http://www.theopedproject.org

Janus Adams – Emmy Award winner, journalist/historian, talk show host, cultural critic. A scholar of African American and women’s history, Adams specializes in putting current events into historical perspective. An NPR commentator and publisher/creator of BackPax children’s media, her column is in its fourteenth year. Read more about her at www.JanusAdams.com

Marci Alboher, one of the nation’s top experts on career issues and workplace trends, is a Senior Fellow at Civic Ventures, a think tank leading the call to engage millions of baby boomers as a vital workforce for change. A former blogger and columnist for The New York Times, Marci is the author of One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success (Warner Books, 2007). She is a regular contributor to the “The Takeaway” on public radio, wrote the blog “Working the New Economy” for Yahoo!, and has appeared on or been quoted by countless news outlets including The Today Show, MSNBC, The Nightly News, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, National Public Radio, More Magazine, and USA Today. She holds an undergraduate degree in English from the University of Pennsylvania and a law degree from the Washington College of Law at American University.

Gretchen Anderson, PhD, is a writer, literary scholar and freelance organizational consultant. At age twelve, she set the course for a lifetime of interest in women writers with the publication of her first book, The Louisa May Alcott Cookbook (1985), through Little, Brown, Inc. After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont, she continued to pursue her passion for women writers by earning a doctorate in American literature from Stanford University—where her studies were funded in part by the Michelle R. Clayman Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Her dissertation, completed in 2002, focused on women writers in Greenwich Village during the 1920s. Throughout her graduate studies, Gretchen also taught literature and composition to undergraduates at Stanford. In addition to her writing, Gretchen has nearly ten years of experience advising organizations on issues of strategy and human capital, first at Katzenbach Partners in New York and then at On-Ramps, a New York-based executive search firm. While at Katzenbach, she developed a training curriculum that taught storytelling skills as a means to communicating brand messages. She continues to write, and is at work on her first novel.

Rekha Basu has been a columnist for The Des Moines Register since late 1991, focusing on human rights, racial and gender issues and commenting on cultural trends. Basu’s column appears thrice weekly on the Register’s opinion pages and is syndicated by Gannett News Service. Her byline has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune and The Nation, among other publications. In May 2008, Basu received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Grinnell College. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, another master’s in political economy from Goddard Cambridge Graduate School (where she subsequently taught), and a BA in sociology from Brandeis University. She graduated from the United Nations International School in New York. She is a frequent public speaker and has made guest appearances on C-Span, CNN, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and National Public Radio. Born in India to United Nations parents, Rekha grew up internationally. She has worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist at newspapers in Iowa, New York State and Florida. Basu was awarded the 2008 Women of Influence award from the Des Moines Business Record, the Iowa Interfaith Alliance award and the Iowa Farmers Union media award. She is also the recipient of the 2007 Master Columnist award from the Iowa Newspaper Association, the 2007 Iowa Associated Press Managing Editor's award for best column writing, the Des Moines YWCA’s 2006 Mary Louise Smith Award for Racial Justice; the 2003 Cristine Wilson Medal for Equality and Justice from the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame, the 2002 Best of the Register commentary award, and a 2001 South Asian Journalists Association award for an essay on a Bangladeshi Muslim victim of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. She has won first place in the Vivian Castleberry Award for commentaries on women's issues and has been a frequent Best of Gannett honoree. Basu made her Des Moines stage debut this spring playing a spiritual guide named Maryamma in the StageWest production of “Miss Witherspoon.”

Michael Bociurkiw has worked as a reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press; the Toronto Globe and Mail, (as a summer intern and as a national and international stringer; the South China Sunday Morning Post (Hong Kong) and as Malaysia Bureau Chief for Asia Times Bangkok) and was part of the start-up team of Eastern Express newspaper in Hong Kong. He has covered numerous events, from: the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China and has reported on several major global summits, including the Sixth Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and the 2002 G-8 summit in Calgary. Michael has also interviewed world leaders including: Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore), Fidel Ramos and Corazon Aquino (Philippines), Kim Campbell (Canada), Mahathir Mohamad (Malaysia), Chatichai Choonhaven (Thailand), B.J. Habibie (Indonesia) and Yulia Tymoshenko (Ukraine). His op-eds have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Globe and Mail and the South China Morning Post. For two consecutive years, Michael has managed the Eye See Photo Project – UNICEF’s signature annual children’s photography project, which has benefitted dozens of children in Pakistan Rwanda and Liberia (2007/2008). He is the editor of the book, Twenty-Two Years, Twenty-Two Voices and is now at work on his first book – Whatever it Takes: From Beverly Hills to Jerusalem.  Michael has worked in several posts for the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) – including as global spokesperson in Geneva and as a communication officer in several major disasters, including the second Iraq war, the Afghan emergency of 2001/2002, the South Asian earthquake in 2005 and Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar. He has appeared frequently on CNN, al-Jazeera and other broadcast outlets to speak about emergency operations. He is also part of the management team of HUM (Human Unlimited Media) an initiative to launch concentrated, sustainable coverage of 116 of the poorest countries of the world.

