Abha Joshi-Ghani served as Senior Adviser for Infrastructure, Public Private Partnerships and Guarantees at the World Bank and lead the program on Infrastructure Analytics.  From 2012-2016 she was the Director of the Leadership, Learning and Innovation (LLI) Department in the World Bank Group, and Chair of the WBG Learning Board where she pioneered the World Bank’s Open Learning Campus. Before joining LLI in 2012, she headed the World Bank’s Urban Development Anchor where she oversaw the World Bank’s work on Urban Policy and Strategy and led the World Bank’s Strategy on Urban and Local Development. She is the co-editor with Edward Glaeser of the book “The Urban Imperative: Towards Competitive Cities” (OUP, 2014).

She was Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council on Cities. She worked primarily on infrastructure finance and urban development at the World Bank. Her regional experience includes South and East Asia, Africa and the Middle East. She holds a Masters of Philosophy from Oxford University, UK as well as a Masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and a Bachelors from Lady Sri Rama College, Delhi University. 

Abha sadly passed away in the fall of 2021.  Her tireless efforts to build a better world will live on, but we will surely miss her keen intelligence, strategic thinking, warmth and wit. She was a champion of the Genesis Peace Hub for the time she was with us. May she rest in peace.

Najla Ayoubi is a lawyer and former judge with extensive experience in judiciary, elections, human rights and women’s empowerment. She is a civil society and women / human rights activist. She served as a Legal Advisor for the State Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs of Afghanistan, Commissioner at the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan and Commissioner of Joint Electoral Management Body. She was the Senior State Attorney at the Attorney General Office of Afghanistan, State Attorney of the Parwan province, and Judge at the Parwan Provincial Court.  Judge Ayoubi played a significant role in the constitution-making process of Afghanistan.

She served as a Board Member of Open Society Afghanistan as well as the Country Director of Open Society Afghanistan (OSF representative office in Afghanistan). She was Board member of Afghan Women’s Network, Afghanistan Research & Evaluation Unit Member of Board of Directors, Advisory Board Member of Afghan Education Production Organization, Co-Chair of Board in Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society, and Member of the Board of Trustees at Afghan Professional Network. She is a former Deputy Country Representative of The Asia Foundation, Afghanistan Office. She worked with The Asia Foundation Afghanistan in different capacities. She is a Founding member and Global Executive Board Member of the Women’s Regional Network.

Judge Ayoubi was selected as both a 2015 Peacemaker at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego and a 2017 Visiting Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.  Judge Ayoubi holds two MA degrees: one in Law and Politics from the State University of Tajikistan and another in Post-war Recovery and Development Studies from York University in the United Kingdom.

Kitty Kurth is a Democratic political operative with more than thirty years of experience in public relations, crisis communications, and campaigns and elections. She has traveled the world providing strategic communications and political council for human rights and environmental causes, political candidates, corporations, and NGOs.

In addition to working with grassroots candidates and organizers like Che “Rhymefest” Smith and Paul Rusesabagina (the real-life hero portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda), Kurth also provides communications training for established political powerhouses such as the DCCC, the DNC, Emily’s List National Women’s Political Causus, Civic Lab, Illinois Democratic Women, the New Leaders Council, Chicago Votes, Women’s Campaign Fund, and many international political parties.

Kurth has been a valued contributor to the last eight Democratic Presidential campaigns as a press secretary, campaign manager, communications advisor, speech writers, and field organizer. Every four years, she works with speakers at the Democratic National Convention  and in 2012 she directed the Speaker Tracker team as part of Convention Podium Operations.

Kurth has worked as a trainer for political organizing and communications in more than 45 states in the U.S., as well as in Egypt, France, Russia, Uganda, Mexico, Rwanda, Greece, Croatia, Romania, India, Indonesia, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In 2004, the U.S. State Department sent her to Uganda, Indonesia, and India to conduct communications workshops for Members of Parliament, candidates, students, and activists. She conducted press advance for the White House in Cairo, Davos, Moscow, Paris, Athens, Addis Ababa, and Mexico City.

Kurth holds degrees in History and French from the University of Virginia and lives in Chicago with her husband and partner Kevin Lampe.

Mary Ann Bergerson Ahern joined NBC5 News in March 1989 and was named Political Reporter in 2006.  On the political beat, Ahern has covered political campaigns from the White House to Springfield to Chicago. She witnessed the transition from Mayor Richard Daley to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and traveled through the primary states for the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaign, just as she did in 1988 while a reporter in Atlanta.

