Speakers

Rebecca Diamond
2020–2021, Events, Speakers May 11, 2021 | Stanford economist, expert in housing and inequality

Eugene Richardson
2020–2021, Events, Speakers TBA | Harvard physician & anthropologist, author of Epidemic Illusions

Matthew Desmond
2021-2022, Events, SpeakersOctober 21, 2021 | Princeton sociologist, MacArthur Genius fellow, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted

UH Vaccine Forum
2020–2021, Speakers UH Vaccine Forum | January 20, 2021 | Vaccine Science, Safety & Society

Vivek Murthy
2020–2021, Greatest Hits, SpeakersJanuary 6, 2021 | Co-Chair of Biden's Covid-19 Advisory Board and former Surgeon General

Eric Topol
2020–2021, Greatest Hits, Speakers December 17, 2020 | Cardiologist, research scientist, and bestselling author

Allison Hedge Coke
2019–2020, Speakers December 16, 2020 | Award-winning poet and author of Dog Road Woman, Blood Run, and Burn

John Barry
2020–2021, Speakers November 12, 2020 | Tulane professor of public health and bestselling author.

Edward Glaeser
2020–2021, Speakers October 21, 2020 | Harvard economist and a former director of the Taubman Center

RBG -- Life & Legacy
2020–2021, Speakers October 2nd, 3:00 HST | A forum to celebrate the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Alicia Garza
2020–2021, Greatest Hits, Speakers September 24, 2020 | Co-founder of the Black Lives Matter and Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals

Paul Butler
2020–2021, SpeakersSeptember 9, 2020 | Georgetown law professor and the author of Chokehold: Policing Black Men.

Ellen Carol Dubois
2020–2021, SpeakersAugust 27, 2020 | Acclaimed UCLA historian and author of Suffrage: Women's Long Battle for the Vote

Matthew Desmond
2020–2021, SpeakersJuly 28, 2020 | Princeton sociologist, MacArthur Genius fellow, and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted

Tim Wu
2019–2020, SpeakersFebruary 20, 2020 | The New York Times columnist and author of The Attention Merchants and The Curse of Bigness

Rachel Louise Snyder
2019–2020, SpeakersMarch 9, 2020 | Investigative journalist and author of No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

Robert Waldinger
2019–2020, SpeakersMarch 12, 2020 | Renowned psychiatrist, Zen priest, and director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development

Noura Erakat
2019–2020, SpeakersNovember 6, 2019 | author of Justice for Some: Law and in the Question of Palestine

Mark Hixon
2019–2020, SpeakersOctober 3, 2019 | Hsiao Endowed Chair in Marine Biology

David Wallace-Wells
2019–2020, Greatest Hits, SpeakersJanuary 14, 2020 | Deputy Editor at New York magazine and author of The Uninhabitable Earth

Lita M. Proctor
2019–2020, SpeakersJanuary 23, 2020 | Inaugural Coordinator of the NIH’s $215 million Human Microbiome Project

Viet Thanh Nguyen
2019–2020, Greatest Hits, SpeakersSeptember 19, 2019 | Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and MacArthur genius fellow.

Andy Fisher
2019–2020, SpeakersSeptember 12, 2019 | Food security and justice advocate, author of Big Hunger

Michael Bennett
2020–2021, Greatest Hits, SpeakersJune 17 | Defensive end with the New England Patriots, and author of Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.

Priyamvada Natarajan
2018-2019, Greatest Hits, SpeakersPriyamvada Natarajan is a professor of Astronomy and Physics at Yale and the author of Mapping the Heavens

Marcus Rediker
2018-2019, SpeakersAcclaimed historian, documentary filmmaker and award-winning author

Marielena Hincapié
2018-2019, SpeakersExecutive Director of the National Immigration Law Center

Thomas Laqueur
2018-2019, SpeakersCultural theorist and author of The Work of the Dead

Sheena Iyengar
2018-2019, Greatest Hits, SpeakersSocial psychologist Sheena Iyengar is one of the world’s leading experts on choice

Kaitlyn Yang
2018-2019, SpeakersVisual Effects Supervisor, Alpha Studios

David Cole
2018-2019, Greatest Hits, SpeakersDavid Cole is the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Ellis Henican
2018-2019, SpeakersEllis Henican is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and prolific, bestselling author.

