Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

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.

John J. Pitney, Jr. is Roy P. Crocker Professor of American History and Politics at Claremont McKenna College where he teaches courses on Congress, interest groups, political parties, and mass media. A leading expert on the structure and practice of American politics, Pitney is a widely published author or co-author of six books on American politics, including The Art of Political Warfare (2000), The Politics of Autism (2015) and Un-American: The Fake Patriotism of Donald J. Trump (2020). In addition to his books, Pitney has published numerous scholarly articles and short essays, and is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines. He is routinely featured on NPR and other television and radio programs. 

Morgan Wandell '93 is an industry-leading television executive and producer who has been responsible for some of the most iconic and genre-defining series of digital streaming and broadcast television, including the Apple TV+ limited series “The Masters of the Air” from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” starring Kurt Russell; Amazon Studios’ Emmy-winning “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” “The Man In the High Castle,” and Golden Globe-winning “Goliath,” starring Billy Bob Thornton.

As Head of International Content Development at Apple TV+, Wandell leads content teams to develop and produce ambitious series around the globe to surprise and delight audiences.  His most recent work includes the upcoming series “The New Look” about the iconic fashion designers Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, the science fiction series “Constellation” from Emmy-winning director Michelle MacClaren and starring Noomi Rapace, Taika Waititi’s adaptation of “Time Bandits,” and Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron’s thriller “Disclaimer,” starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Klein, and Sasha Barron Cohen.  He also is responsible for the International Emmy-winning series “Tehran” among other shows.

Before joining Apple TV+, Wandell launched international originals for Amazon Studios after Prime Video’s expansion into over 200 countries.  He played a key role in delivering local originals at the highest level of quality, including Indian-set series “Inside Edge,” “The Family Man,” and “Breathe,” the Spanish language thriller “El Candidato,” and the Emmy award-winning co-production “A Very English Scandal,” starring Hugh Grant.  Prior to his international role, Wandell built and lead the drama series team in the early days of Amazon Studios, overseeing development of “Bosch,” “Sneaky Pete,” and “Patriot.”

Wandell also served as a senior executive at ABC Studios, where he led the teams responsible for the development and production of hit series, such as “Desperate Housewives,” Grey’s Anatomy,” “Lost,” “Ugly Betty,” “Brothers and Sisters,” and “Criminal Minds.”  Under his leadership, ABC studios expanded from one series on the air to over twenty in less than five years.

A native of Champaign, IL, Wandell graduated with honors from Claremont McKenna College with a BA in Economics.

Mr. Wandell's talk is 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.

Gary Gilbert is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Jewish Studies Sequence at Claremont McKenna College.  His research and teaching focus on Jewish Studies, particularly Jewish communities in the Greek and Roman periods.  He is author of the commentary on Acts of the Apostles in the Jewish Annotated New Testament and of numerous articles on the Jewish community of late antique Aphrodisias and Jewish communal life in antiquity.  

Professor Gilbert teaches a wide array of courses in Jewish Studies, including courses on the ancient Jewish experience, Jewish art and identity, women and gender in Jewish tradition, a history of Jerusalem, and Zionism and Israel.  Professor Gilbert received his bachelors in Classical Studies from Haverford College and his doctorate from Columbia University, with additional studies in Jewish history at The Jewish Theological Seminary and early Christianity at Union Theological Seminary.  Professor Gilbert serves on the staff of the Tel Akko archaeological excavations in Israel.  In addition to his time at CMC, Professor Gilbert has been Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and at the Institute for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, and has served President of the Pacific Region of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Heather Ferguson received an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas-Austin and a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley. After completing a two-year postdoctoral position at Stanford University with the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies and History Departments, she joined the faculty at Claremont McKenna and is now an Associate Professor of Ottoman and Middle Eastern History. Ferguson is an American Council of Learned Societies Fellow, 2014-2015, for her book project entitled The Proper Order of Things: Language, Power and Law in Ottoman Administrative Discourses, published by Stanford University Press in May 2018. Currently, she is working on a second monograph supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities summer stipend grant, 2019, and an American Council of Learned Societies Burkhardt Fellowship (2020) that explores Sovereign Valedictions: Archival Ventures and “Last Acts” in Ottoman and Habsburg Courts, and her research focuses broadly on comparative early modern empires, documentary genres and discourses of power, linkages between archives and state governance, as well as on legal and urban transformations around the Mediterranean. She serves as Editor of the Review of Middle East Studies, Associate Editor for the International Journal of Islamic Architecture and was an inaugural member of the Claremont Faculty Leadership Program. Professor Ferguson remains committed to interdisciplinary and multi-perspectival approaches in research, teaching, and service.

Hicham Bou Nassif, currently the Weinberg Associate Professor of International Relations and the Middle East at Claremont McKenna College, is a distinguished scholar with a Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University, a Research Doctorate from Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, an MA in political science and government from Saint Joseph University of Beirut, and a master’s degree in public law, all after obtaining his bachelor’s degree in law from Lebanese University.