She has covered presidential election nights from Texas, Boston, and Chicago and has covered presidential inaugurations from Washington, D.C. Her reports on the NBC 5 NEWS and on NBCChicago.com are closely followed locally and nationally. As well, Ahern follows the political goings on in Springfield and the Illinois delegation in the nation’s capital.

She’s gained recognition for covering the religion beat and has reported from Rome on the selection of Pope Francis, Pope Benedict’s farewell and the 2014 canonization of pontiffs John XXIII and John Paul II. Over the years she covered Pope John Paul II’s many trips including Cuba and several World Youth Day events. Ahern followed Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s final years, the selection of Cardinal Francis George, the beatification of Mother Teresa, and the Pope’s emergency meeting with the American Cardinals on the priest sex abuse crisis.   Ahern is recognized for breaking many stories related to the Roman Catholic church. In 1991, she was the first reporter to disclose the priest sex abuse crisis that led to the Archdiocese eventually opening its files and creating a lay review board, a model other cities followed.

In Cuba, Ahern was one of the few American journalists allowed to report from Havana over a 10-day period. She also traveled with Cardinal George to Mexico City to report on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Ahern not only reports for NBC Chicago, but is often selected to file stories for the NBC affiliates nationwide. Likewise, she is often called on as a panelist for religion media issues.  During her reporting career in Chicago, Ahern conducted the last television interview with actor and disability activist Christopher Reeve in October 2004, just days before he died.  Ahern has also covered everyday events from elections to snowstorms, from City Hall to Wrigley Field, from Princess Diana’s visit to Chicago to the White House. She’s known for enterprising stories about everyday people placed in extraordinary circumstances, like the Marine who had his purple heart revoked. She’s presented a number of feature stories on parenting.

Before coming to NBC5, Ahern was the political reporter for WXIA-TV in Atlanta, Ga., from 1985-1989. She served as reporter/weekend anchor at WEEK-TV in Peoria, Ill. from 1982-1985.

A native of Michigan City, Ind., Ahern graduated with a B.A. degree from John Carroll University in 1976.  While working as an English teacher at two Chicago-area high schools. She received her Master’s degree in Education from Northeastern Illinois University, and another Master’s degree in Journalism from Northwestern University.  She earned the Peter Lisagor Lifetime Achievement Award  from the Chicago Headline Club in 2012.

Born and raised in France, Tunisia and Central Africa, Frédérique Lehoux is a graduate of the Lycée Bouchardon, University of Pennsylvania and the Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.  Her 16 years of experience in the management and coordination of relief and development programs, includes over eight years in field postings with sectoral expertise in disaster risk management and conflict resolution.

She most recently served as the Pacific Islands Applied Geoscience Commission Project Manager supporting disaster risk reduction in the Pacific Overseas Countries and Territories. From 2005-2009, she was the Oxfam Australia, Pacific Humanitarian Coordinator managing all of their human security program (budget of A$ 3 million) with provision of technical advice to Oxfam’s Pacific country offices/head office and civil society organizations in disaster management and conflict resolution. Following the 2004 Sri Lankan tsunami, she developed financial and activity monitoring systems to ensure adequate monitoring, reporting, and donor accountability. Prior to that, she worked for CARE USA for the Congo in Action for Peace Program, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. In her capacity as Grants Manager for their peace and reconciliation program, she worked at removing obstacles to reunification of DR Congo and facilitating transition towards democracy. Funded by the United States Office of Transition Initiatives, she managed a portfolio of grants totaling in excess of US $6 million grants to local and international organizations to ensure good working relationships with key stakeholders including Congolese civil society groups, donors, government officials, rebel movement leaders, and the private sector.

From 2001-3, she functioned as the International Rescue Committee’s, Umbrella Grant Manager, in DR Congo, where she developed and managed a two-year war recovery & civil society strengthening program following the 2002 eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano in Goma.  For CARE USA In Port-au-Prince/Gonaives, Haiti, she served as Assistant Regional Director, managing and coordinating CARE programs with an annual budget of US$ 7 million with 250 staff and 8,000 metric tons of food. As a member of CARE Haiti’s Senior Management Team, she led the development of CARE Haiti’s Disaster Preparedness Plan. As Fellow/Program Officer for CARE USA in Madagascar she developed a five-year food security/water & sanitation program, began a start-up of field activities which included the set-up of a sub-office in the capital’s urban slums. She also coordinated gender training for CARE Madagascar staff with inclusion of gender-sensitive programs and contributed to the development of CARE Madagascar’s five-year strategic plan.

