Dr. Dulchavsky is currently a professor of surgery, molecular biology and genetics at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He serves as the Roy D. McClure Chairman of Surgery and the Surgeon in Chief at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan and is the founder and CEO of the Innovation Institute at Henry Ford. He is a principal investigator for NASA and for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute working to enhance medical care capabilities on the International Space Station and for exploration class spaceflight; these techniques have been successfully transitioned to Earth to improve care in under-resourced regions.
Dr. Rose Moten is a Clinical Psychologist, Author, and Life Coach who is serious about one thing: PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION. She lives it. She breathes it. And she has worked with clients all over the world to do the same. Dr. Rose gets down to the real issues of what holds so many people back from living their BEST LIFE. Her book BLOOM: 7 Steps To Personal Transformation is a mirror copy of her inner spirit and undeniable passion for helping people get beyond where they are to where they need to be today.
Blanche Bong Cook is an Assistant Professor of Law at Wayne State University School of Law. She teaches Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Race and the Law, and Citizenship and Sex Trafficking. Prior to joining the faculty at Wayne Law, she was an Assistant United States Attorney, specializing in the prosecution of large scale drug and sex trafficking organizations. She has established herself as a leading expert on sex trafficking by problematizing the entire spectrum of sex-trafficking prosecutions and the commercialization and exploitation of women and girls. She is actively involved in shaping the emerging nationwide discourse on sex trafficking and victims’ rights as it relates to evidentiary issues, race-class-gender profiling, and sex-trafficking statutes.
Jonny Imerman is a young adult cancer survivor who strives to make sure no one fights cancer without the support of someone who has already triumphed over the disease. After being diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 26, Jonny decided to found Imerman Angels, a non-profit organization, which carefully matches a person touched by cancer (a cancer fighter or survivor) with someone who has fought and survived the same type of cancer (a Mentor Angel). Imerman Angels now has more than 6,000 cancer survivors and more than 1,500 caregivers in its network, and has been featured by dozens of news organizations. Jonny grew up in Bloomfield Hills, MI and lives in Chicago.
Dr. José Cuello is Associate Professor of History and Latin American Studies. His primary research interest is the universal patterns of human thought and behavior on the planet earth. He is the chair of the Critical Issues Committee of the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights.
Nabintou is a proud Detroiter, Ivorian-American, feminist, and local community organizer. It is a firm belief of hers that God “…does not change the condition of a people until they change what is within themselves” [13:11]. As a result, she organizes locally to remind myself of where she comes from, she mentors to pay her dues to the youth who she is borrowing the earth from [Native American proverb], she studies Sociology to understand systems and check privilege, she writes to empower the voices in her heart and mind, she aspires to study law because she became fed up with being a prisoner without being behind a cell. In her free time, she admittedly spends much of her time on Twitter.
Her curiosity in the lack of feminine hygiene products provided to women in correctional facilities sparked from exposure to and learning about issues such as the school-to-prison-pipeline and prison industrial complex. Both resulted in her extensive interest in and plans to study and eventually practice Juvenile Law (along with other areas). She sees herself as not a sole liberator for the oppressed, but rather a privileged facilitator who has been given the platform, skills, and resources to assist with empowering those victims of different injustices.
Ms. Lara dedicated 27 years advocating for families at Children’s Hospital of Michigan until she retired in 2006 to care for her ailing mother in Texas. Ms. Lara held a variety of leadership positions while at the Detroit Medical Center (DMC) including Corporate Director of Social Work for the eight hospitals of the DMC. She is a motivational speaker who has been recognized for her work on inclusion and workplace conflict management by over 47 organizations. Some of these recognitions include Martin Luther King Scholar by the University of Michigan, Whitney Young Scholar at Western Michigan University, Global Visiting Scholar at Arizona State University and Michigan Social Worker of the Year. She has been invited to present her work in the United States, Norway, Australia, Mexico and Canada. Ms. Lara has been named by five different Michigan governors to lead boards and commissions for her advocacy on behalf of the underserved. Ms. Lara currently serves on the following board of directors, Michigan Early Childhood Investment Corporation, Credit Union One, New Detroit and was recently elected to the National Association of Social Workers.
After Ms. Lara’s mother died in 2012 she worked on a contract for a year in Washington D.C. at Homeland Security, United States Citizenship Immigration Services to provide child welfare education to better serve the Unaccompanied Children arriving from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. She returned to Detroit in 2014 as the Director of the Consortium of Hispanic Agencies where she works with the six member agencies to advocate on behalf of Hispanic issues at the local and state level. Ms. Lara is also adjunct faculty at Eastern Michigan University, School of Social Work.
Ms. Lara has been a volunteer at LASED since 2007 where she provides supervision to graduate social workers who are working toward their State Social Work license.
Ms. Lara is originally from San Antonio, Texas and proudly calls both Detroit and San Antonio home.
Dr. John Corvino is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State. He is the author or co-author of several books, including the forthcoming Debating Religious Liberty and Discrimination (Oxford University Press, 2017). In the last twenty years he has spoken at over 200 campuses on “culture war” issues, and his YouTube videos have received over a million views. Read more at www.johncorvino.com.