Dawn Marie Bracely has been an editorial writer at The Buffalo News for nearly 10 years, focusing on a range of issues from local, national to international topics. She has also originated, shot, voiced and produced several video editorials for the newspaper, along with an accompanying editorial on a range of subjects, including President Obama's inauguration, environmental and cultural issues. Dawn started her newspaper career in Florida at the Citrus County Chronicle, moving onto The St. Petersburg Times-Citrus bureau, (Rochester) Democrat & Chronicle and eventually The Buffalo News. She has had numerous reporting duties in news and sports departments and has also written for national magazines about her favorite sports, tennis and bicycling.

Maura J. Casey who left the Editorial Board of The New York Times in 2009, has been an editorial writer specializing in New England issues for more than two decades. During five years at the Lawrence (Mass.) Eagle-Tribune she won Scripps-Howard's Walker Stone Award for her editorials on the Massachusetts Corrections Department and contributed to stories for which the staff won the Pulitzer Prize. While at The Day of New London, Conn., she won the Horace Greeley Award for public service journalism for her editorials on weaknesses in Connecticut laws affecting children. She was on the New York Times editorial board from 2006 until March 2009. A graduate of Buffalo State College, she obtained a master's degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from The American University.

Abby Ellin is the author of "Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs in on Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can't) Help." For five years, she wrote the "Preludes" column, about young people and money, in the Sunday Money and Business section of the New York Times. She also regularly writes the "Vows" column in the New York Times Sunday Styles section, as well as feature assignments for that section. Her work has appeared in a range of publications, including Time, the Village Voice, Marie Claire, More, Self, Glamour, the Boston Phoenix, and Spy (RIP). Her 14-part series, "How to Raise a Millionaire," ran on Msn.com. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. But her greatest claim to fame is naming "Karamel Sutra" ice cream for Ben and Jerry's.

Margaret Engel is the executive director of the Alicia Patterson Foundation, the nation's oldest writing fellowships. She is the former managing editor of the Newseum, the interactive museum of news in Washington, D.C. She is the chair of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards and a board member of the Fund for Investigative Journalism. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri's School of Journalism and was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University. She has been part of the reporting staffs of the Washington Post, Des Moines Register and Lorain (OH) Journal. She has written for Esquire, Saveur and her book, Food Finds, co-written with her twin sister, has run for eight seasons on The Food Network. She and her sister have written a one-woman play about Molly Ivins titled Red Hot Patriot that had a staged reading at Arena Stage in August, 2009 with actress Kathleen Turner playing Molly. Engel co-authored a Fodor’s guide to American baseball parks with her husband and two children. She lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Susan Faludi is a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist and the best-selling author of The Terror Dream: Myth and Misogyny in an Insecure America; Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man and Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women, which won the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. She has written extensively on feminist issues. A former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, her writing has appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times,  and The Nation.

Dr. Sheri Fink, a reporter at ProPublica, has reported on health, medicine and science in the U.S. and from every continent except Antarctica. Since 2004 she has been a frequent contributor to the public radio newsmagazine PRI's The World, covering the global HIV/AIDS pandemic and international aid in development, conflict and disaster settings. Her articles have appeared in such publications as the New York Times, Discover and Scientific American. Fink's book War Hospital: A True Story of Surgery and Survival (Public Affairs, 2003) won the American Medical Writer's Association special book award and was a finalist for the Overseas Press Club and PEN Martha Albrand awards. Fink has taught at Harvard, Tulane and the New School. Most recently she was the recipient of a Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Sophie Gee received her Ph.D. from Harvard in 2002 and is now an Assistant Professor of English at Princeton University. She is the author of The Scandal of the Season, a historical novel that recreated eighteenth-century London and the story of The Rape of the Lock. She has published scholarly articles on Dryden, Pope and Milton, and is writes regularly for the New York Times Review of Books, the Washington Post, and the Financial Times. She lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Ginna Green, veteran opinion writer and editor, handles communications and media relations for the California office of the Center for Responsible Lending, a research and policy organization headquartered in Durham, N.C. Prior to joining CRL, Ginna was Director of Public Relations at Full Court Press Communications in Oakland, California, where she worked on a diverse portfolio of clients primarily in the areas of the environment and education. She has also worked as an editor at AlterNet, as a strategist for the Breakthrough Institute and was a Leland-Emerson Fellow with the Congressional Hunger Center in 2000. Ginna edited, with Dr. Julianne Malveaux, the 2002 anthology The Paradox of Loyalty: An African-American Response to the War on Terrorism.

