WAJAHAT ALI Wajahat Ali is a lawyer, journalist, TV host, award-winning playwright and a consultant to the U.S. State Department. As Creative Director at Affinis Labs, he empowers creatives in global communities, shapes public relations campaigns, develops new social entrepreneurship programs around the world, and mentors initiatives on branding and marketing. Wajahat helped launch the Al Jazeera America network as co-host of The Stream, a daily news show that extended its conversations into social media. His special focus was stories about marginalized and under reported communities and individuals in mainstream media. He was the lead author of Fear Inc., a seminal report from the Center for American Progress about anti-Muslim discrimination. A contributing op-ed writer for the New York Times, a host for Huffington Post, he is a speaker with The Lavin Agency and the curator of PEN America’s M Word series. |
 FIRDAUS ARASTU
Firdaus Arastu is a Media Associate with the Security and Rights Collaborative at ReThink Media. Her work approaches fighting anti-Muslim bigotry by increasing empathy and cultural understanding through exposure to the arts. She provides communications and media capacity-building support to arts projects around the country that feature artists, musicians, and storytellers who reflect the diversity what it means to be Muslim. Concurrently, Firdaus is an Assistant Editor at altMuslimah, a magazine dedicated to issues of gender and Islam. She was one of the original writers for Winnovating, profiling and interviewing women innovators from around the world. Prior to that, she worked in the Global Health and Development program at the Aspen Institute. In addition, her work has been published in Al Jazeera English, The Huffington Post, and The Tribune India. She was a speaker at the Islamic Society of North America’s conference on social media activism in the Muslim American community. A magna cum laude graduate of Syracuse University with a BS in Psychology and a BA with Distinction in Anthropology, she has researched and co-authored the chapter, American Muslim Women and Faith-Inspired Activism, in Feminism and Religion: How Faiths View Women and Their Rights (2016). She provided research assistance for American Muslims, American Islam, and the American Constitutional Heritage, published in Religious Freedom in America (2015). |
 ALBERTA ARTHURS
Alberta Arthurs is a consultant and commentator active in the fields of culture, philanthropy, and higher education. She was the Director for Arts and Humanities at the Rockefeller Foundation for over a decade and prior to this position served as President and Professor of English at Chatham University in Pittsburgh. Alberta served as Dean of Undergraduate Affairs and Acting Dean of Freshmen at Harvard College and Dean of Admissions, Financial Aid, and Women’s Education at Radcliffe College. She has taught English at Harvard and has taught and held administrative positions at Rutgers University and Tufts University. Alberta serves on numerous non-profit boards and advisory committees including the League of American Orchestras, Tribeca Film Institute, Philanthropy Committee of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University, Salzburg Global Seminar, and the Century Association. Her recent consulting clients include J.P. Morgan Chase, Brademas Center at New York University, Association of Performing Arts Presenters, and the AG Foundation, among others. |
 SUE BEDRY
Sue Bedry joined the Tampa Bay Times Newspaper in Education program in 2011. With a background in development, she is responsible for all aspects of fundraising for the Newspaper in Education program, as well as community partnerships, events, and internal and external outreach and communications. Sue also writes on a range of topics for the Tampa Bay Times Newspaper in Education program. Recent projects have included Alternate Times: Exploring Science Fiction Literature, which received a First Place in the National Newspaper Association’s 2015 Newspaper And Education Contest; La Florida – Land of Flowers: Ornamental Horticulture with Florida Native Plants, which received a 2016 Media Awards Silver Medal of Achievement from GWA: The Association for Garden Communicators; and Pathways to Understanding: Exploring Muslim Cultures in Tampa Bay, which received an Honorable Mention in the National Newspaper Association’s 2016 Newspaper And Education Contest. She is a member of Florida Press Educational Services Inc., a nonprofit organization of newspaper in education professionals that promotes literacy, particularly for young people. |
 JAMIE BENNETT
Jamie Bennett is the Executive Director of ArtPlace America, a partnership among 16 foundations, 8 federal agencies, and 6 financial institutions working to position art and culture as a core sector of community planning and development by investing in, researching, and supporting those who lead and execute creative place-making projects. To date, ArtPlace has invested $96 million in 262 projects in communities of all sizes across the United States in which artists and arts organizations are working with their neighbors to help create equitable, healthy, and sustainable futures. Until December 2013, Jamie was Chief of Staff and Director of Public Affairs at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw the national rollouts of the “Our Town” grant program and partnerships with the US Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development. Previously, Jamie was Chief of Staff at the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, where he oversaw the agency’s partnerships with the NYC Departments for the Aging, of Education, and of Youth and Community Development. Jamie also provided strategic counsel at the Agnes Gund Foundation, served as Chief of Staff to the President of Columbia University, and worked in fundraising at The Museum of Modern Art, the New York Philharmonic, and Columbia College. Before entering the public sector, Jamie served on the board of the HERE Arts Center. |
