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Miriam L. Wallace is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois-Springfield. She was Professor of English and founding faculty in Gender Studies at New College until 2023. With the support of a 2021 NEH Humanities Connections Grant and colleagues in anthropology, epidemiology, and history, she helped create a new program in Health, Culture, and Societies. She currently serves on the Executive Council of the MLA, where she continues to advocate for the value of the humanities and the study of literature to respond to our current moment. Dean Wallace is currently co-PI with Dean Emily Todd on another NEH grant exploring the particular value of humanists engaging generative AI in the undergraduate classrooms. She continues to write about innovative teaching, most recently as co-editor of Teaching the Eighteenth Century Now (Bucknell UP, 2023).

Jeff Lundy directs global coordination on mandatory ESG reporting for PepsiCo’s Public Policy & Government Affairs team. His team analyses issues with legislative implications and uses data to provide guidance on policy positions and combines expertise in financial analysis, data analytics, and policy research to make PepsiCo proactive in responding to looming policy issues. Previously, Jeff led the Health & Wellness program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center. In this role, Jeff directed programming for business executives interested in addressing the most pressing wellness issues. Additionally, Jeff created the Health Means Business campaign; started by a $1.7M grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Jeff joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation in February 2012 as a Manager of the Corporate Citizenship Center’s research agenda. Jeff previously served as a consultant for Empower Partners LLC, a social enterprise developing marketing models to help underserved inner-city businesses tailor their product lines to local consumers. Prior to that, he was an intern at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), where he selected several new technologies to be tested, in order to improve the Bureau’s capture of respondent data. Jeff earned his Ph.D. in Economic Sociology from the University of California, San Diego and completed a research assistantship at the University of Michigan. He also holds a B.A. in sociology from New College of Florida.

Sam Kocher (they/them) has a Master of Public Health degree with a concentration in Behavioral, Social, and Community Health from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Gender Studies from New College of Florida. They are currently the Education and Data Manager at a Harm Reduction program with sites in both rural and urban settings. Sam's time at New College was foundational in shaping their approach to working with people who use drugs.