Mahnaz Afkhami is a leading advocate of women's rights, who currently serves as Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies.

Marjorie Agosín is an award-winning Chilean poet, international activist, and recent recipient of the United Nations Leadership Award for Human Rights.

Meena Alexander was born in India. Her new book of poems Illiterate Heart (Triquarterly Books/ Northwestern University Press) is winner of a 2002 PEN Open Book Award. She was commissioned by the Royal Festival Hall, London to compose a cycle of poems for Poetry International 2002. Her memoir Fault Lines (Feminist Press) will appear in Fall 2003 with a Coda entitlted "Book of Childhood." Alexander is Distinguished Professor of English and Women's Studies at Hunter College and the Graduate Centre, City University of New York.

Diana Anhalt is the author of Gathering of Fugitives: Memories of Political Exile in Mexico, 1948-1965. She has published articles in Mexico and the U.S. and is the recipient of an Honorable Mention in the Ana Davidson Rosenberg Contest on the Jewish experience, several By-Line Magazine poetry prizes, and a finalist in the Frith Chapbook Contest.

Ruth Behar is a poet, writer, filmmaker, and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award and a John Simon Guggenheim award, she is most recently director and producer of Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love: A Cuban Sephardic Journey, a feature-length film about the search for identity and memory among Sephardic Cuban Jews living in Cuba, Miami, and New York.

Judy Dworin is Artistic Director of the Judy Dworin Dance Ensemble, which has been recognized for innovative and challenging performance work that focus on global issues.