 MELISSA BERMAN
Melissa Berman is the Founding President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family in 2002. Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ mission is to help donors create thoughtful, effective philanthropy throughout the world. RPA develops strategic plans, conducts research, manages foundations and trusts, structures major gifts, coordinates donor collaboratives, and provides regranting and fiscal sponsorship services. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors annually manages or facilitates about $200 million in giving to more than 25 countries. Under her leadership, RPA developed and published the Philanthropy Roadmap series of donor guides with support from the Gates Foundation. She developed and leads RPA’s research initiative, “The Theory of the Foundation,” and is the author of three reports in that initiative. A frequent speaker, Ms. Berman has been a guest lecturer at universities across the U.S., Europe and Asia, and as a widely-recognized expert in philanthropy, has been profiled in the New York Times and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her ideas and views are featured in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Financial Times, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and she has been interviewed on the Today Show, NBC Nightly News, NPR, BBC Radio, CNBC-TV, and Bloomberg TV. Ms. Berman is an adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Business School, where she also serves on the Advisory Board for the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise. |
 MALIKA BILAL
Malika Bilal is a Washington, D.C.-based international news journalist with a passion for Her journey to the TV screen began at Northwestern University, where she graduated from the Medill School of Journalism with a newly honed skill set and a desire to see the world. That eventually led her to accept a job as an online news editor and writer in Qatar, a country she’d never visited, but would later call home for nearly four years. The position allowed her the opportunity to report from around the Middle East, including Egypt, where she covered that country’s first post-revolution election campaign and subsequent violence, and Saudi Arabia, as her network’s first female reporter to cover the Hajj. She previously worked for Voice of America and has written for the Chicago Tribune and National Public Radio. Her career has afforded her the chance to interview former presidents and prime ministers, Hollywood and Bollywood stars, and artists and activists from around the world. But her favorite interviews are the ones with people you haven’t heard of yet. A Chicago native, Malika now lives in the nation’s capital, where she can be reached on Twitter at @mmbilal and is always interested in hearing your story suggestions. |
 JACLYN BISKUP
Jaclyn Biskup is the Associate Producer and Production Manager at Seftel Productions, a New York-based boutique production company that produces award-winning documentaries, feature films, commercials, and digital media. Dedicated to creating artful, engaging work with a social conscience, Seftel’s productions have appeared on HBO, PBS, A&E, Bravo, Showtime, and many others. Jaclyn was the Associate Producer on the Emmy nominated PBS NOVA web series, The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers and Co-Produced the newly launched series, The Secret Life of Muslims, which uses humor and empathy to subvert stereotypes and reveal the truth about American Muslims while providing a counter-narrative to the rampant Islamophobia prevalent in the media. At Seftel, Biskup has also worked as Associate Producer on branded content for social media and web for Delta Air Lines, CalTech, Harvard, Duke, and others. Prior to her role at Seftel, Jaclyn was the founding Artistic Director of The Mill (fka Experimental Theatre Chicago) where she directed over 13 productions. As a freelance director in New York City, she has assisted on productions with Steppenwolf, The Public, and The American Musical Theatre Workshop. She received a Bachelor’s degree in Theater from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing and Theatrical Production from Northwestern University. |
 KEN CHEN
Ken Chen is the Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. He is the recipient of the Yale Younger Poets Award, the oldest annual literary award in America, for his book Juvenilia, which was selected by the poet Louise Glück. A National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts and Bread Loaf fellow, Chen co-founded the cultural website Arts & Letters Daily and CultureStrike, a national arts organization dedicated to migrant justice. A graduate of Yale Law School, he successfully defended the asylum application of an undocumented Muslim high school student from Guinea detained by Homeland Security. |
 PING CHONG + COMPANY
