KentPresents Speakers 2015 - 2018

GLOBAL ISSUES

Nicholas Burns - Prof. at Harvard Kennedy School, Former Amb. to NATO, Greece
William Burns - President, Carnegie Endowment, Former Deputy Secretary of State, Amb. To Russia and Jordan
Richard Dearlove - OBE,former Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Service
Elizabeth Economy - Council on Foreign Relations
Leslie Gelb - former Pentagon and State official, think tank executive, Times correspondent
Christopher Hill - former US Ambassador to Iraq, South Korea, Poland and Macedonia
James Hoge - former editor of Foreign Affairs
Robert Hormats - Former Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment
Hussein Ibish- Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute
Robert Kaiser - Former managing editor of The Washington Post
Henry Kissinger - Nobel Laureate, former US Secretary of State
Michael Kramer - playwright, journalist, author
Joshua Landis - Director, Center of Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma
William LeoGrande - Professor of Government, American University, Latin American expert
Mark Lippert -Former Ambassador to South Korea
William Luers - Director, The Iran Project, former Ambassador To Czechoslovakia and Venezuela
Hussein Majali - former Interior Minister, Jordan and General
Jessica Mathews- Former President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Jack Matlock - former US Ambassador to Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union
John Micklethwait - Editor-in-chief Bloomberg News, former editor Economist
William Perry - former US Secretary of Defense
Thomas Pickering - former US Ambassador to Russia, India, UN, Israel, El Salvador, Nigeria and Jordan
John Pomfret - Former Washington Post bureau chief in Beijing
Chase Robinson- President, The Graduate Center, CUNY
J. Stapleton Roy - Founding Director Emeritus of the Kissinger Institute on China and ambassadorial assignments included Singapore, China, and Indonesia
David Sanger - Chief Washington Correspondent, New York Times
Lesley Stahl – 60 Minutes, News Correspondent
Kathleen Stephens - Former Ambassador to South Korea
William Taubman – Professor of History, Amherst College
Frances Townsend - President,Counter Extremism Project, former Homeland Security Advisor, CNN Commentator
Jose Viera - former First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cuba
Frank Wisner – Career Ambassador
Peter Zwack - Former U.S. Senior Defense Official and Attaché to the Russian Federation

NATIONAL ISSUES

Kurt Andersen – Studio 360 Host, Author
Jared Bernstein - Senior Fellow, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Preet Bharara – Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
Lisa Bloom – Civil Rights Attorney
Charles Blow - op-ed Columnist, New York Times, author of "Fire Shut Up in My Bones"
Jess Bravin - Supreme Court Correspondent, The Wall Street Journal
Carol Burris – Executive Director, Network Public Education
Eric Cantor - Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Moelis & Company and former House Majority Leader
Rebecca Carroll- Author, Producer of Special Projects on Race, WNYC
Kristen Clarke - President and Executive Director, Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Charlie Cook - Editor and Publisher of the Cook Political Report
Tyler Cowen - Professor of Economics at George Mason University
Stephanie Cutter- Political Consultant, Partner at Precision Strategies
Ronald Daniels- President of The Johns Hopkins University
Dan Doctoroff – CEO Sidewalk Labs
Matthew Dowd - Political consultant, ABC News political analyst
Marjory Fischer – Title IX Coordinator, Columbia University
James Forman, Jr. - Professor of Law at Yale
Eddie Glaude Jr. - Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton
Mark Gorenberg - Founder and Managing Director of Zetta Venture Partners
Janet Gornick - Prof. Graduate Center of CUNY, income inequality expert
Ryan Goodman - Professor of Law at NYU School of Law
Nick Gourevitch- Partner and Managing Director, Global Strategy Group
Danielle Gray - former Asst. to President Obama and Cabinet Secretary, Partner at O'Melveny and Myers
Douglas Harris – Professor of Economics, Tulane University
Margot Hirsch – President, Smart Tech Challenges Foundation
Samuel Issacharoff - Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law
Hakeem Jeffries - DemocraticCongressman, New York's 8^thDistrict
Jeh Johnson – Former Secretary of Homeland Security
Robert Jones – Exoneree, Innocence Project
Jay Kriegel - Senior Adviser of the Related Companies, formerly Chief of Staff, NYC Mayer John V. Lindsay
Paul Krugman - Distinguished Professor of Economics at CUNY Graduate Center, Nobel Laureate, Op-ed Columnist, New York Times
Lawrence Kudlow - Commentator, economic analyst and columnist
Mitch Landrieu - Former Mayor of New Orleans
Tom Loveless- Senior Fellow, Brown Center on Education Policy, Brookings Institute
Roger McNamee – Investor, Social Media Activist
Nina Morrison – Senior Staff Attorney, Innocence Project
Trevor Morrison - Dean, NYU School of Law
Sarah Moser – Professor of Geography, McGill University
Chris Murphy - Democratic Senator from Connecticut
Charles Murray - American Enterprise Institute Fellow, columnist and pundit
Neha Narula – Digital Currency, MIT
Cal Newport – Professor of Computer Science, Georgetown University
Soledad O'Brien - Journalist and news anchor
David Osborne - Senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, author
Steve Pearlstein - Business and Economics columnist, Washington Post
John Pfaff - Professor of Law at Fordham University
Amanda Ripley - Investigative journalist and author
Ed Rollins - Reagan campaign manager and consultant
Paul Romer - Chief Economist and Senior Vice President of the World Bank
Michael S. Roth- President of Wesleyan University
Laurie Simmons - photographer and filmmaker
Greg Speed- President, America Votes
Bret Stephens – The New York Times
Andrew Stern - former President of the Service Employees International Union, author of "Raising the Floor"
Kai Stinchcombe – CEO, True Link Financial
Valerie Strauss - Washington Post Education Writer
Jeffrey Toobin - Staff writer the New Yorker
Cyrus Vance - District Attorney of New York County
Jeffrey Wall - former Asst. to the Solicitor General, Co-Head of the Sullivan & Cromwell Applegate Litigation Practice
Darren Walker - President, Ford Foundation
Laura Walker - President and CEO, New York Public Radio
Faye Wattleton - formerly youngest, first woman and first African-American president, Planned Parenthood
Robert Zimmer– President, University of Chicago
James Zirin - Op-ed columnist