Monica reports and produces segments on food, health and ethnic culture in Chicago and beyond.

Before coming to WBEZ, Monica Eng was a food, culture and watchdog-investigative reporter at the Chicago Tribune for 16 years. Before that she wrote and edited for the Daily Southtown and Chicago Sun Times. Monica has won multiple writing awards and been nominated for the James Beard Award five times.

Monica is a fourth generation Chicagoan whose children are fourth generation Chicago Public Schools graduates.

Carli joined Lawndale Christian Legal Center (“LCLC”), a non-profit law firm providing holistic defense services to Lawndale residents 24 years old and younger in juvenile or criminal court, in January 2018 as a Community Case Manager. She earned her graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Concordia University, Chicago in 2015 and her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff in 2009. Carli brings almost 10 years of dedication and commitment to serving both families and young adults. Prior to joining LCLC, she worked as a Program Manager at Chicago Commons in the Financial Opportunity Center. There, Carli and her team sought to strengthen families through financial literacy, resource linkage, and educational opportunities. After many years of working with young adults from various communities, Carli’s passion for young adults deepened. She understands they may not “get it” the first time around, but with the proper support and education, they may better navigate what life presents. Her commitment to the growth and development of young adults is what brought her to LCLC. She currently works with emerging adults ages 18-24 residing in Lawndale in the Restorative Justice Community Court. She enjoys working with emerging adults as they grow and discover the best versions of themselves. Carli encourages her young adults to keep moving forward despite their pasts because it is never too late to start over. When not working, Carli enjoys spending time with family, traveling, and engaging in any activities that involve being outdoors.

Linda Yu has been called a trailblazer, mentor and award-winning journalist.  She recently stepped back from daily broadcasting after more than forty years in television news.

Yu began her career in 1974 as a writer for the Los Angeles ABC station KABC-TV and then went on to become a writer/producer at KTLA-TV.  In 1975 she stepped in front of the camera as a reporter for the ABC affiliate station in Portland, Oregon KATU-TV.  Within months, she received an offer from ABC owned station KGO-TV in San Francisco as reporter and anchor, where Yu worked from 1976 to 1979.

In late 1979, she was spotted by the NBC owned station in Chicago, WMAQ-TV, and moved to the Windy City as weekend anchor and reporter.  Part of Yu’s motivation for accepting the position was that she would be the first Asian American to appear on a Chicago network station.   Five years later, ABC won her back and she moved to Chicago’s ABC7, WLS-TV, to anchor the station’s newly created 4 p.m. news hour.  Later, an 11 a.m. news hour was added to her anchor duties.  Both news programs maintained their number one rating throughout her 33-year career at ABC7.

Among the honors and recognition for Yu are six local Emmy awards, as well as induction into the prestigious “Silver Circle” of legendary Chicago broadcasters.  She has been named one of Today’s Chicago Women magazine’s “100 Women to Watch” and has been awarded a National Gold Medal by the National Conference of Community and Justice.

In her community service, Yu spent more than 30 years as the Advisory Board Chairperson for the Chinese American Service League.  She is also a co-founder of the Chicago chapter of the Asian American Journalists Association.  She has been an active supporter and volunteer for Common Threads, the Juvenile Protective Association and the March of Dimes.

Yu is the author of “Living and Working in America”, a book published in Chinese and sold in China.

Dr. Galia Boneh is a faculty member at the Academic College for Arts and Society in Israel, and Director of Knowledge and Partnership Development at Israel’s Ministry of Justice National Anti-Racism Coordinator’s Office, where she designs and leads training for government officials on addressing racism within the civil service. Boneh is also the co-founder of the Art and Global Health Center Africa, based in Malawi, where she designed programs that use the arts to develop leadership and initiate community dialogue on sensitive topics such as HIV/AIDS and LGBT rights. She is a graduate of the Mandel School for Educational Leadership in Jerusalem, and a two-time recipient of the Fulbright Scholar Award to Malawi. She holds a B.A. from the University of Ghana’s school of performing arts (including a year-long internship in Kenya as part of the University of Minnesota International Development program) and an MA and PhD in Culture ad Performance, from the Department of Arts and World Cultures of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Boneh’s work involves finding creative ways to address social issues that are politically, socially and culturally charged.