Ping Chong + Company produces theatrical works addressing the important cultural and civic issues of our times, striving to reach the widest audiences with the greatest level of artistic innovation and social integrity. The company was founded in 1975 by leading theatrical innovator Ping Chong with a mission to create works of theater and art that explore the intersections of race, culture, history, art, media and technology in the modern world. Today, the Company produces original works by a close-knit ensemble of affiliated artists, under the artistic leadership of Ping Chong. Productions range from intimate oral history projects to grand scale cinematic multidisciplinary productions featuring puppets, performers, and full music and projection scores. The art reveals beauty, precision, and a commitment to social justice. Beyond Sacred is an interview-based theatre production exploring the diverse experiences of young Muslim New Yorkers. Tiffany Abdelghani, Ferdous Dehqan, Kadin Herring, Amir Khalaqy and Maha Syed, the five participants in Beyond Sacred, come from a range of cultural and ethnic backgrounds but share the common experience of coming of age in a post-9/11 New York City at a time of increasing Islamophobia. They reflect a wide range of Muslim identities, including those who have converted to Islam, those who were raised Muslim, but have since left the faith, those who identify as “secular” or “culturally” Muslim, and those who are observant on a daily basis. The goal of Beyond Sacred is to illuminate daily experiences of Muslim new Yorkers, and work towards greater communication and understanding among Muslim and non-Muslim communities in New York City. |
 BRIDGIT ANTOINETTE EVANS
As Founder and President of Fuel | We Power Change, Bridgit Antoinette Evans is widely recognized as one of the foremost thought leaders in the culture change strategy field. A professional artist and strategist, she has dedicated her career to the relentless investigation of the potential of artists to drive cultural change in society. Fifteen years of work at the intersection of pop culture storytelling and social justice has evolved into a vision for a new, hybrid culture change field in which creative and social justice leaders work hand-in-hand to create and popularize stories that shape the narratives, values, beliefs, and behaviors that define American culture. Prior strategy design commissions include the ACLU/NYCLU Policing Project; Make It Work campaign; National Domestic Workers Alliance’s #BeTheHelp strategy; Breakthrough’s #ImHere for Immigrant Women strategy; GEMS’ Girls Are Not for Sale strategy; and Save Darfur’s Live for Darfur campaign. Currently, Bridgit designs culture change strategy for Unbound Philanthropy and consults on narrative and audience engagement strategies for Ford Foundation. Drawing insights from these commissions, Bridgit has traveled by invitation to the UK, France, Austria, Croatia, Brazil, South Africa, and throughout the U.S. to present talks, lectures and workshops. Currently, she is a Nathan Cummings Foundation Fellow, piloting a coordinated learning system designed to accelerate the social justice sectors’ understanding and use of culture change strategy. She often points to her roots as a professional Off-Broadway actor and devised theater producer as the source of her deep passion for culture change strategy. |
 MALIK GILLANI
Malik Gillani is Founding Executive Director of Silk Road Rising, a position to which he brings extensive experience in producing, management, and business development. He is a recognized leader in the creation of innovative arts programming that expands artistic access. Most notably, he conceived of and developed a model for creating online video plays which are now being accessed across the globe. Malik developed the community engagement and audience building strategies around a 5-year new play development / civic engagement project, Mosque Alert. Malik also conceived of and established an arts integrated education program, EPIC (Empathic Playwriting Intensive Course), which is being delivered across Chicago Public Schools system. He earned a Bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, with an emphasis on the Great Books. He is a Northwestern University Kellogg Executive Scholar and has received a Master’s in Non-Profit Administration from North Park University. Malik has been a volunteer grant reviewer for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the City of Chicago’s CityArts Program. He has presented papers at local and national conferences on arts leadership, innovation in the arts, and infusing arts practices into community organizing. Malik is the recipient of the Chicago Community Trust Fellowship Award, IBM Business and Technology Leadership Award, and was honored by Changing Worlds for Outstanding Contributions to the Arts. |
 EDWARD P. HENRY
Ed Henry was appointed President and CEO of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in January 2009. The foundation supports programs in the performing arts, the environment, medical research and child well-being throughout the United States as well as programs to strengthen health systems in a number of African countries. He also serves as president of several operating foundations, including the Duke Farms Foundation, which is focused on environmental stewardship, and the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, which operates a center for the study of Islamic arts and cultures and Building Bridges, a related grants program. The work of the foundation is supported by an endowment of approximately $1.8 billion. He has held senior administrative positions with a number of nonprofit institutions, was a David Rockefeller fellow with the Partnership for New York City, and prior to his work with DDCF was an Associate Dean at Columbia Business School. Much earlier in life he was a dancer with the New York City-based companies of Dan Wagoner and Viola Farber, had the opportunity to perform throughout the United States and abroad, served in the Artists-in-Schools program, created work for a number of venues, and participated as a peer reviewer for federal, state and local funding organizations. Ed holds a degree in economics from the University of Michigan and business from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. |