HUMANITIES and LEISURE

André Aciman - distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of CUNY
James Atlas - Author of numerous books, magazine editor and writer
David Benedict - Biographer of Stephen Sondheim
Christopher Buckley - Novelist, essayist, humorist, magazine editor
Jonathan Burnham - Senior Vice President and Publisher, HarperCollins
Joy Connolly - Provost and Senior Vice President at the Graduate Center, CUNY
Frank Delaney - former BBC correspondent, bestselling author, leading Joyce scholar
Judith Dobrzynski - Journalist
John Donvan - Newscaster for ABC News, Host and Moderator for Intelligence² Debates, author of "In a Different Key: The Story of Autism"
Adam Gopnik - Staff writer for The New Yorker
Sylvia Jukes Morris - Biographer of Clare Boothe Luce and more
Dan Kevles - Professor of History, Yale University
Corby Kummer - Senior Editor of The Atlantic and restaurant critic
Lewis Lapham - Founder, Lapham's Quarterly
Nick Lemann - Staff writer, The New Yorker
Charles C. Mann – Author
Safwan Masri - Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development, Columbia University
Edmund Morris - Biographer of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and more
David Nasaw – Distinguished Professor of History, CUNY Graduate Center
Joe Nocera - sports columnist New York Times, author of "Indentures: The Epic Scandal of the NCAA"
Adam Platt - Food Critic, New York Magazine
Michael Pollan - food writer, author of the classic "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and recently, "Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation"
Judith Shulevitz - Science editor, The New Republic, columnist
Dinitia Smith - author and filmmaker
Andrew Solomon - Professor at Columbia, writer
Judith Thurman - author, National Book Award winner
Jane Whitney - former television correspondent, anchor and host
Ekow Yankah - Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law

THE ARTS

Colin Bailey - Director of the Morgan Library and Museum
Andrew Bergman - Screenwriter-director, including "Blazing Saddles, " "The Freshman," "The In-Laws"
Flora Biddle – Former President, Whitney Museum of American Art
Bonnie Burnham - President, World Monuments Fund
Thomas Campbell - Director and CEO, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Amy Cappellazzo - Art Adviser, Sotheby's
P. Carl - Co-Artistic Director,ArtsEmerson and Director/Co-founder of HowlRound
Ted Chapin - President, Rodgers & Hammerstein
Fiona Donovan – Teacher, Writer
John Doyle - Tony-winning Broadway director
Carroll Dunham -Contemporary American Painter
Oskar Eustis - Artistic Director, The Public Theater
Carter Foster - Curator of Drawing at the Whitney Museum of American Art
Jeffrey Fraenkel – Fraenkel Gallery
LaToya Ruby Frazier - Multi-media artist, MacArthur Fellow
Michael Govan - Director of LACMA
Agnes Gund - President emerita of the Museum of Modern Art
Nathalie de Gunzburg - Chairwoman of the Dia Art Foundation board
Eleanor Heartney - author and Contributing Editor to Art in America and Artpress
Marguerite Hoffman - Art Collector, Philanthropist and Civic Volunteer
Jennifer Homans - Founder and Director, Center for Ballet and the Arts, NYU
Pepe Karmel - Associate Professor of art history at NYU, author of "Picasso and the Invention of Cubism"
Katya Kazakina - art writer, Bloomberg
Dodie Kazanjian - art writer, Vogue, curator, Gallery Met
Michael Korie - Librettist and lyricist for many musicals and operas including "Grey Gardens" and "Far from Heaven"
Robert Lang – Origami Master
Julian Lethbridge - painter and drawer focused on abstract art
Christopher Lew - Associate Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Sarah Lewis - Professor of Art History and Architecture & African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Adam Lindemann - contemporary art collector, art writer
Adam Lowe - Founder, Factum Arte
Wynton Marsalis – Jazz Musician, Educator
Richard Maltby, Jr. - Tony-winning, Broadway director and lyricist
Daniel Mendelsohn – Author, Critic
Francis Naumann - Independent scholar, curator and art dealer
Richard Olcott - Partner, Ennead Architects
Lonny Price - Broadway director, actor and writer; director of "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill"
Rachel Rose - video artist
Scott Rothkopf - Chief Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Kevin Salatino - Director of the Art Collections at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California
Jerry Saltz - Senior art critic, New York Magazine
Dana Schutz - artist, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award 2010
Annabelle Selldorf- Founder of Selldorf Architects
Shohei Shigematsu - Architect, Partner, OMA
Shahzia Sikander - Pakistani-American artist, works in drawing, painting, installations, performance and video, MacArthur Fellow
Xaviera Simmons - Artist
Elisabeth Sussman – Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
Susan Taylor - Director of New Orleans Museum of Art
Ann Temkin - Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA
Gary Tinterow - Director, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Jack Viertel - SVP of Jujamcyn Theater
Sheena Wagstaff - Chair, Modern and Contemporary Art, Met Museum
Adam Weinberg - Director of the Whitney Museum
Deborah Willis - Chair, Department of Photography, NYU
David Yazbek - Emmy winner, Broadway composer and lyricist