Dr. Megahed has worked in higher education for over twenty-five years.  She has served as a faculty member, a dean, and a president. In addition, she has overseen the administration of operations of multiple campuses for a number of proprietary institutions.  Megahed has demonstrated a track record of success relative to institutional growth and development.  Her passion is building student-centered organizations focused on student success and empowering our most underserved to achieve social and economic mobility through education.

Since 2010, Megahed has served as the 11^th president of National Louis University, a 140-year-old institution recognized for its leadership in professional preparation, most notably teacher preparation, and for its commitment to closing the post-secondary attainment gap through innovative cost-effective scalable models of education.

Dr. Megahed earned her bachelor degree in psychology from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1981, graduating summa cum laude and as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.  Her master and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology were earned at the University of Rochester in 1984 and 1987 respectively.

She has been sought out internationally to present on issues related to the democratization of education, women in leadership, innovation in education and closing the achievement gap.  Currently, Megahed sits on the board of New Coast Foundation, Partnership for College Completion, Association of Urban School Leadership (AUSL), and New York Kids Club.  She is a member of The Chicago Network, The Economic Club of Chicago and The Commercial Club of Chicago, and a Fellow for Complete College America.

Dr. Lynette Jackson is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and African Studies at UIC. She received her PhD in African History from Columbia University in 1997. Dr. Jackson is the author of Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe (Cornell 2005) and numerous other articles and book chapters on topics relating to women, gender and the state in colonial and post-colonial Southern Africa, particularly having to do with the regulation of women’s bodies and sexuality. Dr. Jackson’s current research looks comparatively at African refugees, including child refugees, and the formation of new African diasporas.

Dr. Jackson is engaged in social justice and human rights activism, with a particular focus on the human rights of women and girls, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples in Africa. She serves on the Chicago Committee of Human Rights Watch, the World Refugee Day Planning Committee and held previous board memberships on Heartland Alliance’s Human Care Services and Vanavevhu: Children of the Soil, an organization that caters to orphans and vulnerable children from Zimbabwe. Dr. Jackson also consults and provides expert witness testimony in gender and sexual violence-based political asylum cases.

Christie Hefner is both a well-respected business leader and a strong advocate for the advancement of women and social justice.  From 1988-2008, Hefner was Chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises, Inc., making her the longest serving female CEO of a U.S. public company.  During her tenure, Christie restructured the company, initiating its highly successful electronic and international expansion.  When she left, over 40% of her executives were women.  For three years, Christie was named one of Fortune’s 100 Most Powerful Women in the World.  She was subsequently Executive Chairman of Canyon Ranch Enterprises and is now Chairman of Hatch Beauty.

She was a founding member of The Chicago Network, The Committee of 200, and the Chicago Chapter of Women Corporate Directors.  She is on the Advisory Board of Springboard Enterprises, a nonprofit that is an accelerator for women tech entrepreneurs, and the board of the Center for American Progress Action, the leading progressive public policy think tank.  She received the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Chicago’s first-ever Voice Award and she was inducted into the Women’s Business Development Center Hall of Fame for “opening doors and building opportunities for all women entrepreneurs.”

Badi has played an array of international concerts/festivals including innovative collaborations with Bobby McFerrin, Yo-Yo-Ma, Sarah McLaughlin and others. She is also the Guitarist/Vocalist in Genesis at the Crossroads’ Saffron Caravan ensemble. With 15 albums released worldwide, her CD, Wonderland was selected by the BBC London as among the 100 Best and Amazon.com’s 30 Best. Guitar Player selected her as one of the guitar players that would revolutionize the world. In addition to reaching the Top 10 in Europe, her hit song, Waves was featured in the soundtrack of It Runs in the Family, featuring Michael and Kirk Douglas. Awarded Best Composer of The Year (APCA/BR) for her CD, Between Love and Luck, she was also distinguished by Rolling Stone Magazine to be among the Brazilian guitar masters of history.

Cantos de Casa, her children’s CD, won Trophy Cata-Vento for Best CD of the Yea and her Pega no Coco won first prize for Best World Music Song at the USA International Songwriting Competition. In 2014, Badi was commissioned by The Guitar Film Festival Marathon in New York, to compose for the remake of the Chinese silent film, The Goddess (1934). Invited to also serve in the role of Festival Curator, she not only performed her composition live at New York’s Merkin Hall, but also received a New York Times highlight as Best of the Festival.