 TARYN HIGASHI
Taryn Higashi is the Executive Director of Unbound Philanthropy. Prior to working at Unbound, from 1997 to 2008, Taryn managed the migrant and refugee rights portfolio at the Ford Foundation and served as Deputy Director of the human rights unit from 2001-2008. Previously, Taryn was a Program Officer at The New York Community Trust, a staff attorney and Program Coordinator for Safe Horizons in New York City, and an associate at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. Taryn has received numerous awards, including the Robert V. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking from the Council on Foundations, which she shared with Geri Mannion of the Carnegie Corporation of New York; a 40th Anniversary Community Change Champion Award from the Center for Community Change; and a Human Rights Visionary Award from the Border Network for Human Rights, among others. Taryn currently serves on the Board of the International Refugee Assistance Project, the Advisory Board of the International Migration Initiative of the Open Society Foundations, and the Steering Committee of the Asian Women’s Giving Circle. She is a former Co-Chair of the Board of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees. Taryn is a graduate of George Washington University Law School and received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California at San Diego. She resides in New York City with her husband and son. |
 FADUMO IBRAHIM
Fadumo Ibrahim was born in Somalia, grew up in Kenya, and, in 2005, moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Since her arrival to the U.S. as a high school student, she has been involved with educational, social service, and community organizing initiatives in the Somali community. Fadumo joined the staff of The Cedar Cultural Center in 2012. The Cedar is a non-profit performing arts organization and all-ages music venue that presents live music to promote intercultural appreciation and understanding. At The Cedar, she has been instrumental in driving community engagement programming, including Midnimo (Somali for “unity”), a program launched 2014 that features Somali artists from around the world in residencies that increase understanding of Somali culture through music. In her role as Program Manager, she facilitates all contract, visa and travel arrangements for Somali artists, plans and implements residencies and activities, and oversees a part-time Somali Community Liaison and Tour Assistant, two long-term Somali Artists-in-Residence, and a volunteer Midnimo Committee. In 2016, The Cedar received a $500,000 grant from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters to expand Midnimo into greater Minnesota, increasing Ibrahim’s role as a leader in the state. Fadumo has a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Science from the University of Minnesota and is fluent in Somali, English, Kiswahili, and Arabic. |
NOORAIN KHAN Noorain Khan is Program Officer, Office of the President at the Ford Foundation, and is responsible for the strategy and management of the grant-making portfolio of the foundation’s president. Before joining Ford in 2015, Noorain was chief of staff to Wendy Kopp, CEO and co-founder of Teach for All and founder of Teach for America. At Teach for All, a global network of organizations in 35 countries, she worked with the CEO on strategic initiatives to facilitate coordination and deepen the network’s impact. Earlier, Noorain was a corporate attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, where she advised clients on cross-border mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. In addition, she represented clients pro bono in family law and Supplemental Social Security Income proceedings. Noorain serves on the boards of Girl Scouts of the USA, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, and Libraries Without Borders. She has worked extensively with the Girl Scouts on a variety of projects and with the New York Women’s Foundation on its Grants Advisory Committee. She has worked on the global public policy team at Google, as a contributing researcher at Jezebel, and as a law clerk in the civil appellate section of the US Department of Justice. She appeared on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for law and policy in 2014 and is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Noorain earned a juris doctor degree from Yale Law School, where she was a PD Soros Fellow; an MPhil in migration studies from Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar; and her bachelor’s degree from Rice University. |
 MAURINE KNIGHTON
Maurine Knighton is the Program Director for the Arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. In that capacity, she supervises a $15 million grants program focusing on organizations and artists in the theater, contemporary dance, jazz and presenting fields. Maurine’s previous positions include Senior Vice President for Grantmaking at the Nathan Cummings Foundation; Executive Producer and president of 651 Arts; Senior Vice President at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone; Program Manager at the Nonprofit Finance Fund, where she established and managed the Community Alliances program of the Cultural Facilities Fund; and Managing Director of the Penumbra Theatre Company in St. Paul, MN.Maurine has served as board member of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters and Grantmakers in the Arts, and panelist and advisor to the National Endowment for the Arts, New England Foundation for the Arts, Arts Presenters Ensemble Theater Program and others. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. |
