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Speaker Biography |
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| Amer Ahmed: |
 Amer Ahmed a.k.a. "Dawah" has been writing and performing poetry for over 10 years. As a poet/activist in the Hip Hop community, he has dedicated himself to bridging art and activism with the purpose of creating positive social and cultural change. Through his ongoing involvement with Hip Hop Congress (www.hiphopcongress.com), he remains dedicated to supporting other artists who are also seeking to connect their creative expression to work that empowers and energizes youth. |
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| Tanzila Ahmed: |
 Tanzila "Taz" Ahmed is a writer, political organizer and recent graduate student in Los Angeles. She has been registering youth voters for the past ten years, since her undergraduate days at the University of Southern California. At the age of 25, she founded South Asian American Voting Youth (SAAVY), a national organization that organizes South Asian American youth to have a political voice and get involved in the electoral process. In 2004, SAAVY ran campaigns in MI, NY, FL, GA, and CA mobilizing thousands of South Asians to the polls, while empowering a new generation of South Asian student leaders. She was honored by the Youth Vote Coalition in their 'Top 30 Under 30' Award. This June, she received her Master in Public Policy degree with concentrations in Asian American policy, non-profit management, and critical race at UCLA's School of Public Affairs. While pursuing her Masters, she's had the privilege of working as a researcher in the Asian American community on various community projects, such as the Asian American Youth Vote report with APALC, and the Los Angeles taxi workers. Her thesis project entitled "Barriers to Student Voting" examines the various barriers that students in California face when exercising civic engagement. She currently works for the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance as a Policy Manager getting out the AAPI Vote in Southern California. Taz is a featured co-author in the book, "Storming the Polls," and publishes in numerous publications, such as Alternet, Wiretap, PopandPolitics and syndicated on The Nation. An avid essayist, blogger, and poet, her work has been profiled in the International Museum of Women and Falling Star Magazine. She also sits on the board of the online youth magazine, WireTap Magazine. |
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| Bob Bollinger: |
 Robert C. Bollinger M.D., M.P.H. is a Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with a joint appointment in the Department of International Health of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. He has more than 27 years of experience in international public health, clinical research and education in a broad range of global health priorities including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy and emerging infections. Dr. Bollinger is Director of the recently established Hopkins Center for Clinical Global Health Education. Dr. Bollinger received his Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School and his Masters in Public Health from the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
For more information on Dr. Bollinger, please refer to
http://www.ccghe.jhmi.edu/CCG/about/faculty/BollingerBio.asp .
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| Nishaant Choksi: |
| Nishaant Choksi is a second year doctoral student in the linguistic anthropology program at the University of Michigan. Currently, he is examining language movements among adivasi (indigenous) groups in West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Gujarat. Nishaant worked as a journalist for an Ahmedabad newspaper in the summer following the 2002 pogrom in the state, and visited many of the refugee camps in the area. In 2004, he received a Fulbright grant to look at political mobilization among adivasi communities in Gujarat. |
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| George Dong: |
 George Dong is a new to spoken word and comes from China. |
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| Toc Dunlap: |
 Toc Dunlap, J.D. is an experienced educator and teacher trainer. She is Executive Director of Creating Hope International (CHI), an organization she founded in 1982. CHI works with partner organizations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India to provide culturally relevant, grassroots education and health assistance to the people in the world with the greatest needs. Since 1996, Toc Dunlap has worked in partnership with the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women's non-governmental organization. Through CHI, she provides AIL training and assistance with administration, finance, program strategy, fundraising, budgeting, and proposal writing.
