Featured Speakers
Van Jones
Van Jones is a globally recognized, award-winning pioneer in human rights and the clean energy economy. Mr. Jones is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and American Progress Action Fund. His work focuses on green-collar jobs and how cities are implementing job-creating climate solutions. Co-founder of three successful non-profit organizations—the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Color of Change, and Green For All––Mr. Jones will engage our colleagues in a thoughtful dialogue on the importance of sustainable practices and what we can do as educators to aid our students in developing a sustainable mindset.
The best-selling author of the definitive book on green jobs, The Green Collar Economy, Van served as the green jobs advisor in the Obama White House in 2009 and is currently a senior policy advisor at Green For All. He also holds a joint appointment at Princeton University as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Lisa Ling
Lisa Ling has reported from dozens of countries; covering stories about gang rape in the Congo, bride burning in India and the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, among other issues that are too often ignored.
She is the co-executive producer and host of "Our America" on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and the field correspondent for The Oprah Show. She is also a contributor to ABC News' Nightline.
Lisa was the first female host of National Geographic's Explorer series where she investigated the deadly MS-13 gang, went undercover inside North Korea and explored the drug wars in South America.
She got her start in journalism as a correspondent for Channel One News where she covered the civil war in Afghanistan at 21 years of age. She later went on to become a co-host of ABC Daytime's hit show The View, which won its first daytime Emmy during her time at the show. Lisa was a special correspondent for CNN's Planet in Peril series and is a contributing editor for USA Today's USA Weekend magazine. She is the co-author of "Mother, Sister. Daughter, Bride: Rituals of Womanhood," and "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and The Other's Fight to Bring Her Home" that she penned with her sister Laura.
