Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Ari Moore '22 graduated from CMC with a degree in International Relations and the Human Rights, Genocide & Holocaust Studies sequence. He recently moved back from São Paulo, Brazil, where he was working at Conectas Direitos Humanos as an Elbaz Post-Graduate Fellow. Ari’s work with Conectas was largely focused on the defense of socio-environmental rights. With indigenous people under constant threat and the climate crisis growing, his work at Conectas focused on advocating for the strengthening of indigenous rights in Brazil, demanding accountability for environmentally destructive development projects, and spotlighting the gaps between Brazilian environmental protections and standards set by relevant international organizations. Since moving back to the US, he's been working as an educational director and teacher in Los Angeles, with plans of returning to Brazil to pursue a masters in international development. He also tap dances, and is involved with local peace activism.

Ari’s presentation is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights and the Elbaz Family Post-Graduate Fellowship Program. 

Ellen Ochoa—inventor, astronaut and space center director—is a pioneer like no other. She made history as the first Latina to go to space, blazing a trail for other marginalized kids who dream of the stars. There were few minorities in leadership when she joined NASA—so she changed that, becoming the first Latinx and second female director of the Johnson Space Center. 

As a woman in engineering, Ochoa often faced people who didn’t think she belonged there. Although she proved them all wrong, becoming a researcher and a patent-holding inventor, she remembers feeling lonely at times as the only Latina in many of her classes and jobs. That’s why she’s working to ensure that women and minorities feel seen and welcomed in STEM. She championed diversity and inclusion in her time at NASA, making life better for both those on the ground and those in space. Her revolutionary work on NASA’s company culture is still held up as an example of how to change the world by changing people’s minds—it was recently profiled in Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, Adam Grant’s New York Times bestseller.

Despite her many accomplishments, Ochoa says the biggest role she’s played is in mentoring and advocating for the next generation: “astronauts, scholars, who will go on to accomplish more than we can imagine.” Her outreach includes authoring bilingual children’s books on science and engineering. She serves on several boards and recently concluded a term as chair of the National Science Board, having also served on its Vision 2030 Task Force focused on the U.S. maintaining its status as the world innovation leader. She’s in the Astronaut Hall of Fame and has received many honors, including having seven schools named after her. She’s a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the National Academy of Inventors, among others.

Dr. Ochoa holds a BS from San Diego State University and an MS and PhD from Stanford University. Her Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Women in Leadership Alliance and the Kravis Leadership Institute at CMC.

Brett King is a world-renowned futurist and speaker, an international bestselling author, and a media personality who covers the future of business, technology, and society. He has spoken in over 50 countries, at TED conferences, given opening keynotes for Wired, Techsauce, Singularity University, Web Summit, The Economist, IBM’s World of Watson, CES, SIBOS and many more. He has appeared as a commentator on CNN, CNBC, BBC, ABC, Fox, and Bloomberg. Chinese President Xi Jinping has cited his book Augmented on the topic of Artificial Intelligence, and he previously advised the Obama administration on Fintech policy and advises regulators and bank boards around the world on technology transformation.

King hosts the world’s first and #1 ranked radio show on FinTech called “Breaking Banks” (180 countries, 10m+ downloads) and his latest venture is “The Futurists“, a podcast featuring those creating the future. He is the Founder of Moven, the world’s first mobile, downloadable bank account. Moven was the first app-based, neo-bank or challenger bank in history that allowed an in-app application process for a debit card, the first banking app to use the homescreen for financial health indicators, the first real-time receipts for transactions, and the first bank to use contactless cards in the US) and now a Banking-as-a-Service platform for mobile banking and financial wellness available for banks and fintechs globally.

Named ”King of the Disruptors” (Banking Exchange magazine) and the “Godfather of Fintech” (The Australian newspaper), King is a Fintech Hall of Famer (CB Insights) who was voted American Banker’s Innovator of the Year, voted the world’s #1 Financial Services Influencer by The Financial Brand and was nominated by Bank Innovation as one of the top 10 “coolest brands in banking." He was shortlisted for the 2015 Advance Global Australian of the Year Award for being one of the most influential Australians living offshore. His books have been released in over a dozen languages and he has achieved bestseller status in 20 countries. His fifth book Augmented: Life in the Smart Lane was an international bestseller, top 10 in North America and China, and the book remained in the top 10 on Amazon for 2 years. Bank 4.0, which followed, has already spent 3 years on the Amazon bestsellers list for Banking books. His latest book for the post-Coronavirus world is entitled The Rise of Technosocialism and is out now.