She writes a weekly column about music for the online version of TOP Magazine and is the author of the newly released book, Around the World in 80 Artists (Pólen Livros). The film, BADI directed by Edu Felistoque was named Best Film by The FestCine Maracanaú in Fortaleza, Brazil and was featured at the 2018 Brazil Summerfest in New York.

Currently a Junior at Lemont High School in Woodridge, Reema serves as a member of the Lemont physical education leadership class and an intern for the special education department, participating annually in the Chicago Polar Plunge benefitting the Special Olympics.   A Section Leader and performer with Lemont’s Choral Society, she sings in her school’s musicals (Prior shows include High School Musical and Grease with Cinderella planned for 2019.) Motivated by rigorous debate on important civic issues, she competes as part of the Lemont’s Speech Team sharing her thoughts on the dangers of speeding and the stigma surrounding mental illness.   Stemming from her strong commitment to community service, she also provides free readings to local children and works at local food pantries, Habitat for Humanity as well as Hope and Friendship. Over her summers at Rush Medical College, she engages students, ages 10-24 from diverse areas of Chicago, in hospital-based programs including One Summer Chicago and electronic medical record training.  Her participation in the 2018 Genesis Academy Summer Institute galvanized her interest in combining social justice issues with her passions in music and children in the field of music therapy.

Born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, Andrea graduated from Madison Academy High School in 2019. As a little girl, she expressed such a deep interest in the arts and music that she consequently received a creativity-based education along with Flamenco dance lessons from that point onwards. Captivated by folkloric Hispanic music movements, Andrea recently began studies in Latin American music accompanied by vocal lessons both to forward her goal of building a foundation for her future career in music and creativity. 

After her experience as a participant in the 2018 Genesis Academy Summer Institute, a global leadership and peacebuilding educational program for next-generation youth from areas of conflict, she came to realize her desire to further explore how the arts can be used to promote peace, especially in the field of human rights. Her collaborative peace journalism blog from the Genesis Academy Summer Institute examining the issues around xenophobia was published on the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting’s website to the world.  Following the program, Andrea began working on her ground-breaking creative project, Alas (Wings) which explores issues of identity and childhood spent in the midst of civic unrest and state-sanctioned violence. It includes a compilation of short poems and songs, including those in the folkloric Spanish tradition, Nana.  

She was a presenter/performer in the Arts and Creativity segment of the 2019 Genesis at the Crossroads’ Women’s Leadership Salon in Chicago, “How Can Women’s Leadership Critically Shape the 21st Century?”

In the future, Andrea looks forward to not only creating more songs inspired by Latin American music, but also starting her university studies, majoring in communications. She aspires to become a voice for Latin American human rights issues.

Miriam came to Chicago in 2012 as a refugee from Myanmar.

She is in her senior year at Lincoln Park High School (LPHS) in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. She has benefitted from three years with the Girl Forward empowerment program and is now leading their townhall meeting while creating their first student board. Inspired by her participation in the 2017 Genesis Academy Summer Institute, she co-founded

Students Supporting Students, a peer – to – peer support group focusing on healthy bodies and minds for young men and women at LPHS in the IB program.

This past summer, she launched an initiative on human rights to give agency to young teen women and encourage their self-expression.

She also attended a summer program at Northwestern University for aspiring physicians. Having recently identified her as an individual with extraordinary leadership potential, the Posse Foundation selected her for their fellowship for which she received a four – year tuition scholarship to attend Trinity College.

Allison Shelley is a documentary photographer and multimedia journalist focused on women’s health and justice issues worldwide, including noteworthy work in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake.  Her work has spanned all seven continents, examining issues such as the underground abortion market in Nigeria, women soldiers in the D.R. Congo, child motherhood in India, and the Zika crisis in Puerto Rico.

Shelley’s work is regularly featured in publications like The Atlantic, The New York Times and The Guardian.  She is co-founder of the non-profit organization, Women Photojournalists of Washington (WPOW) and has worked not only as director of photography for Education Week newspaper, but also as staff photographer for The Washington Times.  As a freelance photojournalist, she also works with many global organizations including the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and serves as teaching faculty in the peace journalism segment for the Genesis Academy Summer Institutes.