A more detailed biography can be found at
http://www.saanconf.org/files/CHI_toc_bio_jan08.doc
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| Jessi Gan: |
| Jessi Gan is a second-generation Chinese/Filipina who identifies as trans and queer and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has fixed computers, worked in anti-oppressive outreach and organizing, and co-authored articles in Amerasia and Centro journals. She is currently part of the Campus Lockdown collective and a doctoral student in American Culture at the University of Michigan, where her research focus is on state violence against trans people of color. |
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| Pooja Gehi: |
 Pooja Gehi, Esq., began working at the Sylvia Rivera Law Project in November 2005. At SRLP, she represents low-income and/or of color transgender, intersex and gender nonconforming people in the areas of immigration, attaining appropriate identification, attaining benefits, Medicaid, name changes, and discrimination. Pooja has extensive experience in legal organizing around police brutality and the prison industrial complex, as well as grassroots activist experience in the areas of anti-globalization, immigrant rights, and attaining wages for migrant farm workers in Florida. Pooja earned her Law and Masters Degree in international politics from American University, where she graduated cum laude. |
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| Zareena Grewal: |
 Zareena Grewal, Assistant Professor in the departments of American Studies and Religious Studies at Yale, is a historical anthropologist whose research focuses on Islam in the US. Her major research interests include race, trans-nationalism, experimental ethnography, film, religion, and identity politics across the wide spectrum of Muslim American communities. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt (2002-3) and received the Fulbright's prestigious Islamic Civilization Grant. She is currently developing a book manuscript based on her dissertation research, tentatively titled Destination, Tradition: The Crisis of Islam in the US, which explores the transnational dimensions of the authority crisis in American mosques. She also directed and produced the documentary By the Dawn's Early Light: Chris Jackson 's Journey to Islam (recently featured on ABC News Now and the Documentary Channel). At Yale, she teaches courses on Islam in America, US policy in the Middle East, and religion and media. |
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Deepa Iyer: |
 Deepa Iyer is the Executive Director of South Asian American Leaders of Tomorrow (SAALT) , a national non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the full and equal participation by South Asians in the civic and political life of the United States. Deepa has had over seven years of experience in civil rights and immigrant rights advocacy. She began her public interest career at the Asian American Justice Center (formerly the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium), where she managed the Census 2000, Language Rights, and Voting Rights programs. She then served as Trial Attorney at the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice, where she represented individuals suffering from workplace discrimination due to their immigration status or national origin, and assisted with the Division’s efforts to address backlash discrimination in the wake of September 11th. Deepa most recently served as the Legal Director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center, where she institutionalized a multilingual legal referral hotline and organized a pan-ethnic coalition that successfully advocated for linguistic access to government services and benefits in the District of Columbia. Throughout her career, Deepa has addressed issues affecting the South Asian community. She is the Executive Producer of a 26-minute documentary featuring hate crimes survivors and community organizers. She has taught classes on legal issues affecting Asian Americans at Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City and has written on language access and post 9/11 backlash. Deepa was recently featured in a Stanford University Law School publication entitled Beyond the Big Law Firm. Deepa moved to Kentucky when she was twelve from India.
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| Anand Kalra: |
 Anand is a short, vegetarian, South Asian, atheist, genderqueer, social justice activist. He graduated from the University of Michigan in August 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology (subconcentration: Social Inequality - Race, Class, and Gender) and a minor in Mathematics. Anand has held (successful!) internships at both the
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force as well as the
National Center for Transgender Equality |
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| Valarie Kaur: |
 Valarie Kaur is a third-generation Sikh American born and raised in Clovis, California, and a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Divinity School. She began the five-year journey to make this film in 2001 when she was an undergraduate at Stanford. The world premiere of Divided We Fall in September 2006 sent Valarie on a packed international speaking and screening tour which continues today. She has been invited as an authority on the subject at more than one hundred universities, colleges, and religious centers across the country. She has been featured in print, radio and television media including CNN, NPR, the BBC, and Frances Moore Lappe's book You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. The State of California recently presented Valarie with an official commendation recognizing her work as a scholar, activist, and storyteller. Valarie presently serves as founding director of the Discrimination and National Security Initiative at the Harvard Pluralism Project |