 AFAQ MAHMOUD
Afaq is a Philadelphia-based writer, photographer, teaching artist, pastry enthusiast, and human rights activist from Sudan. Facing many obstacles and surviving as a black, Muslim, refugee, woman, she is now a Brave New Voices coach, Women of the World qualifier, and National Merit scholar who has facilitated and performed at events throughout the world. Continuously targeted and previously arrested for her activism, Afaq uses her experiences and the violence she has witnessed to combat injustice while spreading messages of compassion and change. |
KERRY MCCARTHY Kerry McCarthy is Program Director for Arts and Historic Preservation at The New York Community Trust, a community foundation that serves New York City and surrounding counties. Before joining The Trust in 2009, Kerry ran a consulting company serving nonprofit arts organizations. She has more than 25 years of experience in museum and performing arts administration with organizations as varied as the Queens Museum and Jim Henson Productions. She has curated exhibitions for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and Atlanta’s Center for Puppetry Arts. Kerry holds a M.A. in Folk Art Studies from New York University and B.A. from Sewanee: The University of the South. Kerry is a graduate of Coro’s Leadership New York Program, former co-chair of the City’s Dance Funders Group, and of New York Grantmakers in the Arts. Currently, she is a board member of Grantmakers in the Arts, and a member of the City Department of Education’s arts education committee to the Panel for Education Policy. |
 CHRISTOPHER MERRILL
Christopher Merrill is the Director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. A distinguished poet, writer and journalist, he has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and books of translations; and six works of nonfiction—among them, Only the Nails Remain: Scenes from the Balkan Wars; Things of the Hidden God: Journey to the Holy Mountain; and The Tree of the Doves: Ceremony, Expedition, War, and Self-Portrait with Dogwood. His writings have been translated into over thirty languages; his journalism appears widely; his honors include a Chevalier from the French government in the Order of Arts and Letters. Christopher serves on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, and in April 2012 President Obama appointed him to the National Council on the Humanities. He has conducted cultural diplomacy missions to more than forty countries. |
SHAWN MOREHEAD Shawn Morehead is Program Director for Promising Futures at The New York Community Trust, where she manages the Education and Human Justice grantmaking programs. She also leads the Trust’s Fund for New Citizens, a funder collaborative focused on integrating immigrants into the City’s economic and civic life, and is Co-Chair of the Donors’ Education Collaborative, which supports research, advocacy, and organizing to improve the City’s public schools. Prior to coming to the Trust, Shawn collaborated on recommendations to the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education to improve services for students with disabilities, and prior to that, was the Litigation Director at Advocates for Children of New York, where she managed a docket of systemic reform cases concerning education and civil rights on behalf of New York City public school students. Shawn received her J.D. from Stanford Law School and clerked for the Honorable Michael B. Mukasey, then Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York. Before law school, she taught middle school special education in Shreveport, Louisiana. |
 SHARAF MOWJOOD
Sharaf Mowjood is a senior producer for political video at the Huffington Post. His work covers editorial videos for all digital verticals at the Huffington Post, ranging from breaking news coverage to long form videos and have reached over 40 million views. He also helped contribute to the Huffington Post’s Islamophobia Tracker, which documented and listed all incidents of Islamophobia during the 2016 President Campaign and calendar year. Mowjood was on the 2016 campaign trail covering Donald Trump’s Presidential run for Nightly News with Lester Holt, TODAY, MSNBC, and nbcnews.com. As a field producer at NBC, he covered Muslims in America, the Arab Spring, booked world leaders, as well as breaking news events like the death of Bin Laden and the Royal Wedding. His career at NBC began when he was one of six chosen from among 2,000 applicants to receive the NBC News Associates Fellowship in 2010. Mowjood’s first published byline appeared on the front page of the The New York Times in 2009 for breaking the story about a mosque being built two blocks north of Ground Zero, today famously known as “The Ground Zero” mosque. |