Mr. King's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute, the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance, and the Robert Day Scholars Program, all at CMC.

Civitas Sessions is organized by the Kravis Lab and moderated by Executive Director Vernon C. Grigg III, JD. A lawyer by training, Grigg holds degrees from Yale Law School (J.D.), the London School of Economics (G.SC.), and the University of Michigan (BA).  Vernon comes to the Kravis Lab from his role as CEO & President of Up with People, a fifty-five-year-old international nonprofit education and arts organization. He managed a global team of 50 employees across three continents as he led the nonprofit to sustainability and health despite the challenges of the worldwide pandemic.

Andrew E. Busch is Crown Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College, where he teaches courses on American politics and government. He is the author or co-author of more than three dozen scholarly chapters and articles as well as more than 20 books, including Horses in Midstream: U.S. Midterm Elections and Their Consequences, 1894-1998; Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom; The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations; The Constitution on the Campaign Trail: The Surprising Political Career of America’s Founding Document; Truman’s Triumphs: The 1948 Election and the Making of Postwar America; and Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.

Tani Cantil-Sakauye is President and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, where she holds the Walter and Esther Hewlett Chair in Understanding California’s Future. From 2011 to 2022, she served as the 28th Chief Justice of California and led the judiciary as the chair of the Judicial Council—the constitutional policy and rule making body of the judicial branch—the first person of color and the second woman to do so. Before she was elected statewide as the Chief Justice of California, she served more than 20 years on California appellate and trial courts and was appointed or elevated to higher office by three governors. Earlier in her career she served as a deputy district attorney for the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and on the senior staff of Governor Deukmejian, first as deputy legal affairs secretary and later as a deputy legislative secretary. She holds a BA and a JD from the University of California, Davis.

Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Rose Institute for State and Local Government at CMC.

Ryan Patel is a globally recognized futurist and go-to authority on global business, political economy, and corporate governance. An expert in scaling businesses, he's served startups and publicly traded firms. Listed as one of the “Creators to Follow” by Linkedin Editor in Chief Daniel Roth and recognized as a “Top Voice” on Linkedin, Patel is a sought-after TV news commentator and Board Director. Patel also hosts "The Moment with Ryan Patel," featuring conversations with top innovators and executives filmed at the iconic HP Garage, the birthplace of Silicon Valley. He complements his literary talents with domestic and international keynote appearances, leading campaigns with corporations and universities such as the World Economic Forum, Davos, Mastercard, HP, Adobe, The Economist, Reuters, and more.

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Jeff Hausman '90 P'27 is the Chief Product Development Officer (CPDO) at PagerDuty, responsible for the company’s product strategy, product management, engineering, design, and user experience of the PagerDuty Operations Cloud. Hausman joined PagerDuty from Samsara, where he was the Chief Product Officer.

Previously, Hausman served as ServiceNow Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Operations Management Portfolio - ITOM, ITAM, Security, Risk and ESG. He brings a proven track record of over 25 years leading product development as a senior executive across a wide range of products at McAfee, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard and Veritas.

Hausman received his MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and graduated from CMC with degrees in mathematics and economics.

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Faye Karnavy Sahai '90 is Founding Managing Partner at Telosity Ventures, an early-stage venture capital fund investing in digital wellness and mental health. Prior to this, she hah 25+ years of experience in healthcare, financial institutions, and technology innovation executive at Kaiser Permanente, Schwab, AIG, Blue Shield and Deloitte Consulting and founded 3 of her own startups.

She has served an Advisor and Board member to over a dozen companies including Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, UCSF Catalyst, ANA Innovation Advisory, Samsung Emerging Technology Advisory, Innovation Executive Forum, CMC Alumni Board, the Berger Institute and Ascend Leadership NorCal Chair.

Sahai holds a BA in Economics and Psychology from CMC and an MBA from UCLA.

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Tim Hall '92 is the Chief Product Officer at Redis, and is passionate about building products that developers love to use and that are easy to run and manage for customers. For more than a decade in senior leadership positions, his teams have been focused on executing to make these values a reality for leading open source, enterprise software, and cloud-based platforms at Redis, InfluxData, Hortonworks, Oracle, and HP. Previously, Hall worked in professional services, building solutions and delivering systems integration projects for a wide variety of customers, from financial services to distribution and logistics companies and more.

Hall holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in science and management with a concentration in physics from Claremont McKenna College.

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This Athenaeum presentation recognizes Ryan Patel's William F. Podlich Distinguished Fellowship at CMC, and is also part of the Athenaeum's 40th Anniversary Series, which celebrates the achievements of CMC alumni from across the years and invites them to return home to Claremont.