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| Ann Kenny: |
 Ann Kenny has over 29 years of extensive, successful senior management experience in the health care field. She is currently a Senior Principal at SRA International and serves as the Director of Health Communications, Outreach and Training. Ms. Kenny is the Project Director for the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Office of Minority Health (OMH) projects to Develop, Implement, Maintain and Evaluate Interactive Online and DVD Continuing Medical Education Programs in Cultural Competency for Physicians and Nurses. She is a retired military officer with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master’s degree in Public Health. |
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| Aditi Khinkhabwala: |
 Aditi Kinkhabwala is a sports writer at North Jersey's premier paper, The Record, and a columnist for Sports Illustrated's website, SI.com. She was an American Studies major headed for law school until a trip to Texas halted those plans. Still, it is that original interest in culture and society that informs her sportswriting. It's not just about the games to Aditi, but the impact and influence of sports on our world - and the characters. |
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| Scott Kurashige: |
 Scott Kurashige graduated from UCLA with an M.A. in Asian American Studies and a Ph.D. in History. He is an associate professor of Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies, American Culture, and History at the University of Michigan. His book, The Shifting Grounds of Race: Black and Japanese Americans in the Making of Multiethnic Los Angeles, was recently published by Princeton University Press. He is currently working with Grace Lee Boggs to co-author a book on rethinking radical theory and politics titled Sustainable Activism: Radical Wisdom from a Movement Elder. |
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Sunaina Maira: |
 A professor in Asian American Studies at UC-Davis, Sunaina Maira's teaching and research interests focus on youth, popular culture, transnationalism, South Asian immigrant communities, and U.S. empire. Her most recent work is on citizenship post-9/11, particularly the experiences of immigrant and second-generation Pakistani youth.
She wrote Desis in the House: Indian American Youth Culture in New York City , a book that focuses on the "Basement Bhangra" scene, as well as ethnographies on how South Asian culture is consumed in the mainstream. Additionally, she co-edited
Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America , one of the best anthologies of South Asian American writing. She will be staying at Michigan the week after SAAN, speaking on her post-9/11 work at an American Culture workshop series.
For More Info:
an interview, henna and hip hop -- politics of culture // an article , an article on empire, 9/11, zionism, and citizenship
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| Aasif Mandvi: |
 Aasif Mandvi is a rising star in the entertainment industry, and has appeared in numerous popular television shows including E.R., The Sopranos, Sex & The City, Jericho, CSI and various editions of Law & Order. He has also recently become more involved in more political roles, including a lead role in the critically-acclaimed documentary drama Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom.
See some of Aasif’s Daily Show clips at:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?searchterm=
aasif&x=0&y=0
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Anita Mannur: |
 Anita Mannur is an English Professor at Denison University who writes about food. Some of her most prominent, accessible work analyzes how Padma Lakshmi and Ming Tsai represent Asian culture and reinforce the "model minority myth." She is co-editor of
Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader which is a key resource in ethnic, women's, and cultural studies. Altogether, her work proves that "food matters" in how we define ourselves and culture are literally consumed through culinary tourism.
To Listen to an Interview:
http://www.asiapacificforum.org/show-detail.php?show_id=49
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| Rupa Modi: |
 Rupa is responsible for developing East Coast operations in efforts to build awareness, fundraise, and seek new business opportunities. In 2007, Rupa contributed to raising program funds for Kiva.org from renowned foundations and donors. Rupa is the Founder and CEO of ModiaDesigns, and she carries a deep interest and responsibility in utilizing her creative skill set to highlight causes in the U.S. and India. Rupa is currently pursuing a Certificate in Strategic Decisions and Risk Management at Stanford University. She holds an M.B.A. in International Business from Drexel University. |
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| Saif I. Shah Mohammed: |
Saif I. Shah Mohammed is co-founder of MF Analytics, which structures innovative financial products for governments, development institutions and financial institutions. In 2005-2006, he worked extensively on the BRAC securitization in Bangladesh, the world's first securitization of micro-finance receivables. In that transaction, he analyzed the risk of the BRAC portfolio and developed the algorithms that select the pool of receivables for BRAC and maintain the transaction throughout its life. Prior to joining MF Analytics, Saif worked as an analyst at Cornerstone Research, assisting industry and faculty experts in developing economic and financial analysis in litigation contexts. Saif graduated from Harvard College in 2002 with a B.A. (magna cum laude) in Economics. He currently attends Columbia Law School. |