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, HEALTH CARE, ENVIRONMENT

Frances Arnold - Nobel Laureate, Prof. of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, Caltech
David Baltimore - Nobel Laureate, former Caltech President, one of the world's most influential biologists
Konstantin Batygin – Caltech Astrophysicist
James Bessen - Executive Director, Technology and Policy Research, Boston University School of Law
Stewart Brand - Whole Earth Catalog, environmentalist, pro-nuclear power, de-extinction leader
Aaron Carroll - Vice Chair of Health Policy, Indian Univ., creator Healthcare Triage, Incidental Economist
Sean Carroll – Caltech Cosmologist
Gilbert Castillo - Hyundai
Alta Charo – Professor of Law, University of Wisconsin
Jerry Coyne – Evolutionary Biologist
Joe DeSimone – CEO, Carbon Inc.
Luis Diaz – Memorial Sloane Kettering, Immunotherapy
Charles Elachi-Director NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, pioneer and leader in planetary exploration
Scott Fraser - USC Provost Professor, Keck School of Medicine and the Viterbi School of Engineering
Jim Fruchterman - CEO, Benetech
Dario Gil - Vice President of Science and Solutions at IBM Research
Julia Greer – Professor, Caltech
Bill Gross - Founder, Idealab
Radley Horton- Associate Research Professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Walter Isaacson - President and CEO, Aspen Institute
Stefanie Joho – Patient Advocacy
Dina Katabi - Prof. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, MacArthur Fellow
John Kelly - Senior Vice President, Cognitive Solutions and Research, IBM
Andrew Kolodny - Co- Director, Opioid Policy Research, Heller School, Brandeis University
Steve Koonin - Director of NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress, previously Energy Under Secretary
Regina LaBelle- Former Chief of Staff, Drug Czar, Obama Administration
Paul Marks - President Emeritus, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Andrew McAfee - principal research scientist at MIT, co-author of "The Second Machine Age"
Harold McGee – Food Writer, Author
Howard Morgan - Venture Capitalist
Michael Moritz - Venture Capitalist
Siddhartha Mukherjee - Author, "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer"
Richard Murray - Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Caltech
Gregory Petsko - Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College
Robert Piconi – CEO, Energy Vault
Arati Prabhakar – Former Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Gill Pratt - CEO, Toyota Research Institute
Marc Raibert - founder/CEO of Boston Dynamics, innovative robotics developer
Akshat Rathi – Journalist, specializing in science, energy and technology
Mark Reuss – EVP, General Motors
Carlos Riva - CEO Poseidon Water
Stuart Russell - Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley
Gavin Schmidt, Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
Michael Shellenberger - environmental policy leader, co-founder of Breakthrough Institute
Scott Small - Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University
J.B. Straubel - Co-founder, Tesla
Alex Taylor - Senior Editor-at-large (ret.), Fortune magazine, has covered the auto industry for more than 30 years
Scott Tinker - Director of Bureau of Economic Geology, State Geologist of Texas
Kip Thorne – Nobel Laureate,Caltech's Feynman Professor, helped confirm Einstein's 100-year-old gravitational wave theory
Harold Varmus - Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell, Nobel Laureate
Gernot Wagner- Executive Director of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program
Joe Walston – Wildlife Conservation Society
Ken Washington - Vice President, Research and Advanced Engineering, Ford Motor Company
Gilbert Welch - Professor of Medicine at Dartmouth, author of "Less Medicine, More Health"
Caren Zucker– Journalist, Producer