DEAN OBEIDALLAH Dean’s comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. A New Jersey-born former practicing attorney, Dean is the co-founder of Muslim Funny Fest, co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, and the Executive Director of The Amman Standup Comedy Festival, the first standup comedy festival ever held in the Middle East. Dean is the co-creator of Comedy Central.com’s critically acclaimed Internet series, The Watch List and has appeared on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show and Axis of Evil special, and ABC’s The View, and Comics Unleashed, among many others. He co-directed and co-produced the award winning documentary, The Muslims Are Coming!, and co-created/co-starred in the comedy show, Stand up for Peace, along with Jewish comic Scott Blakeman. Their performances spanned colleges across the country as a way of fostering understanding between Arab, Muslim, and Jewish-Americans in support of peace in the Middle East. A noted media commentator, Dean has appeared on numerous international and national television and radio programs and publications, is a columnist for The Daily Beast and writer for CNN.com. Dean also hosts SiriusXM radio’s weekly national program, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and has written jokes featured on Saturday Night Live and The Late, Late Show. In addition to performing comedy throughout the US, Dean has performed in Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Oman, Israel, Qatar, and Dubai. |
 ZEYBA RAHMAN
Zeyba Rahman joined the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, an operating foundation of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, in 2013 as Senior Program Officer for the Building Bridges Program. Rahman manages the Building Bridges Program’s national grant making to support projects that advance relationships, increase understanding and reduce bias between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Before joining the foundation, Rahman led internationally and nationally recognized projects as a Creative Director/Producer to promote understanding between diverse communities. The roles she has performed include: Director, Asia and North America, Fes Festival of World Sacred Music in Morocco; Artistic Director, Arts Midwest’s Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet; Curator, Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Mic Check Hip Hop; Creative Consultant, Public Programs, Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia Galleries; Chief Curator, Alliance Francaise’s World Nomads Morocco Festival; Project Director, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation/National Endowment for the Arts’ Global Cultural Connections; and Senior Advisor, Muslim Voices Festival. She is an advisor to Artworks for Freedom and on the nominating committee of the Civitella Foundation in Italy. Twice honored by New York City’s government, Rahman is the subject of two television profiles as a global arts leader. |
 HUSSEIN RASHID
Hussein Rashid, PhD, is founder of islamicate, L3C, a consultancy focusing on religious literacy and cultural competency, and works with a variety of NGOs, foundations, non-profits, and governmental agency for content expertise on religion broadly, with a specialization on Islam. His work includes exploring theology, the interaction between culture and religion, and the role of the arts in conflict mediation. Hussein’s research focuses on Muslims and American popular culture. He writes and speaks about music, comics, movies, and the blogistan, and has a background in South and Central Asian studies with a deep interest in Shi’i justice theology. Hussein has published academic works on Muslims and American Popular Culture, Malcolm X, qawwali, intra-Muslim racism, teaching Shi’ism, Islam and comics, free speech, Sikhs and Islamophobia, Muslims in film, and American Muslim spaces of worship. His current project focuses on the role of technology in teaching religion. As a contingent faculty member, he has taught at Barnard College, Columbia University, Fordham University, Iona College, Virginia Theological Seminary, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, SUNY Old Westbury, and Hofstra University. He served as content expert for the Children’s Museum of Manhattan’s America to Zanzibar exhibit. Hussein has a BA in Middle Eastern Studies from Columbia University, an MTS in Comparative Theological Studies focusing on Islam and Hinduism from Harvard University and an MA/PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, focusing on South and Central Asia from Harvard University. |
 FERDINAND RICHARD
Ferdinand Richard is the Founder and Director of Aide aux Musiques Novatrices association, based in Marseille, France, a thirty-two-year-old platform dedicated to local development in the field of performing arts (festivals, workshops, art business incubators) with an extended international network. He is President of the Roberto Cimetta Fund, dedicated to the mobility of artists and culture activists between Europe, the Arab world, and the Middle East, a Member of the governance of Institut du Monde Arabe, and Coordinator of the Experts Panel of the International Fund for Cultural Diversity, UNESCO. Ferdinand is an Expert for the Agenda 21 Culture (United Cities and Local Governments) and has had an earlier 20-year career as a musician and producer. |
 MICHAEL ROHD
Michael Rohd is Founding Artistic Director of Sojourn Theatre. In 2015, he received an Otto Rene Castillo award for Political Theater and The Robert Gard Foundation Award for Excellence. He recently accepted a Professorship at Arizona State University’s Herberger Insititute for Design & Art and is author of the widely translated book, Theatre for Community, Conflict, and Dialogue. Recent projects include leading a two year Sojourn Artist-in-Residence collaboration with Catholic Charities USA poverty reduction sites around the US; collaborations with Steppenwolf Theater, Bush Foundation, Lincoln Center, Singapore Drama Educators Association, and Americans for the Arts; and, Learning Labs, through which he is currently collaborating with Arts Councils at the State and Local level around the US. He leads the Center for Performance and Civic Practice and was the 2013-2016 Doris Duke Artist-in-Residence at Lookingglass Theater Company in Chicago. |