Joy L. Haenlein is a proud Midwesterner who served for 12 years as editor of the editorial pages of the Advocate/Greenwich Time newspapers in southwestern Connecticut. Before that, she was a reporter in Illinois, Michigan and Connecticut, covering everything from state and local governments in Michigan and Illinois to the corporate world, fashion, banking and the visual arts, with a specialty in 20th-century painting, for 13 years. She wrote a political column for The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Mi., and a personal finance column for The Advocate/Greenwich Time. She thinks good journalism is the ultimate public service and the most wonderful work in the world. The mother of a 16 year old, Haenlein now is director of communications and external relations for a nonprofit that serves people with developmental disabilities and their families as well as a consultant to family foundations and a student of philanthropy.

Lynn Harris is an award-winning journalist who writes frequently about gender and culture and whose features and commentary have appeared in Salon.com, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR.org, and numerous others. She was a founding member of the writing team on Broadsheet, Salon's feminist blog and often writes Glamour's editorial page. She created the Humor Writing for Journalists course for Mediabistro, where she taught it for many years. She is also co-creator of the venerable website BreakupGirl.net and author, most recently, of the comic novel Death By Chick Lit.

Glenda Holste is a public affairs specialist for Education Minnesota, the statewide educators union. She previously worked as a reporter, editor and columnist for daily newspapers, including writing an editorial page column for the St. Paul Pioneer Press.  Her column appeared weekly in the Pioneer Press and was distributed by the Knight Ridder-Tribune News Service. Among recognition for her work, she has received James K. Batten Award for Excellence in Civic Journalism, the Exceptional Merit Media Award of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the Vivian Castleberry Award of the Association for Women Journalists. Holste is a past president of the Journalism & Women Symposium, an educational organization that supports the professional empowerment and personal growth of women in journalism and works toward a more accurate portrayal of the whole society. She holds a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a master of arts degree in leadership from Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Dr. Michael Kimmel is among the leading researchers and writers on men and masculinity in the world today. The author or editor of more than twenty volumes, his books include Changing Men: New Directions in Research on Men and Masculinity (1987), Men Confront Pornography (1990), The Politics of Manhood (1996), The Gender of Desire (2005) and The History of Men (2005). His documentary history, "Against the Tide: Pro-Feminist Men in the United States, 1776-1990" (Beacon, 1992), chronicled men who supported women’s equality since the founding of the country. This “inspiring, pathbreaking collection of remarkable documents” (Dissent) was also called “meticulously researched” (Booklist) and a “pioneering volume” which “will serve as an inspirational sourcebook for both women and men.” (Publishers’ Weekly). His book, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (1996) was hailed as the definitive work on the subject. Reviewers called the book “wide-ranging, level headed, human and deeply interesting” (Kirkus), “superb… thorough, impressive and fascinating” (Chicago Tribune), “perceptive and refreshing” (Indianapolis Star). One reviewer wrote that “Kimmel’s humane, pathbreaking study points the way toward a redefinition of manhood that combines strength with nurturing, personal accountability, compassion and egalitarianism” (Publishers’ Weekly). Another called it “the most wide-ranging, clear-sighted, accessible book available on the mixed fortunes of masculinity in the United States” (San Francisco Chronicle). Another called it “a cultural history as readable and fascinating as Kate Millet’s epoch-making Sexual Politics (Booklist). The book also received impressive reviews in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post Book World (front page review), and The New York Times Book Review, which noted that this “concise, incisive” book “elucidates the masculine ideals of the past 200 years…just as shelves of feminist books have elucidated the feminine.” He also co-edited The Encyclopedia on Men and Masculinities (2 volumes, 2004) and The Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities . The Encyclopedia was named “best of Reference” by the New York Public Librarians Association in 2004. His newest book GUYLAND: THE PERILOUS WORLD WHERE BOYS BECOME MEN was published by HarperCollins, 2008.

