Keynote speaker Judith Heumann:  As the World Bank's Lead Consultant for the Global Partnership on Disability and Development, Ms. Heumann has led the Bank's disability work and highlighted the importance of Bank policies and projects allowing disabled people around the world to live and work in the economic and social mainstream of their communities.  Previously Judith Heumann was President Clinton's Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the US Department of Education, managing a budget of over US$5.25 billion and overseeing the Office of Special Education Programs, the Rehabilitation Services Administration, and the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research.  From 1975-1982, Ms Heumann ran the world's first independent living centre in Berkeley, California, and for ten years was vice president of the World Institute on Disability (WID), which she co-founded in 1983.  A mentor, leader, administrator, author and public speaker, her deep commitment to building an inclusive society stems from her personal experiences.  After having polio at the age of 18 months, she knows discrimination first-hand and has fought vigorously for inclusion, independence and full participation for women, disabled people and ethnic minorities. 

SPEAKERS A-Z:

Niharika Banerjea, Ph. D. candidate, Sociology researches gender and development and urban and community issues and teaches in the Department of Sociology on gender, development and social change movements.

Francine Conley – artist, writer, and performer – has led two dramatic lives since 1991.  She is a co-founder of the Franco-American theatre troupe, Le Théâtre de la Chandelle Verte, and she has also written, produced, and performed six multimedia one-woman plays.  For more information, visit her website at http://francineconley.tripod.com/index.html.

Henry Durand, Director, Center for Academic Development Services; Educational Leadership and Policy

Lucinda Finley, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs, is the senior executive officer responsible to the Provost for all matters pertaining to UB’s faculty.  She is also FRANK G. RAICHLE PROFESSOR OF TRIAL AND APPELLATE ADVOCACY in the School of Law.  As Vice Provost, Finley advises and assists the President in matters of faculty promotion and tenure review process, faculty policies, faculty retention services, under-represented faculty recruitment, faculty development (Center for Teaching and Learning Resources), special faculty hiring initiatives, and faculty awards and recognition programs.  In her capacity as law professor, Finley has argued several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and presented legislative testimony before U.S. Senate committees, the New York State legislature and the Connecticut legislature. Finley was appointed to the Raichle chair in 2002 and has been a professor at the University at Buffalo since 1990.

Jeremy Finn, Professor, Counseling, School & Educational Psychology received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.  His professional and research interests include:

    * Class Size
    * Classroom and School Processes
    * Multivariate Analysis
    * Students at Risk and Educational Resilience
    * Opportunity to Learn

Sylvia Frazier-Bowers, Assistant Professor, Oral Biology, University of North Carolina

Amy Goodman, as the host of radio's "Democracy Now!: The War & Peace Report", is an award-winning progressive journalist.  "Democracy Now!" broadcasts weekdays via 400 media outlets around the nation, in addition to the world wide web.

Please visit the program’s website for a comprehensive overview: http://www.democracynow.org

Amy Goodman provides a crucial antidote to US mainstream media, and examples of how she brings the “people’s news” to listeners include on the ground coverage of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the link between violence and the US presence in Haiti, the mass demonstrations against the new anti-immigrant legislation, and the news behind the news about the war and continued occupation in Iraq.

Stacy Hubbard, Associate Professor, English is a recipient of a 2005-2006 Gender Institute Research Grant to investigate "Sympathy and Self-Reliance in American feminist writings"; her Gender Week talk is a result of this research.  Hubbard's work focuses primarily on nineteenth and twentieth century American women writers and historical issues of gender and culture, particularly literature and visual culture and women's poetry and poetics.  She teaches courses on poetry and poetics, women's modernism, the literature of the First World War, and nineteenth century American reform movements.  Prof. Hubbard also serves on the Gender Institute's Executive Committee.

Sam Jureyda, Clinical Assistant Professor, Orthdontics

Judith Lampasso, Assistant Professor, Orthodontics/Oral Biology

Lew Mandell, Professor, School of Management is the author of 21 books relating to the finances of consumers,  his latest being "Financial Literacy: Improving Education" scheduled for publication in Fall, 2006.  That book is based on Dr. Mandell's benchmark nationwide studies of the personal-finance skills of young adults throughout the United States, conducted for the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.  In 2004 he received the William E. Odem Visionary Leadership Award in financial literacy, the highest award in the field, at a ceremony attended by (then) SEC Chairman Donaldson.  From 1998 to 2001, Dr. Mandell served as dean of the School of Management; in 2004, he was named "Teacher of the Year" by the Undergraduate Management Association.  Previously he served as dean of the School of Business at Marquette University.

Piya Pangsapa, Assistant Professor, Women's Studies has served as Director of Undergraduate Studies in Women's Studies and continues to serve as Director of the Global Citizenship Concentration in Women's Studies. She is an affiliated teaching faculty member of the Asian Studies Program at UB. Her areas of specialization include women and work, gender and issues in development, migration and civic engagement, labor organizing and social movements, qualitative and ethnographic methodology, and the globalization and feminization of poverty. Her recent work considers local environmental mobilizations, Fluent in both Thai and English, Prof. Pangsapa conducted ethnographic fieldwork on women textile factory workers in Bangkok and in the borderlands in the Special Economic Zones in Thailand.

Eyal Press is a journalist based in New York City. A regular contributor to The Nation and The American Prospect, his articles have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Mother Jones. He was a finalist for the 2004 J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award and has received the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers and Editors, and an Open Society Institute fellowship.  In Absolute Convictions, Press combines a retelling of his father's experience as an obstetrician performing abortions in Buffalo with firsthand accounts of protestors arrested outside his father's office, patients who braved the gauntlet of demonstrators, and politicians who attempted to appease both sides.

Michael Ryan,  Dean Of Undergraduate Studies and Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at McGill University in 1978.  As Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Ryan is responsible for matters undergraduate education, program development, evaluation, assessment, and academic policy, as well as oversight of admissions, advisement, records and billing services. His research interests in engineering include polymer and ceramics processing, rheology, and non-Newtonian fluid mechanics.

Lois Weis, Distinguished Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy is author, co-author or editor of numerous books and articles that focus on race, class and gender in American schools. Her most recent publications include:

    * Class Reunion: The Remaking of the American White Working Class (Routledge)
    * Working Method: Research and Social Justice (Routledge)
    * Beyond Silenced Voices: Class, Race and Gender in United States Schools, revised edition (SUNY Press)
    * The Unknown City: The lives of Poor and Working Class Young Adults (Beacon Press)

Dr. Weis is Past President of the American Educational Studies Association and is on the editorial boards of several journals, including Educational Policy, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and Review of Educational Research.

Nancy Wilk, School of Nursing is a Research Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo.  A Nurse Practitioner with a background in dating violence research, she teaches women's health nurse practitioner students their first clinical course.  She has been granted a variety of scholarship awards through the University at Buffalo and has co-authored an article in press about cultural competence in a nurse practitioner curriculum.

Check back soon for continuing updates on our speakers!