Janet Mock
2018-2019, Greatest Hits, SpeakersBorn and raised in Hawai‘i, Janet Mock is an author, TV personality and one of the nation’s most important advocates for transgender rights.

Richard Tedlow
2018-2019, SpeakersHarvard business professor and faculty at Apple University, Richard Tedlow is an expert on management decision-making and the history and future of technology.

Marcus Ericksen
2018-2019, SpeakersScientist, environmentalist, adventurer, Marcus Eriksen is one of the world’s leading advocates for cleaning plastic pollution from the oceans.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg
2017-2018, SpeakersRenowned coral reef scientist and director of the Global Change Institute

Christopher Field
2017-2018, SpeakersDirector of Stanford's Woods Institute and leading author of IPCC climate reports

Eric Shinseki
2017-2018, Greatest Hits, SpeakersFirst Asian American 4-star general and former Secretary for Veteran's Affairs

Michael Roth
2017-2018, SpeakersPresident of Wesleyen University and advocate for liberal education

Walter Echo-Hawk
2017-2018, SpeakersNative American attorney and author

Sara Seager
2017-2018, SpeakersMIT Astrophysicist and expert in Earth-like exoplanets

Lonnie Bunch
2017-2018, Greatest Hits, SpeakersFounding Director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture

Chris Eyre
2017-2018, SpeakersAward-winning Native American filmmaker

Martha Nussbaum
2017-2018, SpeakersEndowed University of Chicago professor of philosophy and law and prolific author.

Vivek Murthy
2016–2017, SpeakersSurgeon General of the United States.

Sacha Pfeiffer
2016–2017, Greatest Hits, SpeakersPulitzer-prize winning reporter on the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, author of Betrayed: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (2003).

Corey Robin
2016–2017, SpeakersEssayist, academic, author of The Reactionary Mind — “the book that predicted Trump” (New Yorker) — and Fear: The History of a Political Idea.

Douglas Abrams
2016–2017, SpeakersNovelist, literary agent, co-author of The Book of Joy, an international best seller, with Nobel laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

Ai-jen Poo
2016–2017, Greatest Hits, SpeakersDirector, National Domestic Workers Alliance, MacArthur fellow, author of The Age of Dignity (2015).

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
2015–2016, SpeakersWasserman Dean of Education, UCLA, author of twenty-six books, member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Archon Fung
2015–2016, SpeakersAcademic dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School.

Angela Y. Davis
2015–2016, Greatest Hits, SpeakersScholar, author, activist.

Mark Bittman
2015–2016, Greatest Hits, SpeakersNew York Times food writer, author of twenty books, including How to Cook Everything (1998).

Heather Thompson
2013–2015, SpeakersUniversity of Michigan historian and author of bestseller Blood in the Water (2016).

Sam Kass
2013–2015, SpeakersNBC News analyst, Director, Let’s Move!, White House Senior Advisor for Nutrition Policy (2009-2014).

Jose Antonio Vargas
2013–2015, Greatest Hits, SpeakersPulitzer prize-winning journalist, Founder and CEO, Define American.

Stephanie Coontz
2012–2013, SpeakersDirector of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, author of Marriage, A New History (2005).

Theda Skocpol
2012–2013, Greatest Hits, SpeakersHarvard professor of Government, Johan Skytte Prize winner, member National Academy of Sciences.

Tyrone Hayes
2012–2013, SpeakersProfessor of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley, New Yorker profile subject.

Janny Scott
2011–2012, SpeakersPulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter, author of A Singular Woman (2011).

Mike Devine
2011–2012, SpeakersDirector of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.

Sharon Fawcett
2011–2012, SpeakersAssistant U.S. Archivist of the United States.

Martha Minow
2011–2012, SpeakersDean, Harvard Law School, Vice-Chair, U.S. Legal Services Corporation.

Van Jones
2011–2012, Greatest Hits, Speakers CNN commentator, White House green jobs advisor (2009), author of Rebuild the Dream (2012).

Joseph Stiglitz
2011–2012, Greatest Hits, SpeakersNobel laureate, University Professor of Economics at Columbia.