Devin Anglin is a seasoned educator and youth development leader with over 18 years of experience in the youth development field, specializing in Hip Hop Education, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), restorative practices, and community engagement. He is the co-founder of Sankofa Leadership Associates, where he advances Hip-Hop as Pedagogy and targeted universalism to foster equitable communities and meaningful youth engagement. His work centers storytelling, equity-driven strategy, and positive youth development to create disruption, good trouble, and lasting impact at a national scale.

A career educator and Fulbright recipient, Laura Cephus has 14 years of experience as a middle school and high school teacher, teacher trainer, and educational researcher. Most recently, she taught ELA and Social Studies for 12 years in a New York City public middle school, where she implemented the Listening Project curriculum in her 7th grade Social Studies classroom and also served as a member of her district’s Equity Leaders Cohort. Laura also brings educational experience from a variety of international contexts: she has taught in Brussels, Belgium, served as a teacher and professional development coach over the course of 8 years for an education development organization in the Dominican Republic, and, as a recipient of a Fulbright award for educational research, conducted research exploring how alternative educational settings impact displaced students in Bogotá, Colombia. Laura earned her B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Wesleyan University, and M.A. in Sociology and Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Working in education for over twenty years, Tina Jagdeo is currently the director of wellbeing and pluralism at Upper Canada College, a K- 12 independent all-boys school. She loves working with many teams at the College to develop programming to promote a sense of belonging. She has recently completed a certificate in Mindfulness Education and a certificate in Applied Positive Psychology. Her book, Bold School, is a practical guide to promote critical, creative and compassionate thinking. In her downtime, she loves to read, hike and spend time with her family.

Christin is a leader and learner at Upper Canada College, an all-boys K–12 IB school in Toronto, who has worked in IB World Schools around the world before returning home to Canada. She believes deeply in equity, justice, and transformative learning, and is committed to creating experiences that develop students’ critical thinking, empathy, and sense of responsibility. Outside of school, Christin enjoys outdoor pursuits, baking, podcasts, and developing needlepoint and tailoring skills to support her interest in upcycling and fashion.

Joseph Derrick Nelson, PhD, is a writer, teacher-educator, and sociologist of race, gender, and education. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at Swarthmore College, where he is also Chair of the Black Studies Department, and Affiliated Faculty with the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program. He is Research Director of the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC) at the University of Pennsylvania—a school partnership organization that facilitates youth-led research to address race and gender equity within K-12 education. He is also Research Affiliate with the Edmund Gordon Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is also Adjunct Associate Professor in the Sociology and Education Program. He has additionally held Visiting Professorships at Columbia’s Teachers College and New York University. His research examines how schools can be what he calls “(re)imaginative” and “liberatory” institutions for Black children and youth, particularly Black boys during childhood and early adolescence.

Holly Van Hare is a youth development and education researcher at The Boy’s Club of New York. Previously, she worked as Director of the Listening Project, collaborating with developmental psychology researcher, author, and professor Dr. Niobe Way to design and implement connection and community focused programming for youth. She received her master’s degree in Experimental Humanities and Social Engagement from New York University, where she studied Education and Sociology, focusing her research on schools and youth-centered spaces and how cultural biases hinder access to and affect learning experiences for diverse youth. Holly has worked in public, charter, and private schools in New York City and Boston, MA and has an extensive background in curriculum development.

Additionally, she has participated in research in trauma-informed and preventative health education programs, inclusivity in education, and anti-oppressive pedagogy as a tool to combat inequity.

Born and raised in Vermont, Gina Voskov is a writer and veteran English teacher with classroom experience in Connecticut, Brazil, and NYC. She holds an MAT from Brown University and an MFA from NYU Paris. Gina is a founding collaborating teacher, curriculum developer, and trainer for The Listening with Curiosity Project and lives with her family in Queens.

Niobe Way, Ed.D/Ph.D. is an internationally-recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. She is the past President for the Society for Research on Adolescence. She is the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH) at NYU and the Director of the Science of Human Connection Lab. She is also a Principal Investigator of the Listening with Curiosity Project, which has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, and the Rockefeller Foundation, and is a member of the New Pluralists Collaborative. Dr. Way has been working in middle and high schools for almost forty years applying her research to educational practice. She is also a co-founder of a high school in New York City (University/Neighborhood High School). Dr. Way received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from Harvard School of Education, and was an NIMH postdoctoral fellow in the Psychology Department at Yale. Way’s research focuses on the intersections of culture, context, and human development, with a particular focus on the social and emotional development of adolescents including boys and young men.

Hirokazu Yoshikawa is the Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education at NYU Steinhardt, a Professor of Applied Psychology, and a University Professor at NYU. He is a core faculty member of the Psychology of Social Intervention and Human Development Research and Policy programs in the Applied Psychology department. He is also a faculty affiliate of the Metropolitan Center for Equity and the Transformation of Schools. He is a community and developmental psychologist who conducts research-policy, research-advocacy, and research-practice partnerships related to immigration, early childhood, youth development, and poverty reduction.

Born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, Nathania B. Zhong is the Project Coordinator of the Project for the Advancement of our Common Humanity (PACH) and junior research associate at NYU Steinhardt, where she works closely with Dr. Niobe Way. She recently earned her bachelor’s degree in Applied Psychology with a minor in Philosophy from New York University. She is also the co-founder and project manager of agapi alongside Dr. Frankie Tam and Dr. Way. agapi is the first friendship app built with and for young people to teach relational intelligence. Powered by AI, it is designed to reshape and humanize the use of AI to nurture trust, belonging, and meaningful human to human connection. Nathania plans to pursue a Ph.D. that integrates psychology, sociology, education, and social policy.