About Our Advisors.
Nadine Strossen
Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor Emerita at New York Law School and past national President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), is a Senior Fellow with FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education) and a leading expert and frequent speaker/media commentator on constitutional law and civil liberties, who has testified before Congress on multiple occasions. She serves on the advisory boards of the ACLU, Academic Freedom Alliance, Heterodox Academy, National Coalition Against Censorship, and the University of Austin. The National Law Journal has named Strossen one of America’s "100 Most Influential Lawyers"; several other publications have named her one of the country’s most influential women; and she has received many honorary degrees and awards. In 2023, the National Coalition Against Censorship (an alliance of more than 50 national non-profit organizations) selected Strossen for its Lifetime Achievement Award for Free Speech. When Strossen stepped down as ACLU President, three (ideologically diverse) Supreme Court Justices participated in her farewell/tribute luncheon: Justices Ginsburg, Scalia, and Souter. She is the author of HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (2018) and Free Speech: What Everyone Needs to Know® (2023). She is also the Host and Project Consultant for Free To Speak, a 3-hour documentary film series on free speech distributed on public television in 2023. Her book Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights was named a New York Times “notable book” of 1995 and was republished in 2024 as part of the New York University Press “Classics” series. Her book HATE was selected as the “Common Read” by Washington University and Washburn University.
Sam Pratt
Sam graduated from Harvard in 2023 with a B.A. in psychology. He now works as a research coordinator in the Deepest Beliefs Lab and Center for the Science of Moral Understanding at UNC Chapel Hill, where he studies the psychological roots of moral disagreement and strategies to bridge divides
Dr. Avé Luke-Simpson
Avé Luke-Simpson, PhD has been in independent schools for 21 years. Starting as an educator with many middle and high school students, she quickly learned the importance of planning, vision, relationship building, and trust, in understanding the cultural landscape of a school. Importantly, she learned the importance of extending kind curiosity and avoiding assumptions in the process of affirming the identities of all constituents in a school community. She believes that relationships are the cornerstone of the work that we do in schools.
After 8 years in the classroom– and 5 years as a part-time administrator– she decided that returning to school– while continuing to teach– would allow her to deepen her understanding of pedagogy, teacher education, and ways of knowing in order to both better teach students and lead the type of change she wanted to affect as both a teacher and administrator.
Avé is the Director of High School at the Headwaters School in Austin, TX. She is very interested in ways of helping to create frameworks to support authentic, transformative conversations and in creating communities that embrace the identities of their members in affirming ways, rooted in mutual respect and understanding. Outside of school, she’s an amateur botanist and musician, lover of poetry, reader of books (good and bad), and full-time mom.
Avé has a B.A. from Emory University, an M.A. from American University and a PhD from George Mason University.
Christian Carmody
Christian is a doctoral student in the School of Education at The University of New Hampshire, exploring the connection between intellectual humility and dispositional mindfulness. Most recently, Christian served as the Program Coordinator for the nonprofit Seacoast Reads, a local implementation of the America Reads Challenge. Prior to that, Christian taught high school math for four years, both at public and private schools, and founded the nonprofit, The Alternative Roadmap (AR), which provided age-relatable role models to teach a life coaching program to 16-24-year-olds. Christian began his career working with the business development team at MassChallenge, the world’s largest startup accelerator, where he focused on building relationships between early-stage startups and industry experts and identifying global expansion areas. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics with a minor in Economics from the University of Vermont and a Master's degree in Education from the University of New Hampshire. Christian currently sits on a national advisory board for the Center of Adolescent Research and Education, whose mission is to provide the best available applied, or prescriptive, research on youth development and decision-making. He was an intern at IME in the summer of 2024, and briefly served as the Director of Outreach and Parterships
Dr. Tatiana Geron
Tatiana Geron is the Design Studio Research and Evaluation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Her work examines how teachers resolve ethical dilemmas within the dynamic contexts of classrooms and schools, and how professional development in educational ethics can support teachers in engaging in controversial issues discussions with colleagues and students. Tatiana holds a BA in Political and Social Thought from the University of Virginia, a M.Ed from the University of Massachusetts- Boston through the Boston Teacher Residency, and a Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. She previously taught Social Studies and ELA in Boston and Brooklyn. Her work has been published in the Harvard Educational Review, AERA Open, Teaching and Teacher Education, and Educational Theory.
Dr. Annie Rappeport
Annie Rappeport is a dedicated educator, researcher, and advocate for peace and democracy. She serves as a professor at her doctoral alma mater, the University of Maryland (Genocide and Atrocity Prevention), and her M.Ed. alma mater, the University of Virginia. Additionally, she is a researcher for the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), supporting stakeholder engagement and implementation of the 2019 Global Fragility Act.
For the University of Virginia, Rappeport supports research for the Karsh Institute of Democracy where she specifically focuses on projects related to contemplative democracy, difficult political dialogues, as well as a project entitled Reimagining Protest and Policing in the Public Square: Centering Humanity in the Design and Delivery of Solutions which seeks viewpoint diversity and deep listening as related to campus protests and university/police responses.
Rappeport is on the EB of the International Listening Association. A Member since 2018, and serving on the Executive Board since 2022, Rappeport created the University Student Listening Practicum which welcomed 26 students from 15+ countries and 15+ disciplines who, through design thinking informed processes, created listening change projects. Examples of projects mentored by Rappeport include, Listening as Support of Cyclone Freddie Victims in Malawi, and Instituting Listening Best Practices for Survivor Testimonies at Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
Rappeport is a recent alumna of the Charles E. Scheidt Faculty Fellowship in Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University. She is trained in nonviolent activism (Martin Luther King, Jr. Center). In addition, she is a Senior Editor for the Holistic Education Review, and a grant researcher for Making Peace Visible.
Past roles that have had significant meaning for Rappeport include co-leading the UMD Mental Health Task Force (2023-2024), working for Semester at Sea (2010-2016), serving in shared governance (2018-2022) at the University of Maryland which culminated as President for the USMSC representing 172,000+ students across the state of Maryland, as well as her interim role serving as International Health, Safety, and Security Manager for the University of Virginia. These experiences heavily informed the choices Rappeport has continued to make in her career to serve the public good.
Daniel Hart
Dan Hart serves as Senior Director of Development, Principal Gifts at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard. In this role, Dan oversees West Coast development strategy for the FAS and manages a portfolio of major donors and prospective donors based on the West Coast. Earlier in his career, Dan spent more than 14 years at Harvard in multiple areas of development across Harvard Law School, the FAS, and Harvard Kennedy School.
Prior to returning to Harvard, Dan served as Director of Philanthropic Outreach for the East Division of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), overseeing development strategy and philanthropic revenue across ADL’s New England, Connecticut, New York/New Jersey, and Philadelphia regions. He also held the roles of Interim Vice President, Philanthropic Partnerships in ADL’s national office and Director of Development in ADL’s New England regional office.
Dan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami (FL), where he majored in motion pictures, and a graduate certificate in public relations from Emerson College. He began his career as an assistant to a television agent at United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills, CA. Dan and his wife, Ellen, live in Concord, MA with their two sons.
Rob Friedman
Rob Friedman holds degrees from Johns Hopkins, Wharton, Harvard Extension School, and Harvard Divinity School. He spent two decades in the investment management business as a portfolio manager and Chief Investment Officer of the Mutual Series Funds.