Doris Sommer

is the Founder and Director of the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University and the Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and African American Studies. She is the author of Foundational Fictions: the National Romances of Latin America (1991), Proceed with Caution when Engaging Minority Literature (1999), Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (2004), Cultural Agency in the Americas (2006), and the forthcoming Ripple Effects: the Work of Art in the World. Dr. Sommer is dedicated to developing good public school education.  She has a B.A. from New Jersey's Douglass College for Women, an M.A., Hebrew University of Jerusalem; and a Ph.D. from Rutgers, The State University.

Tatiana Beltran

Stephanie Cedeño

Therese Condit

holds a B.A. in Music from Miami University Ed.M. in Education Policy from Harvard University and a B.A. in Music from Miami University. In China, Therese works with Wiseman Education as a program director and collaborates with the Cultural Agents Initiative at Harvard University to expand the outreach of Literature Out Loud, inspiring teachers to teach language and literature through engagement with the arts.

Cathy L. Draine

is a cultural organizer, teaching artist, youth development specialist and administrator. She is the founder and director of the newly-formed arts organization Imagine Me Theatre Works. For the past fifteen years, her work has addressed the intersection of creativity, individual development and community revitalization. She has a B.A. in History from Hollins University, an M.A. in Cultural Production from Brandeis University and is currently enrolled in the Theatre Education graduate program at Emerson College.

Jeronimo Duarte Riascos

Jacques Fux

Obed Lira

Naseemah Mohamed

is a 2012 graduate of Harvard College in Social Studies and African Studies and a 2013 recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship for her work with PRE-Texts through the Ziolonge Arts-Literacy Project in her native Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Naseemah is the former President of the African Students Association, co-director for the Pan African Drum and Dance Ensemble, and Secretary for the Youth Alliance for Leadership and Development in Africa. She currently works for the Center for African Cultural Excellence, which she co-founded.

Pedro Reyes

Helen Saarniit

Nadezhda Savova

is a cultural anthropologist with a Ph.D. from Princeton. Her work focuses on arts and cultural heritage as engines for social transformation, particularly in Eastern Europe and Latin America. She is the founder and president of the International Council for Cultural Centers (I3C), www.international3c.org, a global network of community cultural centers whose main program, the Bread Houses Network, www.breadhousesnetwork.org, establishes innovative culinary-cultural hubs where collective bread-making unites people across social boundaries. 

Maria Tereza Schaedler

is a Brazilian performing artist and a member of True Story Theatre -a Playback Theater troupe of theater for social healing. She trained directly with Augusto Boal and currently facilitates workshops at a variety of sites in the Boston area.

Brendan Shea

is an A.R.T. Dramaturgy/Artistic Fellow and a 2010 graduate of the A.R.T./MXAT Institute for Advanced Theater Training in Cambridge, MA.

Gabriela Poma Traynor

Paul Tritter