Jean Michel Habineza has worked in the field of Genocide Prevention and Youth Empowerment since 2007. He was one of the founders of Peace and Love Proclaimers “Youth for A Change”, an organization aimed at creating positive change in Rwanda. PLP (as it is commonly referred to) was the creator of Walk to Remember, a commemorative walk that brings together young people from all over the world to end mass atrocities. The walk has taken place in 25 countries around the world and attended by dignitaries such Rwandan President Kagame and the First Lady, William Hague, foreign secretary of the UK, and Samantha Powers (the US ambassador to the UN) among others.

In 2012, Jean Michel co-founded iDebate Rwanda, a debate program that teaches students the art of civil discourse. iDebate currently works with 150 schools and serves more than 6000 students. Through his leadership, Rwandan students won the 2017 African Debate Championship and the Rollins Cup, a prestigious cup whose past winners include Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Jean Michel is a TEDx speaker and has spoken at more than 60 universities in the USA through his project “Voices From a Post Genocide Generation” about the importance of civil discourse, and his work has been featured in Foreign Policy Journal, and Huffington Post.

Jean Michel is the co-author of Rwanda Rising: Debate as Global Pedagogy, a book that aims at sharing the importance of civil discourse to curtail propaganda. The book was inspired by the 2019 Dreamers Academy, a holiday program started by iDebate Rwanda.  In 2016, he was named the 2016 Public Advocate of the Year, an award given by CEDA, the largest intercollegiate debate program in the USA. Jean Michel holds a MA in Social Entrepreneurship and Change from Pepperdine University and a BA in International Relations from Towson University.

Mr. Habineza’s talk is co-sponsored by the Mgrublian Center for Human Rights at Claremont McKenna College in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Genocide Against the Tutsis.
 

Cate Taylor is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UCSB, in Santa Barbara, CA. Formerly, she was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana with a joint appointment in the Department of Gender Studies and a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at Columbia University. She earned her PhD at Cornell University. Her main research and teaching areas are gender, work, health, reproduction, social psychology, and social inequality.

Professor Taylor's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Berger Institute for Individual and Social Development at CMC.

Civitas Sessions is organized by the Kravis Lab and moderated by Executive Director Vernon C. Grigg III, JD. A lawyer by training, Grigg holds degrees from Yale Law School (J.D.), the London School of Economics (G.SC.), and the University of Michigan (BA).  Vernon comes to the Kravis Lab from his role as CEO & President of Up with People, a fifty-five-year-old international nonprofit education and arts organization. He managed a global team of 50 employees across three continents as he led the nonprofit to sustainability and health despite the challenges of the worldwide pandemic.

George Thomas is Wohlford Professor of American Political Institutions and Director of the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author, most recently, of The (Un)Written Constitution, as well as The Madisonian Constitution and The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind, and co-author of the two-volume American Constitutional Law: Essays, Cases, and Comparative Notes. He has published numerous scholarly articles on Constitutional Law and American Constitutionalism, and his essays have appeared in The Atlantic and The Washington Post. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Huntington Library, and is the recipient of the Alexander George Award from the American Political Science Association.

Fabrice j. Guerrier is the award-winning founder of Syllble Studios, a pioneering sci-fi and fantasy production and publishing house that develops diverse writing talent through collaborative worldbuilding. At Syllble, Guerrier leads a radically new process of creating unique fictional worlds by connecting underrepresented creative writers, visual artists and inspired creators from different countries, backgrounds, and cultures through artist collectives. Drawing from his cultural heritage and his interests in syncretism, creolization, Haitian futurism, African spiritual traditions, and worldbuilding, Guerrier's science-fantasy shared-world "Ayitiverse" aims to unraveled the universal history of the world’s first modern Black nation, Haiti.

Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1991, Guerrier moved to the United States at the young age of 13 in 2004. He holds a Bachelor’s in International Affairs and a Leadership Studies Certificate from Florida State University, as well as a Master’s in Conflict Transformation at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP). While at CJP, he helped found a local chapter of Coming to the Table (CTTT), a national racial reconciliation organization founded by descendants of the enslaved and enslavers from the same plantation in the United States. He then went on to become the youngest national president of CTTT's board of directors.

Guerrier’s TED Talk, “Gone are the days of the lone genius,” illuminates future transformation and the need for collective thinking. He is the author of No More Vagabonds, No More Obscure Wars: Poems (2023), Medusa’s Descendant (2023), Breaking Free From Mass-Produced Consciousness: A Little Book for Artists, Entrepreneurs, and the Leaders of Tomorrow (2021) and Golden Veins: A Collection Of Stories (2019). He was selected as a 2022 PEN Emerging Voices Fellow finalist and a PEN Haiti Fellow by PEN America. Guerrier was inducted into Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Art & Style and named to The Root Magazine‘s 100 Most Influential African-Americans. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. 

