to serve with volunteer-designers and builders in the nonprofit’s reconstruction efforts after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Since that time BGF, in partnership with best-practice NGOs in Haiti, BGF has constructed 700 homes with the displaced and 18 community centers, clinics and schools. He is fluent in French, Haitian Creole, and Spanish and travels frequently to support BGF projects in Haiti and Central America. He lives with his family in the hills near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Aryn A. Frazier is a fourth-year Jefferson Scholar from Silver Spring, Maryland studying Politics and African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. She has dabbled in politics, public relations, advertising, media, and law, and hopes to work in political strategy before pursuing her law degree. She loves to travel, and in her spare time, enjoys reading, playing her guitar, binge watching unrealistic television dramas, and making other people laugh. To Aryn, the realization of 'The Power of One' is where everything that has ever changed has started.
 

Chase Iron Eyes is an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Nation. Chase has dedicated his career to ending the legal and economic oppression of Tribal Nations and their citizens by implementing self-determination on and off the Reservation. Chase also founded LastRealIndians.com, which helped lead an effort on behalf of the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux Nation) to regain control of Pe Sla, one of their most sacred sites in the Black Hills. Chase is currently running for the United States Congress to represent North Dakota. Chase is a graduate of the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver. He is married to Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle and they have three children.

Futurist, teacher, innovator, author, composer and former radio and television commentator, Nat Irvin, II, is the Woodrow M. Strickler Executive in Residence, Professor of Management Practice, College of Business at the University of Louisville where he teaches MBA courses in the future of management, leadership, and team dynamics. Irvin has engaged the leadership and management teams of numerous organizations, including Fortune 100 companies in strategic conversations focused on the significant social, political, economic, technological and environmental trends and events that will drive the mid-to-long term future. Irvin was the voice of “N2 the Future” a futurist thinking educational program aimed produced by Radio One, heard in over 30 major urban cities. Irvin also serves as a musical consultant and the Chief Learning Officer for Janelle Monae and the Wondaland Arts Society, Grammy nominated artistic group based in Atlanta, Ga.

Carmel Johnston recently finished serving as the Commander of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation where she and five other people lived in complete isolation for an entire year. With a Masters of Science in Land Resources and Environmental Sciences from Montana State University, she was able to apply her passion for science and sustainable living to growing fresh vegetable for the crew. Now that she is out of the dome, she is taking full advantage of being able to run, hike, swim, and play outside in her hometown in Montana while training for a full Ironman.

Andrew D. Kaufman, nationally recognized scholar and lecturer at the University of Virginia, has spent the last twenty-five years bringing classical literature to life for Americans young and old. He is the author of several books, including Give War and Peace a Chance: Tolstoyan Wisdom for Troubled Times, and is a sought-after keynote speaker. Dr. Kaufman is the creator of the community-based literature course, “Books Behind Bars: Life, Literature and Leadership,” where university students have life-changing discussions about Russian literature with incarcerated youth at a juvenile correctional center in Virginia. The program has been featured in the Washington Post, on Katie Couric, and on Russian national television, and will be the subject of a forthcoming documentary film. 

 

Charlotte Matthews’ most recent book Whistle What Can’t Be Said (2016) chronicles part of her experience with stage three breast cancer. In addition she is author of Still Enough to Be Dreaming (2007) and Green Stars (2005). Her honors include fellowships from The Chatauqua Institute and The Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She holds an M.F.A from Warren Wilson College’s Program for Writers and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She teaches in The Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies Program at The University of Virginia. She lives in Crozet with her husband, two children, a black lab, a hive of honey bees, and a very quiet fish.

Lulu Miller is the co-creator of NPR’s Invisibilia, a radio show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. Before that, she was a producer on NPR’s Radiolab. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Virginia and was a history major and rugby player at Swarthmore College.

Monica Montgomery is the founding director of the Museum of Impact, the world’s first mobile social justice museum, the co-founder of and strategic director for Museum Hue, a platform advancing the visibility and viability of professionals of color, in museums, arts, and culture, and creative careers. Additionally, she is the director of the Lewis Latimer Historic House Museum in Flushing, New York. Monica is also very active with NYC Cultural Equity Fund, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, National Arts Strategies and with the Center for Community Leadership.