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| Atul Nakhasi: |
 Atul Nakhasi is a Junior Biology major at the University of Iowa with aspirations geared towards the medical field, although much of his involvement is political in nature. He is the President of the University of Iowa Democrats, the largest Democratic university federation in the state of Iowa. Atul has appeared on ABC World News, XM Radio, NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the Des Moines Register for his youth political activism. He was just recently named the Iowa City Person of the Year by the Iowa City Press-Citizen, the first student to individually win the award. His unique role has allowed him to bring attention to the Youth vote and its significance to the Iowa Caucus. |
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| Vijay Prashad: |
 Vijay Prashad is a professor, author and activist. As a professor at Trinity College, he raises awareness about international issues for his students and colleagues. He has also written several well-known books, including The Karma of Brown Folk, Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity, and The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World. Prof. Prashad is known for his innovative perspectives on "polyculturism" and the effect of historical cultural interactions on current social and political issues. Interview with Vijay Prashad:
http://www.frontlist.com/interview/PrashadInterview |
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| Luna Ranjit: |
 Born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal , Luna has more than ten years of experience in organizing, activism, and participatory research both in the United States and in South Asia. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Development Studies from Grinnell College and a Master's degree in Public and International Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. Luna co-founded Adhikaar, a women-led nonprofit organization promoting human rights and social justice in Nepali communities in 2005. Luna also serves on the board of the America Nepal Friendship Society and New York Newa Guthi.
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Sandip Roy: |
 Sandip Roy is an editor with New America Media in San Francisco and host of its radio show UpFront on KALW 91.7 FM. He grew up in India and currently
lives in San Francisco. He is a regular commentator on NPR's Morning Edition and served as longtime volunteer editor for Trikone, the world's oldest
magazine on South Asian LGBT issues. His work appears frequently in San Francisco Chronicle, India Currents, India Abroad, San Jose Mercury News and
other publications. He has won awards from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, the South Asian Journalists Association etc. His
essays and fiction have been anthologized in various collections including Contours of the Hearts: South Asians Map North America, A Part Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America, Q & A - Queer and Asian, Mobile Cultures, The Erotic and the Phobic, Because I Have a Voice,
Storywallah!, Desilicious, and more.
For More Info:
NAM Blog, Archive of NPR Shows, Archive of Upfront Shows, Trikone |
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Amardeep Singh: |
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| Devinder Sahota: |
 Devinder Sahota graduated from UC Santa Cruz with a B.A. in American Studies. He is a strong believer in the use of creative expression to both sustain and propel individual and social consciousness to a higher ground. Devinder is the Office Manager at YES! ( www.yesworld.org), a nonprofit organization dedicated to connecting, inspiring, and empowering young change-makers to join forces for a thriving, just, and sustainable way of life for all. When he's not in the office pushing papers, Devinder continues to pursue the creative arts with organizations like Art in Action ( www.artinactioncamp.org) and Be Present ( www.bepresent.org), and privately working as a recording engineer and music producer. |
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| Avanti Sharma: |
 Avanti Sharma is Founder and CEO of
The Anokhi Foundation, a non-profit organization focused on HIV/AIDS prevention in the South Asian community. She has worked at St. Judes Children's Research Hospital, taught chemically dependent patients at the Haymarket Center in Chicago, and worked as an ABA Therapist. This, along with her extensive psychology training, has truly shaped her interest in providing preventive education and access to community outreach. She received her B.S. in Psychology from Mississippi State University and is currently pursuing her M.D. For more: The Cultural Connect |
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| Ushma Upadhyay: |
Dr. Upadhyay is Senior Research Scientist with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene where her research interests focus on gender and reproductive health. She is co-author of Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers and has written several reports and peer-reviewed journal articles on international reproductive health, contraception, and adolescent sexual behavior. Dr. Upadhyay was a founding board member of the South Asian Public Health Association and Editor of A Brown Paper: The Health of South Asians in the United States—the first ever report on the state of South Asian American health. Dr. Upadhyay has a Masters of Public Health from Columbia University, and a Doctorate from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. |
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Amardeep Singh is co-founder and legal director of the Sikh Coalition. He is a prominent resource in the Sikh community, a liaison to the government. He wrote the Human Rights Watch report entitled