 KRISTIN ROTH-SCHREFER
As communications director, Kristin Roth-Schrefer manages the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s internet presence, internal and external communications, branding, public relations and a small portfolio of grants funding non-profit media projects that advance the foundation’s mission. She also supports and advises the communications work of three operating foundations that run under the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s umbrella: the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, the Duke Farms Foundation and the Newport Restoration Foundation. Prior to joining the foundation in 2011, Roth-Schrefer was a vice president at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, where she developed content and communications related to firm-sponsored philanthropy and employee volunteerism, and a communications manager at American Express, where she helped the American Express Foundation communicate its then-new charitable giving strategy and the launch of its “Partners in Preservation” initiative. Roth-Schrefer also spent many years as a journalist and editor for a variety of media and publishing companies, such as Billboard, McGraw-Hill, MTV News, Newsweek, Popular Mechanics, Rolling Stone, Scholastic, Shape, Spin, USA Today, VH1 and Vibe, among others. She earned a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and has been the recipient of the American Express Corporate Affairs & Communications Award for Excellence, the Hearst Tower Award for Best Reporting and the Award of Excellence from the North American Travel. |
 KASHIF SHAIKH
Kashif Shaikh is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Pillars Fund. In this role, he leads all day to day operations for Pillars including managing its growth, creating new initiatives and increasing its public visibility. He founded Pillars in 2011, with a group of philanthropists, and has helped grow the organization into a leading voice for American Muslims in both the philanthropic sector and broader society at large. Prior to launching Pillars, Kashif was a Program Officer at the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. In this role, Kashif managed dynamic charitable partnerships with the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls and other corporate entities, overseeing $5M in annual grantmaking. Kashif’s career began at the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, where he developed key strategies to engage the organization’s largest corporate partners. Originally from Cincinnati, OH, Kashif holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Ohio State University and a Master’s in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University. |
 JOAN SHIGEKAWA
Joan Shigekawa served as Senior Deputy Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) during the Obama Administration and served as the agency’s Acting Chairman from 2012-2014. As an officer of the Rockefeller Foundation Joan led the foundation’s domestic and international programs in the arts, including the NYC Cultural Innovation Fund, the Southeast Asia Cultural Exchange Program and Creativity in a Digital Age. She was the first Director of the Arts Program at the Nathan Cummings Foundation in New York City. Prior to that Joan was with the staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where she directed the international Production Laboratory of the Program for Art on Film, a joint venture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust. Joan serves on the National Advisory Board of the Center for Asian American Media. She has served as a Mayoral appointee to the New York City Cultural Affairs Advisory Commission and as a trustee of the New York State Council for the Humanities, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), Grantmakers in the Arts and Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media, an affinity group of the National Council on Foundations. Joan is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College. |
 LORIE SLUTSKY
Lorie A. Slutsky has been the president of The New York Community Trust since 1990. She is responsible for managing The Trust’s nearly 2,500 charitable funds, overseeing an operation that distributed about $200 million in grants from an endowment of more than $2.5 billion. Lorie began her career at The Trust in 1977 and was named executive vice president in 1987. Lorie received her BA from Colgate University, where she served for nine years as a trustee and chairman of the budget committee, and her MA from The New School, where she was a trustee for six years. She is a former board chairman of the Council on Foundations and BoardSource, treasurer of the Independent Sector, and vice chairman of The Foundation Center. She is a director of AllianceBernstein Holding, an investment management firm and AXA Financial, Inc., an insurance company. Lorie co-chaired the Independent Sector’s Panel on the Nonprofit Sector. She has served on the boards of United Way of New York City, Hispanics in Philanthropy, the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York, the DeWitt Wallace Fund for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the Lila Acheson Wallace Fund for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. |
 MAHYAD TOUSI