Guerrier will deliver the 2024 Golo Mann Lecture, sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

Dr. Royel M. Johnson is one of the nation's foremost voices on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. A tenured professor in the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California, Johnson also serves as chair of the school’s PhD program. He is also Director of the National Assessment of Collegiate Campus Climates in the USC Race and Equity Center, the nation’s leading tool for assessing campus racial climate. Author of three books and over 60 academic papers and chapters, Johnson’s upcoming book, The Big Lie About Race in America's Schools, is set to be published by Harvard Education Press this fall. Johnson is Co-Editor at Educational Researcher, the flagship journal for the field of education. In 2023, the Los Angeles Times named Dr. Johnson one of the 111 DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) Visionaries across various industries, recognizing his efforts to propel positive change in Southern California and beyond.

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Aya M. Waller-Bey is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at the University of Michigan, examining trauma narratives in college essays. A researcher, writer, and storyteller, Aya’s work critically informs growing discourse about the commodification of racialized trauma by postsecondary institutions, non-profits, and foundations, and a growing concern about how institutions of higher education entice minoritized groups to place their trauma and struggle on display for access and rewards. She's authored op-eds for Forbes and the Atlantic on trauma in college essays and affirmative action, with interviews and citations in publications like The New York Times, The Guardian, MarketWatch, and Slate. She’s also given dozens of local and national invited talks, including Aspen Center for Physics, TEDxDetroit, The New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas, the National Association of Fellowship Advisors and SXSW EDU. She is a decorated scholar selected as a Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Dissertation Fellowship awardee—a prestigious fellowship awarded by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine aimed to increase the diversity of the national college and university professoriate. Aya holds a B.A. in Sociology from Georgetown University and earned the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship in 2015, completing her Master of Philosophy in Education at the University of Cambridge. She also holds an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Michigan. Aya is a proud Detroiter, first-generation college student, and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

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Devon Westhill is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, and is an attorney focused on matters of constitutional and civil rights. He researches, speaks, and writes about civil rights, civil liberties, and related issues such as race relations, social change, and equal opportunity.

Mr. Westhill's writing has been published in numerous outlets including Newsweek, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio programs, and has appeared on cable television channels including Fox News, Newsmax, and CSPAN. Mr. Westhill has also provided expert testimony to both houses of the U.S. Congress, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Mr. Westhill led the civil rights office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Trump administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. He has also worked at the U.S. Department of Labor, Federalist Society, and as a criminal trial lawyer in private practice. Mr. Westhill is a U.S. Navy veteran with degrees from UNC at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida.

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This panel will be moderated by Ken Miller, the Rose Professor of State and Local Government and Director of the Rose Institute at CMC.

This event is co-sponsored by the Jerome H. Garris Dialogue Series at CMC with additional support from the Presidential Initiative on Anti-Racism and the Black Experience in America, all at CMC.

Anoush Tamar Suni is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Promise Armenian Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to coming to UCLA, she was the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University, and a Manoogian Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Armenian Studies Program and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. She earned her PhD in anthropology from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2019. She is currently working on her book project, which investigates questions of memory and the material legacies of state violence in the region of Van with a focus on the historic Armenian and contemporary Kurdish communities. Her research was recently published in the journals Comparative Studies in Society and History and Anthropological Quarterly.

Dr. Suni's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the History Department at CMC, the Anthropology Department at Pomona, and the Anthropology Department and MENA Studies Program at Scripps.

Ambassador Dennis Ross is the counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He also teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Jewish Civilization. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process, dealing directly with the parties as the U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He served two and half years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, spending the first 6 months of the Administration as the special advisor on Iran to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ghaith al-Omari, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Irwin Levy Family Program on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Relationship, is the former executive director of the American Task Force on Palestine. He served as advisor to the negotiating team during the 1999–2001 permanent-status talks in addition to holding various other positions within the Palestinian Authority.

Ambassador Ross and Mr. al-Omari's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by Hillel International.

Zongyuan Zoe Liu is Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She researches issues in the areas of international political economy, global financial markets, and energy security in East Asia and the Middle East. Dr. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press, 2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, 2023). She is also a columnist at Foreign Policy. Dr. Liu received her PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins University and she is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Dr. Liu's visit to the Athenaeum is co-sponsored by the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at CMC.