His expertise spans various fields, including authoritarianism, civil-military relations, and Middle East politics. With a rich academic background, he has contributed significantly to the field, publishing the book Endgames: Military Response to Protest in Arab Autocracies (Cambridge University Press) and numerous peer-reviewed articles. He is currently writing a second book on America's policy in the Middle East under Reagan. Nassif's teaching experience encompasses a range of courses, from international relations to comparative politics. Proficient in Arabic, English, and French, he brings a multicultural perspective to his work. Beyond academia, he has undertaken extensive fieldwork in various countries in the Middle East, showcasing a hands-on approach to research, specifically focused on military politics in authoritarian contexts. Even before coming to the US to pursue his graduate studies, Hicham worked as a journalist in his home country of Lebanon. His career is marked by grants and fellowships obtained from Carleton College and Claremont McKenna College.

 

Chiu-Yen Kao is the Keck Foundation Professor of Applied Math and Computer Science

Daniel Livesay is Associate Professor of History.

Jenny Taw is Associate Professor of Government and International Relations

This panel is co-sponsored by the Presidential Initiative on Anti-Racism and the Black Experience in America.

Ellis Simani '17 is a data reporter at ProPublica. His recent work has focused on the stock trading of the wealthiest Americans. In “The Inside Edge,” he and his colleagues revealed several investment advantages that enable top executives and other well-connected investors to trade stock with remarkable timing.

Prior to that, he worked with a team of reporters on “The Secret IRS Files,” which investigated systemic inequities in the U.S. tax system that allow the ultrawealthy to avoid paying federal income taxes. The series won several awards, including the Selden Ring and the Barlett & Steele Award. He’s also covered issues related to housing and debt for ProPublica, with a particular focus on evictions. Before joining ProPublica, he worked on the Los Angeles Times’ data visualization desk. At CMC, Simani majored in Government.

Caroline Mimbs Nyce '13 is a staff writer at The Atlantic. She previously wrote the organization’s flagship nightly newsletter, helping guide readers through the early days of the pandemic, the 2020 election, and more. She also served on the team that developed and launched the organization’s iPhone app, which won the 2021 Shorty Award for best news app. Prior to all that, she worked in audience engagement, leading newsroom-wide training efforts around headline writing, SEO strategy, basic analytics, and social media. She is based in Los Angeles.

Before joining The Atlantic, Nyce was an editorial fellow at National Journal. And she began her career working in technology at Atlassian. These days, she obsesses over the future of the journalism and her dog, Rooster. At CMC, Nyce majored in PPE and Government.

Elise Viebeck '10 is a former Washington Post investigative reporter whose work explored the movements and controversies that shaped American democracy during the Trump presidency. Covering the nexus of the administration, Capitol Hill and the electoral system, Viebeck helped lead the Post’s efforts as the #MeToo movement hit the political world, including vetting and reporting on dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct against government leaders. She has written extensively about Donald Trump’s legal battles and first impeachment trial, as well as the legacy of Joe Biden’s Senate record. In her final, groundbreaking work for the Post, she directed a team monitoring hundreds of changes to voting rules during the covid-19 pandemic and documented the unprecedented effort by Trump and his allies to restrict ballot access and overturn his election loss.

Viebeck majored in Government at CMC and previously covered Congress and health care policy for The Hill newspaper. She writes and consults independently from San Francisco.

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This panel is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC. It 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.

Nikhil Goyal is a sociologist and author of Live to See the Day: Coming of Age in American Poverty (Metropolitan/Macmillan), which The New Yorker named A Best Book of 2023 and the Washington Post raved about: "the stories of these children will change the way you think about poverty." He is also a policymaker who served as senior policy advisor on education and children for Chairman Senator Bernie Sanders on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Committee on the Budget. He developed education, child care, and child tax credit federal legislation as well as a tuition-free college program for incarcerated people and correctional workers in Vermont. He has appeared on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC, and written for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time, The Nation, and other publications. Goyal earned his B.A. at Goddard College and M.Phil and Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. He lives in Vermont.
 

Adam Michnik is a historian, essayist, political publicist, civil rights activist, and dissident and political prisoner under communism. He is well known for his co-leadership role in the Solidarity movement and the Round Table Talks in Poland that led to peaceful downfall of communist dictatorships in Central Europe, influenced the peaceful end of the Soviet Union, and dramatically changed the world. After 1989, Adam Michnik devoted himself to building democracy in Poland and contributed to freedom and democracy movements all over the world. For this effort he was recognized with 61 major awards and honors from across the world, including nine doctorates honoris causa. Michnik is the author of 28 books translated into seven languages, and countless essays and articles published in mainstream global media.

Mr. Michnik's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World 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.

