Baum Speaker Series

A career public servant in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Gina McCarthy has been a leading advocate for common sense strategies to protect public health and the environment for more than thirty years. As the head of EPA under President Obama, she led historic progress to achieve the administration’s public health and environmental protection goals and Climate Action Plan. Gina McCarthy is currently serving as a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard and as a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, emphasizing her career-long position that public health and the environment are critically interconnected. Before joining EPA, she served five Massachusetts Democratic and Republican administrations and was Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Mary Robinson is president of the Mary Robinson Foundation: Climate Justice, and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. She was the first female President of Ireland from 1990-1997, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002, and is now a member of The Elders and the Club of Madrid. She is also a member of the Lead Group of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement.

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the New York Times and #1 international bestseller, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Her critically acclaimed new book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate, is the 2014 winner of the prestigious Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

Adrienne Y. Bailey, PhD is a Senior Consultant at Panasonic Foundation. Adrienne has worked in the fields of education and social justice in urban and rural communities throughout the US, Jamaica, and southern Africa. She is nationally and internationally recognized for her passionate advocacy of education equity for poor and disadvantaged youth.

Judith Moberly Mayotte, PhD is an expert on issues concerning refugees and civilian displacement. She asks us all to consider: Are we willing to change how we treat the Earth so that people won't be forced to flee their homes because of chaotic climate change?

Monica Ramirez, JD is the Acting Deputy Director at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc. Monica is the daughter and granddaughter of migrant farmworkers. She has been a women's and immigrant activist for more than seventeen years. She is a nationally recognized expert on workplace rights for low-wage immigrants.

Lisa H. Sideris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University. Dr. Sideris is co-editor (with philosopher and nature writer Kathleen Dean Moore) of a volume of interdisciplinary essays on Rachel Carson's life and work, Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge.

Vi Daley, Virginia Rugai, Helen Shiller and Mary Ann Smith all retired from their public service positions as Chicago alderwomen in the Spring 2011. All four were honored for their commitment to public service as leaders of quality and character.

Vi Daley led the 43rd Ward since 1999 and promoted advocacy for Chicago citizens in zoning and historical preservation of landmark buildings and residential communities.

Virginia Rugai led the 19th Ward and chaired the city council committee on Energy, Environmental Protection and Public Utilities and was Vice Chair of the Committee on Police and Fire.

Helen Shiller led the 46th Ward since 1987 and was a tireless advocate for human rights, public safety and health, recycling and educational reform.

Mary Ann Smith led the 48th Ward since 1989 and chaired the city council committee on Chicago Parks and represented Chicago on the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives.

Sheryl WuDunn is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and co-author of Half the Sky: From Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide. As a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, WuDunn covered China and won a Pulitzer with her husband, Nicholas D. Kristof, for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement in Beijing and the military crackdown that ended it.

Vandana Shiva is the 1993 winner of the alternative Nobel Peace Prize (the Right Livelihood Award). Dr. Shiva is the author of numerous books, including Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Dr. Shiva is a founding board member of the International Forum on Globalization and the founder of Navdanya International, a science and policy research center based in India.

Shirin Ebadi is the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to stop political imprisonment, gender discrimination, capricious interpretation of law and the death penalty. She is Iran's foremost human rights lawyer and a vocal advocate for dialogue between Iran and the United States.

Lisa Ling was the first female host of National Geographic's series, Explorer. She covered the looting of antiquities in war-torn Iraq, investigated the deadly drug war in Columbia and examined complex policy issues in China.

Emily L. Barr was the first woman to be President and General Manager of ABC7 Chicago. She was first appointed to this position in 1997 and under her leadership, ABC7 strengthened its position in the market so as to be rated #1 in the Chicago market. She received the 2006 Spirit Award from the Chicago Urban League, the 2006 Communications Award from the Niagara Foundation, the Luminara Award from the Chicago Girl Scouts in 2004. She is also a member of the Economic Club of Chicago, the Executives' Club and the Chicago Network.