Michele Kort is a Los Angeles-based writer and editor has been a journalist for more than 25 years. Her stories have been as varied as her interests -- from popular music and film, to sports and fitness, to women's issues -- and her style is marked by thoroughness, readability and warmth. Michele is currently Senior Editor of the iconic Ms. magazine, now located in Beverly Hills. You can find some of her Ms. stories at www.msmagazine.com, and a Ms. article she's particularly proud of -- "Global Sex Rules: The Price of Silence" (about the horrific global gag rule on reproductive information) --appears in The W Effect: Bush's War on Women, edited by Laura Flanders (The Feminist Press, 2004). Michele is the author of three books, including including Soul Picnic: The Music and Passion of Laura Nyro (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2002).You can read more about her and the articles she’s written on her website (www.michelekort.com).  

Katherine Lanpher is an award-winning print and broadcast journalist. She hosts the weekly TIME Financial Toolkit podcast on Time.com as well as "Upstairs at the Square," a reading and performance series for the Barnes and Noble Studio page (www.bn.com/upstairs) that Daily Candy has described as "an awesome literary salon on a date with an intimate rock concert.'' She is a contributing editor to More magazine and her essays have been published in The New York Times op-ed page and Slate.com; one of those essays turned into her memoir, "Leap Days,'' published in 2006 by Springboard Press. She’s a substitute host for “The Takeaway,” a collaboration of WNYC, PRI, the BBC and the New York Times. In 2008, she won a Gracie from American Women in Radio and Television for her weekly show "More Time,'' a radio companion to More magazine that aired on XM Satellite Radio.

 James Ledbetter is an author and editor based in New York City. In 2008, he joined the online magazine Slate, where oversees a business news web site called The Big Money. Prior to joining Slate, he was at CNNMoney.com. James most recently edited Benjamin Roth's The Great Depression: A Diary (March, 2009), about which the New York Times wrote  “[the diaries] are compelling reading, because they force readers to reflect on both the similarities and the differences between then and now…. We’re all a little like Benjamin Roth, asking questions we don’t know the answer to, and wonder, as he did 70 years ago, whether the crisis is, indeed, over.” He is the author of Dispatches for the New York Tribune: Selected Journalism of Karl Marx, published in 2008 by Penguin Classics and Starving to Death on $200 Million: The Short, Absurd Life of The Industry Standard and Made Possible By...: The Death of Public Broadcasting in the United States. In addition to Slate and CNNmoney.com, James is also a former senior editor of Time Magazine, The Industry Standard, and former staff writer for The Village Voice. His writing has appeared in several other US publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Mother Jones, Vibe, Newsday, and The American Prospect.

Katharine Mieszkowski is a journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She's been a senior writer for Salon and Fast Company. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, MS, Glamour, San Francisco and on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." When Mother Jones won the 2009 Utne Independent Press Award for environmental coverage, judges cited her piece about Wal-Mart. Katharine's stories have been anthologized in "Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity," edited by Michael Lewis, and "The Best American Technology Writing 2007," edited by Steven Levy. A Web media veteran, Katharine was one of the co-founding editors of Women.com, the pioneering online magazine for women, which launched in 1995. She's worked for two Internet start-ups and launched three blogs. Katharine can be followed on Twitter @kmieszkowski. A graduate of Yale, she received her bachelor's degree in Literature in 1993.

Michael Oreskes is Vice President and Senior Managing Editor in charge of the daily all-format and global news report for The Associated Press. Michael had been Managing Editor for U.S. News since 2008, when he joined the AP. Before joining the AP, he had served as executive editor of the Paris-based International Herald Tribune since 2005. Previously, he held a variety of positions at The New York Times, including deputy managing editor and Washington bureau chief. He started with the Times in 1981 as a metropolitan correspondent from the (New York) Daily News, where he worked as a general assignment reporter, City Hall bureau chief, and also covered education, Albany and the labor beat. He is a graduate of City College of New York.

