Pedro Noguera is one of America's most important voices for healthy public education. As a leading urban sociologist, he examines how schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. What are the challenges they face in providing safe, academically rewarding environments? What is the state of race relations, racial inequality? What is the role of diversity? What is the impact of violence, parents, and school vouchers? What factors promote student achievement? Which detract from it? What is the impact of immigration and migration?

Noguera holds faculty appointments in the departments of Teaching and Learning and Humanities and Social Sciences at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Development, as well as in the Department of Sociology at New York University. He is also a part-time high school teacher, the author of several groundbreaking texts, and a regular guest on CNN and NPR. Recently, he helped launch A Broader, Bolder Approach to Education, a group of public policy experts in various fields (housing, education, civil rights), and from across the political spectrum, working to break a decades-long cycle of reform efforts that promised much and have achieved far too little. The group works in areas that research shows must be addressed if we are to keep our promises to all of America's children.

A dynamic speaker who translates social theory into concise, hip language with emotional impact and intellectual rigor, Noguera examines the hurdles faced in providing equal education to all – and then unveils the solutions that are already working to overcome them – in his presentation titled "Creating the Schools We Need: A Broader and Bolder Approach to School Reform."

Arn Chorn-Pond was both a victim and survivor of the Cambodian genocide who grew to become an internationally recognized human rights leader. Subject of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Flute Player and a founder of Children of War, an international youth leadership organization for building community, activism and healing for teenagers, Chorn-Pond opens eyes and hearts as he helps to heal. The title of his presentation was "Child of War, Man of Peace."

Associate Professor of Applied Psychology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development, Joshua Aronson has been studying stereotypes, self-esteem, motivation, and attitudes for the past 13 years. His work seeks to understand and remediate race and gender gaps in educational achievement and standardized test performance. Often, the low performance of blacks in particular, but other minorities as well, gets casually chalked up to genetic or cultural differences that supposedly block acquisition of skills or values necessary for academic achievement. In sharp contrast, Aronson has uncovered some exciting and encouraging answers to these old questions by looking at the psychology of stigma—the way human beings respond to negative stereotypes about their racial or gender group. What he has found suggests that being targeted by well-known cultural stereotypes ("blacks are unintelligent", "girls can't do math", and so on) can be very threatening, a predicament that has been termed "Stereotype Threat."

Investigating how science and politics collide in a lop-sided world, Sonia Shah is a critically acclaimed writer on science, human rights, and international politics. Shah was born in New York City to Indian immigrants. Growing up, she shuttled between the northeastern United States where her parents practiced medicine and Mumbai and Bangalore, India, where her extended working-class family lived, developing a life-long interest in inequality between and within societies. As an undergraduate at Oberlin College, she earned her BA in journalism, philosophy, and neuroscience. Her books have included Crude: The Story of Oil and her prize-winning drug industry exposé, The Body Hunters: Testing New Drugs on the World's Poorest Patients. In her latest book, The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Humankind for 500,000 Years, Shah reveals the amazing story of malaria, a disease that infects one-half billion people every year, killing nearly 1 million – despite the fact that we’ve known how to prevent and cure the disease for over one hundred years.

R. L’Heureux Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Black Studies at the City College of New York – CUNY. His research concentrates on issues of educational inequality, the role of race in contemporary society, and mental health well-being. The changing national and international landscape necessitate deeper, more sustainable, and meaningful engagement conversations and research. Through his writing, speaking, and commentary his work analyzes some of the most pressing issues in the post-Civil Rights era. With specializations in race and ethnic relations, his research and activism grapple with the areas of education, youth culture, public policy, and mental health. As a scholar-activist, he is engaged in projects relating to the reformation of education, Hip-Hop culture activism, and race-conscious policies. His commentary has been featured in media outlets such as US World News Report, Diversity in Higher Education, National Public Radio, theRoot.com and the Detroit Free Press. The title of his presentation was "Stony the Road We Trod: The March Towards Educational Justice."

Father of the environmental justice movement and human rights activist, Robert Bullard leads the fight to protect disempowered communities. He is the author of a multitude of books that address issues of sustainable development, environmental racism, urban land use, industrial facility siting, community reinvestment, housing, transportation, climate justice, emergency response, smart growth, and regional equity. Many of his books have become standard texts in the environmental justice field.

Currently serving as the Ware Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University, Bullard is also one of the planners of the First and Second National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, and has also served on the U.S. EPA National Environment Justice Advisory Council where he chaired the Health and Research Subcommittee. The title of his presentation was "Environmental Justice for All."

The Goodrich C. White Professor of American Studies at Emory University, Rudolph Byrd began his academic career at Carleton College where he was a member of the Department of English and Chair of the Program of African and African American Studies. He joined the faculty of Emory University in 1991 and is the founding director of the James Weldon Johnson Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, established in 2007. Named for James Weldon Johnson, author, composer, educator, lawyer, diplomat, and pioneering leader in the modern civil rights movement, the Johnson Institute is the first institute at Emory University established to honor the achievements of an American of African descent. One of the premiere sites in the nation for the study of the modern civil rights movement, the work of the Johnson Institute is to offer a framework for understanding the history and legacy of civil rights, and to provide a context to explain the ways in which the civil rights movement continues to have relevance. The Johnson Institute is the home of the Alice Walker Literary Society, of which Byrd is the founding co-chair. An engaged scholar committed to service and scholarship at the local and national levels, Byrd is also a consultant to the United Negro College Fund/Andrew W. Mellon Programs. The title of his presentation was "Regarding James Weldon Johnson."