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April 7, 2025:

Women in Gen Z and Beyond

Melissa Lavigne Delville

Gannon Center for Women and Leadership

March 12-15, 2025

LUC Climate Change Conference

Co-Sponsors : School of Environmental Sustainability and the Gannon Center for Women and Leadership

November 4, 2024 

The Female Body;  Hegemony, Agency & Visual Culture

Marísa Isabel Baldasarre (Interdisciplinary School of Higher Social Studies)

Co-Sponsors: Gannon Center for Women and Leadership and Women’s Studies/Gender Studies

November 21, 2024

The Systematic Persecution of  Afghan Women and Girls: A Conversation with Najia Mahmodi, Former Prosecutor, Afghanistan

Co-Sponsors:  Gannon Center for Women and Leadership and the School of Law Rule of Law Institute

Amanda Little is a columnist for Bloomberg and a professor of journalism and science writing at Vanderbilt University. Little is the author of the bestseller, , a five-year adventure into the lands, minds and machines shaping the future of sustainable food. She also wrote Power Trip: The Story of America's Love Affair With Energy

Little has has written about energy, technology and the environment for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. She has interviewed politically diverse figures from Joe Biden and Barack Obama to Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham, and has been interviewed by journalists including Terry Gross and Fareed Zakaria. Her TED Talk,  has 1.7M views. Little is the founder and executive director of Kidizenship, a media platform for kids interested in civics and politics, and the national youth civics magazine, Watch Us Rise. 

Shelly Culbertson is the associate director of the Disaster Management and Resilience Program at the RAND Corporation. She focuses on disaster and post-conflict recovery, forced displacement, international development, and education. She co-leads RAND’s Mass Migration Strategy Group and has led multiple studies about refugees. Culbertson will discuss the policy implications of large-scale climate-driven migration.

Paula is a speaker, writer, lawyer, veteran, and musician.

Paula Boggs is one of the first women to receive a Congressional appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy. In 2013, she was appointed by President Obama to the President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities and White House Council for Community Solutions. She previously served as General Counsel for Starbucks Corporation and in public service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, and in various capacities as an attorney for the U.S. Army, the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Legal Counsel. Since leaving Starbucks, Paula gives speeches across the United States and beyond, writes essays and music, co-produces albums for, and tours extensively with the Paula Boggs Band.

Kim Knowlton is Senior Scientist and Deputy Director of NRDC’s Science Center. She focuses on the public health impacts of climate change, and advocates for strategies to prepare for—and prevent—these impacts, especially in vulnerable communities. She studies heat- and ozone-related mortality and illness in U.S. and India, plus climate change’s links to infectious illnesses, flooding, aeroallergens, and respiratory ailments. Knowlton was a co-convening lead author on the Human Health chapter of the Third U.S. National Climate Assessment, and participates in the New York City Panel on Climate Change. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a master’s in environmental and occupational health sciences from Hunter College, and a doctorate in public health from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health—where she now serves as an assistant professor in the Climate and Health Program of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences. She is based in New York.

Samantha Arechiga is a community member at Semillas y Raices. She is a student at DePaul University studying Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies and Latin American and Latina/o Studies. In both her environmental justice and restorative justice work, Arechiga puts community building and Indigenous wisdom at the forefront through storytelling and workshops with youth. She has delivered speeches at rallies such as the Chicago US Youth Climate Strike, and is currently doing work in an Indigenous led urban garden to practice sovereignty. Arechiga plans to continue her education to attain her Master's degree in Critical Ethnic Studies and become an educator.

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.

 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.