Mahyad Tousi is a writer, producer and strategist. In 2006, Mahyad and internationally renowned author and scholar, Reza Aslan, co-founded BoomGen Studios—the premier entertainment brand for original creative content from and about the Greater Middle East. Some BoomGen’s projects include, Jon Stewart’s Rosewater; Netflix’s The Square; Disney’s Aladdin on Broadway and Prince of Persia; Barry Levinson’s Rock the Kasbah; Fork Films’ The Trials of Spring; Relativity’s Desert Dancer; The Weinstein Company’s Miral; TLC’s All American Muslim; and ABC’s Of Kings and Prophets, which Mahyad executive produced. BoomGen’s current project, Believer, an adventure series for the spiritually curious hosted by Aslan, is on CNN at 10 pm on Sundays. Mahyad speaks internationally on the convergence of storytelling and social/educational impact, as outlined in his TEDTalk: The Future of History. He is currently finishing his debut novel a fictional account of the discovery of the Tower of Babel—a post-utopian saga told from the perspective of a family torn apart by the forces that have shaped human destiny since time immemorial. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons. |
 CRISTAL CHANELLE TRUSCOTT
Dr. Cristal Chanelle Truscott is founder of Progress Theatre (ProgressTheatre.com), a Houston-based touring ensemble that uses art to encourage social consciousness, facilitate cross-community dialogue, and enhance cultural awareness. As an educator, playwright, and director, she creates Neo-Spirituals—or a’capella musicals—using SoulWork, the theatre-making methodology she developed from African American performance traditions. Cristal holds degrees from York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she studied at the Experimental Theatre Wing and completed her M.A. and Ph.D. in the Department of Performance Studies with a research focus on historical representations of Muslims in American theatre before 1950. Cristal is a recipient of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award as an Impact Artist, National Performance Network Creation Fund, New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theatre Project Grant, and the MAP Fund. She has been an invited scholar and artist participant in convenings such as Future Aesthetics, by the Ford Foundation and Diversity Dialogues, by the US Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. Cristal also serves as Arts Advisor to IMAN (InnerCity Muslim Action Network), The Muslim ARC (Anti-Racism Collaborative) and facilitates a service project called Enter Faith that engages spiritual diversity through training workshops, dialogues, and community arts events. The performers accompanying Cristal today are Derrick Brent II and Rebekah Stevens. |
 DARREN WALKER
Darren Walker is President of the Ford Foundation, the nation’s second largest philanthropy, and for two decades has been a leader in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. He led the philanthropy committee that helped bring a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and chairs the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance. Prior to joining Ford, he was Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation where he managed the rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of Harlem’s largest community development organization, the Abyssinian Development Corporation, Darren oversaw a comprehensive revitalization program of central Harlem, including over 1,000 new units of housing. He had a decade long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS. He is a member of the Commission on the Future of Riker’s Island and serves on the boards of Carnegie Hall, New York City Ballet, the High Line, the Arcus Foundation and PepsiCo. Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren received the “Distinguished Alumnus Award,” the highest honor given by his alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin. In 2016, TIME Magazine named him to its annual list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the recipient of ten honorary degrees and university awards. |
 MAYSOON ZAYID
Maysoon Zayid is an actress, professional standup comedian, and writer. She received a BA in Acting from Arizona State University. She is the co-founder of Muslim Funnyfest, co-founder and co-executive producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. Maysoon was a full-time On Air Contributor to Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and has appeared on The Queen Latifah Show, The Meredith Viera Show, 60 Minutes, and Huffington Post Live. Maysoon is a recurring columnist at The Daily Beast, was a speaker at TEDWomen 2013, and had the number one TED Talk of 2014. She was named 1 of 100 Women of 2015 by BBC. Maysoon has appeared on Comedy Central’s The Watch List, PBS’s America at a Crossroads: Muslim Comics Stand Up, CNN, HBO, As the World Turns, MTV, 20/20, BBC’s The Doha Debates, and had a feature role in Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. As a professional comedian, Maysoon has performed in top New York clubs, and has toured extensively at home and abroad. She was a headliner on the Arabs Gone Wild Comedy Tour, and The Muslims Are Coming Tour. Maysoon’s screenplay, If I CanCan, was chosen for the Sundance Middle Eastern Screenwriters Lab. She was a delegate at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and named one of 21 leaders of the 21st Century by Women’s Enews. She is the founder of Maysoon’s Kids, a scholarship and wellness program for disabled and wounded refugee children and was delighted to be a 2013 honoree of United Cerebral Palsy NYC’s Women Who Care Awards. |