Susan Stamberg is a nationally renowned broadcast journalist and special correspondent for NPR. She is one of the pioneers of NPR, on staff since the network began in 1971 and is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning news magazine "All Things Considered" for 14 years. She then hosted "Weekend Edition Sunday", and now serves as guest host of NPR's "Morning Edition" and "Weekend Edition Saturday", in addition to reporting on cultural issues for all the NPR programs. Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR member station WAMU-FM/Washington, DC. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third: TALK: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's All Things Considered Book, and co-editor of The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road.

Geneva Overholser is director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Previously she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism. She was the editor of The Des Moines Register for seven years, where she led the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. While at the Register, she also earned recognition as Editor of the Year by the National Press Foundation. In addition, Overholser has been ombudsman of The Washington Post, a member of the editorial board of The New York Times, a syndicated columnist for The Washington Post Writers Group, and a reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun, among others. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa. She was for nine years a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board, the final year as chair. Through the Annenberg Public Policy Center, in 2006 she published a manifesto on the future of journalism titled On Behalf of Journalism: A Manifesto for Change.

Leslie Berestein Rojas is the lead reporter for KPCC's new immigration blog, "Multi-American." Formerly with the San Diego Union-Tribune, she covered immigration issues from the US-Mexico border, followed legal and illegal immigrants coming to the U.S., and investigated immigrant smugglers and detention contractors. She reported on stories about the new American families resulting from immigration, and about those being left behind. In addition to her work in San Diego, Ms. Berestein Rojas has reported from throughout the Americas and has written for the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register, Time, People and People en Español.

Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the United States in 1998 and finished his last two years of high school at the United Nations International School in New York. In 2004 he graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in political science. He is a member of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division Advisory Committee and has spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities 9CETO) at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, and many other NGO panels on children affected by the war. His work has appeared in Vespertine Press and LIT magazine.

Louise Steinman is curator of the award-winning ALOUD series for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC. She is the author of two books, most recently, The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War, awarded the Gold Medal in Autobiography from ForeWord Magazine and the selection of several all-city and all-freshman reads programs.

Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University. He is the author of five books of poems and three prose works, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response, a New York Times best seller, and Black Dog of Fate, a memoir.

Hovig Tchalian is the co-founder of Critics' Forum-a group of writers, critics and academics with an interest in English-language Armenian art and culture in the diaspora. He teaches writing and professional communication at the University of Southern California, in the business and engineering schools.

Brian Turner is a soldier-poet whose debut book of poems, Here, Bullet, won the 2005 Beatrice Hawley Award, the New York Times "Editor's Choice" selection, the 2006 Pen Center USA "Best in the West" award, and the 2007 Poets Prize, among others. Turner served seven years in the US Army, to include one year as an infantry team leader in Iraq. Prior to that, he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999-2000. Turner's poetry has been published in many reviews and in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with the feature-length documentary film of the same name.

Louise Steinman is curator of the award-winning ALOUD series for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Institute for Humanities at USC. She is the author of two books, most recently, The Souvenir: A Daughter Discovers Her Father's War, awarded the Gold Medal in Autobiography from ForeWord Magazine and the selection of several all-city and all-freshman reads programs.

Reza Aslan, associate professor of creative writing at the University of California Riverside and author of the best-selling No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the board of directors of the Ploughshares Fund, which gives grants for peace and security issues; Abraham's Vision, an interfaith peace organization; and PEN USA, which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world.

Glen Creason has been the map librarian for the Los Angeles Public Library for the past twenty-one years and a reference librarian in the History department since Jimmy Carter was president. He was a co-curator of the landmark map exhibit "Los Angeles Unfolded" and has written about local history, maps and popular culture for local publications including the Downtown News, Mercators World, the Public Historian, the Communicator the Los Angeles Times and Edible Ojai. He is the author of the book "Los Angeles in Maps" and has been a speaker at local events such as the Society for Professional Journalists, the Center for Land Use Interpretation, and the California Map Society.

D. J. Waldie is the author of books, essays and blogs about Los Angeles and Southern California. He is a contributing writer at Los Angeles magazine and a contributing editor for the Los Angeles Times. His book reviews and commentary have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He has lectured on the social history of Los Angeles locally and internationally. He blogs at KCET/Voices. His most recent book is California Romantica, in collaboration with Diane Keaton.

Simon LeVay is a British-born neuroscientist who has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He is best known for his research on the brain and sexuality, and has spent many years studying the visual system. He has written ten previous books, including the New York Times best-seller, When Science Goes Wrong.

Dr. Larry Swanson is Appleman Professor of Biological Sciences and a member of the Neuroscience Research Institute at USC, where he directs a laboratory investigating brain systems that control motivation and emotion. His recent book Brain Architecture: Understanding the Basic Plan presents a new theory of nervous system organization, and his atlas Brain Maps is in its third edition. He and his wife, Neely have translated three classic works of Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934), the Nobel Prize-winning founder of modern neuroscience. Dr. Swanson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Eliza Griswold, a fellow at the New America Foundation, received a 2010 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. Her journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Harper's Magazine, among others. A 2007 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, she was awarded the first Robert I. Friedman Award for investigative reporting. A collection of her poems, Wideawake Field, was published in 2007.

Amir Hussain is Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University, where he teaches courses on Islam and world religions. A Fellow of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, Amir was selected by student vote as LMU Professor of the Year in 2008 and 2009. His most recent book is Oil and Water: Two Faiths, One God; an introduction to Islam for a North American audience. For 2011 to 2015, he will be the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, in charge of long-range strategic forecasting. He is currently an independent writer, analyst, lecturer and consultant on Muslim world affairs and Adjunct Professor of History at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He is the author of numerous books on the Middle East.

Rabbi Reuven Firestone has conducted extensive research on holy war in both Islamic and Jewish tradition. He received Rabbinic Ordination in 1982 and received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic studies from New York University in 1988. Among his many fellowships, he was awarded a Fulbright in 2006 for study and research at American University in Cairo. Rabbi Firestone has authored numerous books, among them: Journeys in Holy Lands: The Evolution of the Abraham-Ishmael Legends in Islamic Exegesis; Jihad: The Origin of Holy War in Islam; Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Judaism for Muslims; Jews, Christians, Muslims in Dialogue: A Practical Handbook, and, An Introduction to Islam for Jews.

Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. He is author of The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property and Trickster Makes This World. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of creative writing at Harvard, he is currently Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

Peter Sellars is a renowned theater, opera, and festival director known for his innovative interpretations of classic works which range from Mozart, Handel, Shakespeare, and Sophocles, to the 16th-century Chinese playwright Tang Xianzu.