Jessica Seigel is a an award-winning journalist, Glamour Magazine columnist, New York University journalism instructor, and writer who uses science and history to expose the mythology of popular culture and everyday life. Her articles and guest spots for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Salon, and National Public Radio have reached millions. Jessica’s media criticism and consumer reporting have been featured on Good Morning America, Fox TV and The O'Reilly Factor. She earned the prestigious "Front Page Award" for an expose of the breast and the bra (Lifetime Magazine) and American Society of Journalists and Authors “Outstanding Article” prizes for a diet scam investigation (Los Angeles Magazine) and story about bonobo sexual politics and human nature (Ms. Magazine). A regular university speaker and writing workshop leader, she has been cited in many books, such as Alan Dershowitz's bestseller, Reasonable Doubts, and anthologized in volumes including Women's Voices, Feminist Visions (McGraw Hill.) A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Jessica began her career as a Chicago Tribune reporter and national correspondent, covering Hollywood and major national news such as the O.J. Simpson murder trial, including reporting live daily on TV. She honed her radio skills as the “Countess of Culture” for NPR’s Day to Day and co-hosted a daily talk show on the XM Satellite Network. In magazines, she documented the rise of celebrity and the Internet as a Buzz magazine Contributing Editor and Brill’s Content Senior Writer. French and Spanish-speaking, Jessica has reported in both languages from Southern California, Mexico, Spain, France, Africa and the Bronx. In New York, she patrols the parks on horseback as a member of the city’s mounted auxiliary.

Hannah Seligson is a journalist and author. Her most recent book, A Little Bit Married: How to know when it’s time to walk down the aisle or out the door, uncovers and spotlights a major trend in dating today: the long-term unmarried relationship. Her reporting has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. Her first book, New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches, a career guide for young women was based on over a hundred interviews she conducted. New Girl on the Job has been called “a must-read for every woman entering the work world” by the Houston Business Journal and the Washington Post said that it “covers the key things any young women needs to know to thrive at those first couple of jobs.” Hannah’s professional speaking includes conference and seminar presentations at universities, business associations and corporations. Recent speaking engagements have included Harvard Business School, Viva, Beijing Professional Women's Network, and the Culinary Institute of America.  She has been featured in news outlets such as The Today Show, Fox News, USA Today, and Glamour. Hannah graduated with a B.A. from Brown University in 2004. Please visit www.hannahseligson.com to learn more.

 Jolie Solomon is a journalist, writing coach and media consultant who has been on staff at The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, More magazine and The Cincinnati Post, among others. Her freelance clients include CBS MoneyWatch.com, Patch.com, Time Inc., The New York Times and the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. Jolie co-founded the Peer Writing Tutors Program at Oberlin College, ran the internship program at Newsweek and has taught at Seton Hall University and New York University. As a coach or editor, Jolie has worked with activists, engineers, and academics, as well as writers such as Monika Bauerlein, Geraldine Brooks, Gail Collins, Daphne Merkin and some fellow OpEd Mentors. Jolie has spoken to many different audiences and loves doing radio. She has judged the "Best in the Business" awards for the Society of American Business Writers and Editors and earned awards for her own work; she is also proud to have fielded angry phone calls from Fortune 500 CEOs, politicians and personalities, including Jim ("Mad Money") Cramer. Jolie's interests include capitalism and other belief systems, language, crime and mental health. She has written and edited many stories about the evolving power and voice of American women. Jolie graduated from Oberlin and from Columbia University School of Journalism, but her most formative experiences include 7th grade at Rijinlands Lyceum (Oestgeest, Holland), marriage (now defunct) to a man from Berlin and life as a single mother. She is grateful to have grown up in a newspaper era and thrilled to be dancing at the new media revolution. 

Maia Szalavitz is a journalist and author who covers neuroscience and the intersection between mind, brain and behavior.  She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Elle, Redbook, Time Magazine online, New Scientist, Reason, Mother Jones, O: the Oprah Magazine and other major publications and has appeared on Oprah, CNN, MSNBC and NPR. She is a Senior Fellow at Stats.org, a media watchdog organization. She is co-author, with leading child trauma expert Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD, of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook (Basic, 2007) and author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids (Riverhead, 2006).  

Laura Vanderkam, a New York City-based writer, started writing op-eds for USA Today as an intern in 2001, was named to the paper's Board of Contributors shortly thereafter, and has been writing for them ever since.  Her op-eds have also appeared in the Wall Street Journal and other publications. She is the author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think (Portfolio, May 2010) and Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues (McGraw-Hill, 2007). She lives with her husband and two young sons, and in her non-writing, non-family time, enjoys running and singing soprano in the Young New Yorkers' Chorus.