Badi has played an array of international concerts/festivals including innovative collaborations with Bobby McFerrin, Yo-Yo-Ma, Sarah McLaughlin and others. She is also the Guitarist/Vocalist in Genesis at the Crossroads’ Saffron Caravan ensemble. With 15 albums released worldwide, her CD, Wonderland was selected by the BBC London as among the 100 Best and Amazon.com’s 30 Best. Guitar Player selected her as one of the guitar players that would revolutionize the world. In addition to reaching the Top 10 in Europe, her hit song, Waves was featured in the soundtrack of It Runs in the Family, featuring Michael and Kirk Douglas. Awarded Best Composer of The Year (APCA/BR) for her CD, Between Love and Luck, she was also distinguished by Rolling Stone Magazine to be among the Brazilian guitar masters of history.

Cantos de Casa, her children’s CD, won Trophy Cata-Vento for Best CD of the Yea and her Pega no Coco won first prize for Best World Music Song at the USA International Songwriting Competition. In 2014, Badi was commissioned by The Guitar Film Festival Marathon in New York, to compose for the remake of the Chinese silent film, The Goddess (1934). Invited to also serve in the role of Festival Curator, she not only performed her composition live at New York’s Merkin Hall, but also received a New York Times highlight as Best of the Festival.

She writes a weekly column about music for the online version of TOP Magazine and is the author of the newly released book, Around the World in 80 Artists (Pólen Livros). The film, BADI directed by Edu Felistoque was named Best Film by The FestCine Maracanaú in Fortaleza, Brazil and was featured at the 2018 Brazil Summerfest in New York.

After departing her position as Executive Chef of the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills, Carrie Nahabedian returned to her native Chicago to open NAHA in 2000, which garnered her a James Beard Award and Seven consecutive Michelin stars. Carrie opened Brindille in the spring of 2013 along with partner and cousin Michael. While NAHA served to highlight her Armenian roots, Brindille’s refined Parisian fare celebrates the Nahabedian cousins’ favorite spots in Paris.

As the founder and creative engine behind Genesis at the Crossroads, Wendy designed all programs to date and continues to oversee production and implementation of performance/artistic programs, education and humanitarian initiatives worldwide. She forged national/international partnerships with over 45 institutions and founded Saffron Caravan, Genesis’ professional world music ensemble uniting artists from Iran, Afghanistan, Cuba, Morocco, Israel, India, Brazil, Venezuela and the US for cross-cultural collaborative performance and educational programs.  Since 2011, Sternberg has created and produced a body of inquiry-based salon programs on the intersection of human rights, human development and the role of the arts to help shape and inform a humanistic society and transform conflict. One annual salon series focuses on women’s leadership. She masterminds the creative development/management of the current Genesis Academy Summer Institutes for international youth leaders from areas of conflict as well as the future Genesis Peace Hub. (Due to the pandemic, the Peace Hub began virtually in 2020 with Sounds of Healing; its physical campus place-making on Chicago’s South side is in the process of coming to fruition for a slated 2023 opening.) 

Affectionately called a Doctor without a Border, her prior 20+ year career as a primary care internal medicine physician informs the healing aspects at the heart of Genesis at the Crossroads. Under her leadership, Genesis boasts over 150 award-winning programs, internationally acclaimed by the UN, The Kennedy Center, Rotary, The King of Morocco, the British Council, the US Institute of Peace and the US Department of State. A Rotary Peace Fellow and a Salzburg Global Seminar Fellow, Today’s Chicago Woman Magazine featured her as a Woman to Watch. She was named one of the 10 Jewish Chicagoans of the Year and was a 2011 Charles Bronfman Prize Nominee. Sternberg is a member of the Chicago Chapter of the Woods Fund – Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial Healing, Transformation Task Force. On the celebratory occasion of the 150^th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth, Sternberg was deeply honored to be chosen as the closing speaker, following the remarks of Gandhi’s Granddaughter, Nelson Mandela’s Daughter and Cesar Chavez’s Grandson at the Gandhi 150: A Legacy of Peace 2019 program in Chicago. She keynoted the Gandhi King Foundation’s 2020 virtual peace program in India at the University of Hyderabad.

In the face of the pandemic, she retooled Genesis’ 2006 Art of Healing initiative into a cross-cultural collaborative health and wellness program with a focus on arts, trauma and healing. It features multiple virtual and in-person programs over the next few years (Sounds of Healing). Among other written work, publications include: For the Sake of Humanity; Research on Cross-Cultural Collaborative Arts for Public Health, Chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Methods for Public Scholarship, Oxford Press (2018).

