Arn Chorn-Pond
Renowned human rights activist, musician and Cambodian genocide survivor. Inspiring change with incredible stories of hope, endurance, and survival through the power of music.
Award-Winning Authors
Authors whose books are popular with 1st year reads, community reads, visiting writers programs!
Tim Riley
Journalism professor and NPR commentator, Riley’s books on the Beatles and John Lennon are consider definitive works. He also speaks about the way that social media has changed the face of journalism.
Lorene Cary
Powerful storyteller, educator, and social activist delivering important autobiographical, historical, and fictional stories about issues surrounding race and class.
Ted Conover
Pulitzer Prize finalist and National Book Award winning author who has worked as a correctional officer in a prison, and traveled from Mexico to the US with migrants crossing the border.
Video: Ted Conover at Whittier College
Michael Mann
Recognized as one of our planet’s heroes & part of the IPCC team that won the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Mann is an award-winning climate scientist and expert on climate change.
Robert Williams
Law professor, civil rights activist, and Native American, Williams has established a notable career in the fields of Native American and International law and indigenous people’s rights.
Steven Strogatz
An award-winning researcher, teacher, and communicator, Strogatz enjoys sharing the beauty of math, nonlinear dynamics and complex systems, often on topics inspired by the curiosities of everyday life.
Video: Steven Strogatz at the World Government Summit in Dubai
Dan Moldea
Organized crime reporter Moldea has covered the widespread impact of “the mob” on business, the entertainment industry, government, and sports for many years, and survived at least one contract on his life.
Emily Hunter
A second generation environmental activist, Hunter’s documentary series Activism 2.0 shows the new wave of environmental activists on the front lines of grassroots movements.
Video: Activism 2.0 – Rebirth of the Environmental Movement
Annie Leonard
Executive Director for Greenpeace USA and widely known for her documentary The Story of Stuff, Leonard is vigorously dedicated to ecological sustainability. Her criticism of excessive consumerism challenges what we make, use and throw away.
Margaret Lowman
Champion & pioneer of rainforest canopy ecology, Dr. Lowman has been nicknamed the “Real-Life Lorax” by National Geographic and “Einstein of the Treetops” by the Wall Street Journal.
Richard Rhodes
Pulitzer Prize winner for The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Rhodes has written two other critically acclaimed books on nuclear warfare.
Video: Speaking at the American Museum of Science and Energy
Robert Kirshner
Part of the Nobel-Award winning research team on “cosmic expansion” — takes his audience inside the world of dark energy, exploding stars, and the accelerating universe.
Stephanie Coontz
Nationally renown scholar of the history of marriage and family, Coontz lifts the veil on American values. Author of the award-winning book: Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage.
Gail Dines
Scholar and social critic, Dines is at the forefront of the anti-pornography movement, leading the efforts to raise awareness of the connections between pornography, misogyny and violence.
Video: Gail Dines at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
David Guterson
Guterson’s newest book Descent: A Memoir of Madness is a starkly revealing memoir of his fall into depression in the wake of a national tragedy, and his courageous journey to recovery
Bob Reiss
With climate change creating new access to the Arctic, “the region is in danger of becoming a 21st-century Wild West—a free-for-all for power and riches opening up at the top of the planet.”
Charles Kimball
Middle East expert and analyst on world religions, Islam, Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, and the intersection of religion and politics in America.