Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and director of the Democratic Knowledge Project, a research lab focused on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy, she is also a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, tech ethicist, and distinguished author. She is a contributing columnist at The Atlantic Magazine, winner of the 2025 Barry Prize, and was the 2020 winner of the Library of Congress’ Kluge Prize, which recognizes scholarly achievement in the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. She received the Prize “for her internationally recognized scholarship in political theory and her commitment to improving democratic practice and civics education.”

Across nearly three decades in higher ed, Danielle has worked to make the world better for young people. She won the Quantrell award for excellence in undergraduate teaching at the University of Chicago, where she also served as Dean of the Division of Humanities (2004-7); she chaired the board of the Mellon Foundation (2015-19), as that foundation expanded the range of institutions in which it invests; she wrote for the Washington Post from 2008-2024, with a column on constitutional democracy; and she has developed a public policy portfolio on issues from cannabis legalization and public health policy to democracy renovation, civic education, and sound governance of and with new technology.

As a scholar, Allen currently concentrates on democracy renovation: studying how to reconnect people to their civic power, experience, and responsibility via civic education and how to redesign our political institutions to improve their responsiveness, increase the accountability of officeholders, and reward the participation of ordinary citizens. Her most recent book, Justice by Means of Democracy, provides the foundation for this work. Her forthcoming book, The Radical Duke, a biography of an 18th century British political reformer, is due out with Liveright/Norton in 2026.

Professor Allen’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by Kravis Lab for Civic Leadership, the Open Academy, the Salvatori Center, and the President's Leadership Fund, all at CMC.

(Photo credit: Melissa Blackall_PrimaryHR)

Amy Gallo works with individuals, teams, and organizations to help them better collaborate, communicate, and transform their culture to support dissent and debate. She is the best-selling author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) and the Harvard Business Review "Guide to Dealing with Conflict." She has published often in Harvard Business Review, where she is a contributing editor. Her writing has been collected in numerous books including on feedback, emotional intelligence, and managing others. 

From 2019 to 2025, Gallo co-hosted HBR's popular Women at Work podcast, examining the struggles and successes of women in the workplace. Gallo has delivered keynotes and workshops at numerous companies and conferences and often appears in media outlets for her perspective on workplace dynamics, conflict, and difficult conversations. Her advice has been featured in multiple news outlets internationally. 

A graduate of Yale College, she holds a master’s in public policy from Brown University. 

Ryan Patel is currently a William F. Podlich Distinguished Fellow at CMC. Patel is an expert in scaling businesses and has served both startups and publicly traded firms. Listed as one of the “Creators to Follow” by LinkedIn Editor in Chief and recognized as a “Top Voice” on Linkedin, Patel is a news commentator board director. Patel also hosts "The Moment with Ryan Patel," featuring conversations with top innovators and executives. 

 This program is co-sponsored by the Financial Economics Institute and Kravis Leadership Institute, both at CMC.

Sean Kennedy is the executive director of the Center for Juvenile Law & Policy at Loyola Law School. For the past 15 years, he has taught appellate advocacy and the death penalty law seminar at the Law School. In 2013, Kennedy was named Criminal Defense Attorney of the Year by the Los Angeles County Bar Association and received the Fidler Institute Award for Defense Lawyer of the Year from Loyola. He is a recipient of the Public Interest Award by Loyola’s Public Interest Law Foundation. Prior to working in public defense, Kennedy was an associate at Talcott, Lightfoot, Vandevelde, Woehrle & Sadowsky, LLP, where he handled white collar criminal defense cases.

Professor Kennedy’s Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the history department at CMC.

(Photo credit: Loyola Law School)

Melissa S. Kearney is the Gilbert F. Schaefer Professor of Economics at the University of Notre Dame and director of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. She is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her research focuses on poverty, inequality, social policy, and the economics of families and fertility.

Kearney is the author of The Two-Parent Privilege (University of Chicago Press, 2023), named a Best Book of the Year by The Wall Street Journal and The New Yorker. 

She holds a B.A. in economics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT.

Professor Kearney's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Lowe Institute of Political Economy at CMC.

(Source: University of Notre Dame)

Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, Director of the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy, Director of the Food Impact Program, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University. 

He is the author of The Moral Circle and Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights and Food, Animals, and the Environment. He is also an advisory board member at the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience, an advisory board member at the Insect Welfare Research Society, an advisor at Eleos AI, and a senior affiliate at the Institute for Law & AI. 

In 2024 Vox included him on its Future Perfect 50 list of "thinkers, innovators, and changemakers who are working to make the future a better place."

Professor Sebo's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at CMC.

James R. Stocker is associate professor of global affairs at Trinity Washington University. He is the author of Spheres of Intervention: US Foreign Policy and the Collapse of Lebanon, 1967–1976, which is being newly reissued in paperback in 2026. He has been a visiting researcher at Georgetown University and the American University of Beirut. He received his Ph.D .from the Graduate Institute of Geneva, where he received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is a RAND Next Generation Faculty Leader.

Don Romesburg ’93 is the author of Contested Curriculum: LGBTQ History Goes to School (Rutgers UP, 2025) and editor of the Routledge History of Queer America (2018). As the lead scholar working with advocates to pass the FAIR Education Act, he helped usher LGBTQ content into California's 2016 K-12 History-Social Science Framework and subsequent textbooks. He now trains educators on implementation. For these efforts, he is the namesake of the LGBTQ+ History Association’s Don Romesburg Prize for K-12 Curriculum. Romesburg is also a co-founder of the GLBT Historical Society Museum in San Francisco and Managing Editor of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. 

Romesburg earned a Ph.D. in U.S. History with an interdisciplinary emphasis on Women, Gender, and Sexuality from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in history from University of Colorado, Boulder, and a history BA from Claremont McKenna College. 

He now serves as Dean of Social Sciences and Fine Arts at Clark College in Vancouver, WA.

Michael Vorenberg received his A.B. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and is professor of history at Brown University, where he has taught since 1999. He is the author of Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment, a Finalist for the Lincoln Prize and a major source for Steven Spielberg’s 2012 film Lincoln. His most recent book is Lincoln’s Peace: The Struggle to End the American Civil War, which was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2025. He is currently on the board of editors of the Journal of Constitutional History and was previously on the board of editors of Law and History Review. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. His forthcoming article comparing declared states of emergency in Civil War-era America and present-day America will be published in the summer of 2026.

Professor Vorenberg's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Salvatori Center at CMC.