Ioannis (Yannis) Evrigenis is the Alice Tweed Tuohy Professor of Government and Ethics at Claremont McKenna College.  His research centers on natural law and rights, psychology, rhetoric, and sovereignty in the history of political thought. He is the author of Images of Anarchy: The Rhetoric and Science in Hobbes's State of Nature (2014) and of articles and chapters on a wide range of issues and thinkers in political theory, as well as co-editor of Johann Gottfried Herder's Another Philosophy of History and Selected Political Writings (2004). Evrigenis received the Delba Winthrop Award for Excellence in Political Science for his book Fear of Enemies and Collective Action (2008), as well as the RSA/TCP Article Prize for Digital Renaissance Research, from the Renaissance Society of America, for his article “Digital Tools and the History of Political Thought: The Case of Jean Bodin.” He is currently working on a new translation of Bodin's Six Books on the Commonwealth. Evrigenis holds a BA from Grinnell College, an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and AM and PhD degrees from Harvard University. 

Linda Jeng is the Founder & CEO of Digital Self Labs, a regulatory, policy & tech advisory firm. She is also a Visiting Scholar on Financial Technology and Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center’s Institute for International of Economic Law, a Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke Law School, and a Bank for International Settlements Research Fellow. Her research interests include open banking, digital identity, and DeFi. Previously, she was the Chief Global Regulatory Officer & General Counsel of the Crypto Council for Innovation (a leading crypto industry association), the Chief Policy & Regulatory Officer of the Centre Consortium (the former standard setter for the global stablecoin USDC), and the Global Head of Policy at Transparent Financial Systems (a DeFi startup developing a tokenized dollar payment solution).

Prior to these private sector roles, she was at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors where she chaired the Basel Committee’s working group on open banking. She has spent most of her career working on financial stability and regulatory reform, including at the Financial Stability Board working on international standards addressing Too-Big-to-Fail, the U.S. Senate drafting the Dodd-Frank Act, and the U.S. Treasury Department on the international implementation of G20-led reforms. Linda also has worked at the Securities & Exchange Commission, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and Credit Agricole in Paris. Linda has testified in front of Congress and frequently comments in print, podcast, and television, including Financial Times, NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Politico, etc. She is also a Forbes contributor. She has a J.D. from Columbia Law School, a Diplôme d'études approfondies from University of Toulouse, France, and a B.A. from Duke University.

Ms. Jeng's Athenaeum visit is co-sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute (FEI) at CMC.

Yousef Munayyer is Head of the Palestine/Israel Program and Senior Fellow at Arab Center Washington DC. He also serves as a member of the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies and was previously Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. Some of his published articles can be found in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Boston Globe, Foreign Policy, Journal of Palestine Studies, Middle East Policy, and others. Dr. Munayyer holds a PhD in International Relations and Comparative Politics from the University of Maryland.

Yi Shun Lai '96 is the author, most recently, of the young adult historical novel A Suffragist's Guide to the Antarctic (Simon & Schuster, 2024). Her memoir, Pin Ups, was published in 2020, and her debut novel, Not a Self-Help Book: The Misadventures of Marty Wu, was published in 2016. She has delivered inclusivity workshops to everyone from AAA video-game studios to international nonprofits, and also teaches in an MFA program for Creative Nonfiction. She graduated from Claremont McKenna College in 1996 and recently returned to campus as CMC's Assistant Director of Fellowships Advising. When she's not on campus or writing, she can be found teaching her intractable dog useless tricks.

Ms. Lai's talk is 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.

Simon A. Cole is a Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He specializes in the historical and sociological study of the interaction between science, technology, law, and criminal justice. He received his Ph.D. in Science & Technology Studies from Cornell University, and he is the author of Suspect Identities: A History of Fingerprinting and Criminal Identification (Harvard University Press, 2001). He is a Co-Investigator in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Center for Excellence, the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE), and he is Director of the National Registry of Exonerations. He is Vice Chair of the Friction Ridge Consensus Body of the American Academy of Forensic Science Standards Board, and he is a member of the Friction Ridge Subcommittee of the NIST Forensics Organization of Science Area Committees (OSAC).

Professor Shenila Khoja-Moolji is Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Associate Professor of Muslim Societies at Georgetown University. She is an interdisciplinary scholar with research interests in the fields of Muslim studies, feminist theory, South Asia, and migration. Professor Khoja-Moolji is the author of award-winning books which include Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia (2018) and Sovereign Attachments: Masculinity, Muslimness, and Affective Politics in Pakistan (2021). Her latest book, Rebuilding Community: Displaced Women and the Making of a Shia Ismaili Muslim Sociality, was published by Oxford University Press.

Professor Khoja-Moolji's Athenaeum lecture is sponsored by the Kutten Lectureship in Religious Studies at CMC.

Vinay Lal is a cultural critic, writer, blogger, and Professor of History at UCLA. He earned his BA and MA from Johns Hopkins in literature, philosophy, and history in 1982, and a PhD with Distinction from the University of Chicago in 1992 in South Asian studies. He is the author or editor of 21 books including nine volumes from Oxford University Press. He blogs for ABP, India’s largest media network, and at vinaylal.wordpress.com, and has an academic YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/dillichalo. He is a Fellow for 2024 at the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study, South Africa.