Sternberg graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in French Literature. She received her Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine with field work in public health in Chennai, India. She completed her Internal Medicine Residency Program at the University of Chicago.

Shuling Yong is a Singapore-born, Chicago-based documentary filmmaker with a passion for social change. She has worked on films like The Feeling of Being Watched (Tribeca, 2018, dir. Assia Boundaoui), Radical Grace (Hot Docs, 2015, dir. Rebecca Parrish), In Time To Come (Hot Docs, 2017, dir. Tan Pin Pin), and films by the award-winning Chicago media collective Kartemquin Films like In The Game (Madrid Int’l, 2015, dir. Maria Finitzo) and America To Me (Sundance, 2018, dir. Steve James).

Shuling’s film Growing Roots (2015) premiered on the Discovery Channel. She is now directing her first feature-length documentary, Unteachable, which was selected for the Tribeca Film Institute Network Market, Good Pitch² Southeast Asia 2017 and was awarded Best Pitch at the CNEX Chinese Documentary Forum 2017.

Shuling is a Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs Fellow, a participating filmmaker at the BRITDOC Queer Impact Producers Lab, the DocNet Southeast Asia Strategy Workshop and the KOMAS Video For Change Forum

While pursuing her degree in Radio/TV/Film at Northwestern University, Shuling founded Media For Social Change, a social enterprise dedicated to fostering positive community impact through video and audio storytelling.

Anosha is currently a student at Minerva Schools at KGI, a selective California-based university with an international student body and multiple campuses worldwide.  She graduated from her high school’s International Baccalaureate Program in Pakistan with a ranking 1st in the entire country. At Minerva, Anosha is the co-founder and president of the university’s Sustainability Club. She is also the Head of Branding and Design for the student-led competition called Minerva Hackathon, which brings California’s students to San Francisco to create innovative solutions for the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, Anosha also serves as an intern at Minerva Project’s Creative Team, helping with the design-related endeavors of the non-profit organization. Anosha’s passion for design and sustainable development stems from her global experiences in Turkey and Kenya respectively. In 2016, after finishing a month-long sustainable development project in an impoverished school of Mombasa, Kenya, Anosha moved to Ankara to study design and architecture in Bilkent University, one of Turkey’s top-ranked universities. She is also a graduate of the 2017 Genesis Academy Summer Institute, and an alumna ambassador of the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program of the US Department of State. Anosha is invariably curious and passionate about the world around her and is interested in how to use design and sustainability to make it a better place, one solution at a time.

Miriam came to Chicago in 2012 as a refugee from Myanmar.

She is in her senior year at Lincoln Park High School (LPHS) in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. She has benefitted from three years with the Girl Forward empowerment program and is now leading their townhall meeting while creating their first student board. Inspired by her participation in the 2017 Genesis Academy Summer Institute, she co-founded

Students Supporting Students, a peer – to – peer support group focusing on healthy bodies and minds for young men and women at LPHS in the IB program.

This past summer, she launched an initiative on human rights to give agency to young teen women and encourage their self-expression.

She also attended a summer program at Northwestern University for aspiring physicians. Having recently identified her as an individual with extraordinary leadership potential, the Posse Foundation selected her for their fellowship for which she received a four – year tuition scholarship to attend Trinity College.

Currently a Junior at Lemont High School in Woodridge, Reema serves as a member of the Lemont physical education leadership class and an intern for the special education department, participating annually in the Chicago Polar Plunge benefitting the Special Olympics.   A Section Leader and performer with Lemont’s Choral Society, she sings in her school’s musicals (Prior shows include High School Musical and Grease with Cinderella planned for 2019.) Motivated by rigorous debate on important civic issues, she competes as part of the Lemont’s Speech Team sharing her thoughts on the dangers of speeding and the stigma surrounding mental illness.   Stemming from her strong commitment to community service, she also provides free readings to local children and works at local food pantries, Habitat for Humanity as well as Hope and Friendship. Over her summers at Rush Medical College, she engages students, ages 10-24 from diverse areas of Chicago, in hospital-based programs including One Summer Chicago and electronic medical record training.  Her participation in the 2018 Genesis Academy Summer Institute galvanized her interest in combining social justice issues with her passions in music and children in the field of music therapy.