 

Dr. Pamela Moran has served as the Superintendent of Albemarle County Public Schools since January 2006. She oversees a division with an annual operating budget of $160 million, with more than 1,200 teachers educating over 13,600 students in 26 schools. During Dr. Moran’s tenure, Albemarle County Public Schools has become one of the top performing school divisions in the state with an on-time graduation rate of 93 percent. The performance of its students on Advanced Placement tests ranks the division in the top three percent of all school divisions in the U.S. and Canada, according to a recent report by the College Board. Dr. Moran has long had a commitment to providing broad-based and innovative learning opportunities for students, believing that excellence in multiple disciplines provides students with the skills essential to becoming successful as citizens, in the workforce, and in post-secondary education. Dr. Moran’s career in public education includes serving as a high school science teacher, central office science coordinator and staff developer, elementary school principal, director of instruction, assistant superintendent for instruction, and adjunct instructor in educational leadership for the University of Virginia’s Curry School and the School of Continuing Education. She graduated with a B.S. in Biology from Furman University and holds a Master’s and Doctoral degree from the University of Virginia

Meghan O’Leary is a 2016 Olympian and four-time National Team member of the United States Rowing Team. A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana., she was a two-sport student athlete (Volleyball, Softball) and Jefferson Scholar at the University of Virginia. After obtaining both her Bachelor’s (CLAS ’07) and Master’s (M.Ed ’08) from UVA, she worked for ESPN in Production and Programming for five years. In 2010, O’Leary’s career took a dramatic turn after picking up rowing for the first time and falling in love with the sport. By 2011, she joined the USRowing National Training Center in Princeton, N.J. and most recently represented Team USA at the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. In addition to her rowing career, Meghan serves on the USRowing Board of Directors and is the Vice President of Customer Success with InstaViser.

Jerry Z. Peng is the Chairman and CEO of Vastly, Inc., a company that produces Rapidly renewable, sustainable, and high quality straw is the perfect fiber to make the paper products of the future. Vastly's new earth-restorative technologies are ushering in a new era of paper making.He served previously as managing director with Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC, based in Hong Kong, managing corporate financing and derivatives business in the Investment Banking Division and corporate sales for the Securities Division in China. Prior to this, Mr. Peng was executive director of China Onshore Sales for the Fixed Income Division of Morgan Stanley, and senior vice president and director at Standard Chartered Bank, as well as head of China franchise corporate banking. He is a member of Committee 2005 in China. Mr. Peng serves as a trustee on the University of Virginia Darden Business School Foundation Board and as vice chairman of Darden’s Global Advisory Council. He also serves as a trustee on the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges Board. He earned a BE in Finance from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics and an MBA from Darden Business School.

 

Paul Perrone is an inventor and pioneer of software for self-driving cars and mobile robots. He’s both a roboticist and entrepreneur. His life’s journey brought him to historic Pentagon-backed races of self-driving vehicles in the Mojave Desert, work with rocker Neil Young to automate his 1959 Lincoln Continental electric vehicle conversion, creation of self-driving car rapid drop-in kits, and the construction of robots for both fun and commercial purposes based on his patented general purpose robotics operating system known as “MAX”. As the founder & CEO of Perrone Robotics, his passion and mission is to popularize robotics.​

 

U.S. Treasury Deputy Secretary Sarah Bloom Raskin was nominated by President Barack Obama, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 12, 2014. The highest ranking woman in the history of the Treasury Department, Raskin arrived with wide-ranging financial experience, having served as a Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, Maryland’s Commissioner of Financial Regulation, Banking Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and in numerous leadership positions throughout the private sector. As Deputy Secretary, Raskin leads the broad range of policy and organizational matters in support of the Treasury Department’s mission. Her work in this regard promotes the conditions that enable economic growth and stability at home and abroad; strengthens national security by combating threats and protecting the integrity of the financial system; and leads the stewardship of the U.S. Government’s finances and resources.

Josef Rauschecker has 35 years of experience in systems and cognitive neuroscience, more than 25 years of experience in animal electrophysiology, and upwards of 15 years of experience with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). At Georgetown University Medical Center, he helped create the first human fMRI research facility. He has also held visiting appointments at several institutions, including Harvard Medical School, and has been the recipient of a Humboldt Award and a Finland Distinguished Professorship.

 

Mark Wingfield was a journalist for 21 years before becoming a pastor, he now serves as an associate pastor of Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. He is active in the nonprofit service sector, having helped launch four nonprofits and currently serving on the boards of three. Mark is a regular columnist for BaptistNews.com, where his two posts on understanding transgender identity went viral and sparked a national conversation.