Michael Amiridis is the Chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), the largest and only public research university in Chicago with a budget of over $3.5 billion, 14,000 employees and 33,500 students in sixteen colleges, including one of the most comprehensive academic health care centers in the country. UIC also operates regional health sciences campuses in Peoria, Rockford, Springfield and the Quad Cities.

Under Chancellor Amiridis’ leadership, UIC has experienced record enrollments for six consecutive years and has reached a new record of research awards (over $400 million in 2020). The university campus has also been undergoing the most ambitious construction program and renovations in decades that have included a new Engineering Innovation Building and an Academic and Residential Complex that was part of a public-private partnership. Three additional buildings, an Outpatient Surgery Center, a Computing, Design, Research and Learning Center, and an Innovation Center are currently at different stages of design or construction.

Chancellor Amiridis is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He is a member of the Board of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, and the national governing boards of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU). He received his Diploma in Chemical Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Ioannina in Greece.

Daniel O. Ash is associate vice president of community impact at The Chicago Community Trust. He is responsible for the Building Collective Power strategy, which aims to advance equitable, livable and resilient neighborhoods within under-invested Black and Latinx communities. Grant making from the portfolio supports community organizing, local journalism and storytelling, and resident designed and driven campaigns.

Link to BIO:

Daniel Ash

Link to website:

www.cct.org

Ciere Boatright is the Vice President, Real Estate and Inclusion for Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, Inc.  Since joining Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives (CNI) in 2013, Ciere has managed the planning and development of new projects, including Pullman Park, the 180-acre mixed use site at 111th Street and I-94, where CNI has coordinated over $400 million of new investment and created nearly 1,800 new jobs.  In addition to planning and development, Ciere has been instrumental in leading CNI’s community engagement process. By forging positive relationships with community groups, community members, she fostered widespread support for: Artspace, an innovative new work/live space; the new Whole Foods Distribution Center in Pullman; the new Gotham greens in Pullman, Amazon in Pullman, a Mariano’s in Bronzeville; and a new community center in Pullman, the largest year-round, indoor athletic complex of its kind in the region.

Ciere spearheads CNI’s efforts for diversity and inclusion: Through her management and project oversight, CNI has achieved between 30 to 50 percent minority business enterprise contractor participation in its projects. Active in the civic space, Ciere is on the Chicago Community Land Trust Board, serves as a Commissioner for the Roseland Medical District, and a Commissioner for SSA 71.  Ciere also serves on the executive board of ULI’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, is a board member for Metropolitan Planning Council Board and is a Link Unlimited volunteer and Sponsor. Ciere received a bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College in 2005 and a Master’s in Urban Planning at University of Illinois Chicago in 2016.

Ciere is a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow and was recognized as one of Crain’s 2019 Notable Women in Commercial Real Estate.  Ciere received the 2019 Link Unlimited’ s Richard T. Smith Alumni Award & UIC CUPPA’s Jim Marek Alumni Appreciation Award.  Ciere recently recognized as one of Crain’s 2020 40 under 40 honorees.

Andrew J. Greenlee Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Greenlee’s research lies at the intersection of housing policy, poverty, and social equity within cities and regions. His current research examines neighborhood and metropolitan opportunity structures through residential mobility processes. Greenlee’s other ongoing research examines the influence of governance on spatial outcomes for public and subsidized housing participants, and the dynamics of neighborhood change driven by urban renewal processes and public housing transformation. As an expert in housing policy, Greenlee has testified before the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Housing, and has provided technical assistance to fair housing advocates, states, and local governments. Greenlee received a B.A. from Grinnell College, a M.S. in Urban and Regional Planning from University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Policy from University of Illinois at Chicago.

Juanita Irizarry is a bilingual/bicultural, Illinois-born Puerto Rican whose current role in government builds upon 20 years of experience in the non-profit sector, philanthropy, and government.

Juanita is the executive director of Friends of the Parks, where she successfully led the high-profile battle to save Chicago’s lakefront from the proposed Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts, in accordance with her organization’s 42-plus year effort to preserve, protect, improve, and promote the use of Chicago’s parks.  She is currently leading other notable efforts to minimize the negative impact of the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago’s Jackson Park, fighting for equitable investment in park space and programming across the Chicago Park District, ensuring adequate public parkland at Lincoln Yards, and fighting an environmental justice battle against the Confined Disposal Facility pollution dump site at the confluence of Lake Michigan and the Calumet River.

Juanita served for many years on boards of community groups, as a leader on organizing campaigns, a volunteer in political races, and in church leadership roles in Chicago’s Humboldt Park and Logan Square communities, where she has lived most of her life. Currently much of her volunteer service is regional in scope. She founded and leads the Latina Leadership Circle, a mentorship group for young Latina professionals in the Chicago area.  She recently served as a vice president of the board of Community Renewal Society whose mission is to combat racism and poverty.  She’s co-chaired Chicago Latinos in Philanthropy and served on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee of the Donors Forum. Juanita sits on the Metropolitan Planning Council’s Housing and Community Development committee, for which she co-chaired the Public Housing Working Group.  She directed, as a volunteer, the policy team of the Miguel del Valle for Mayor of Chicago campaign.  In 2013 she joined the board of the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy.  In 2016, she joined the board of Common Cause Illinois.

Her professional and volunteer activities have led to government advisory roles, including her role on the Illinois Attorney General’s National Foreclosure Settlement Advisory Council, a gubernatorial appointment to the current Illinois Commission to End Hunger, and service from 2004-2006 as a gubernatorial appointee to the Illinois Housing Task Force and its Executive Committee.  She also served on a governor’s Transition Team Housing Committee and two City of Chicago 5-Year Affordable Housing Plan Advisory Committees.

Amy is chief of staff at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP). In her current role, she focuses on implementation of ON TO 2050, the region’s long-range plan, and its principles of inclusive growth, resilience, and prioritized investment. In the near term, Amy and the CMAP team are focused on recommendations in the plan related to transportation, economic competitiveness, and climate resilience. All of this work is guided by CMAP’s core values: serve with passion, pursue equity, foster collaboration, lead with excellence, and drive innovation.

Prior to CMAP, Amy worked in urban planning and local government leadership roles for nearly 30 years. She has led initiatives on a wide variety of challenges in both rural and urban communities, including urban redevelopment, flood response and prevention, economic development, farmland preservation, pedestrian mobility, parks and preservation, and affordable housing. She has also worked on local government policy issues, such as clean and reliable drinking water, mental health, shared service and consolidation, criminal justice reform, and emergency response.

Amy received a master’s in public administration from Western Michigan University and a bachelor’s in urban and regional planning from Michigan State University.

Heather McGhee,  Author of the New York Times best-seller, The Sum of Us.

A renowned expert on the American economy, HEATHER MCGHEE is one of the most brilliant and influential thinkers exploring inequality today. Both her viral TED talk and her instant New York Times bestseller The Sum of Us reveal the devastating true cost of racism—not just for people of color, but for everyone. Deeply stirring, intelligent, and compassionate, McGhee’s talks offer us an actionable roadmap during one of the most critical—and most troubled—periods in history.

What if, in the middle of your live TV appearance, someone called in and asked for advice in overcoming racial prejudice? For public policy expert Heather C. McGhee, the response was natural: she helped. Not long after the appearance went viral (it’s now been viewed over 8 million times), Starbucks founder Howard Schultz asked her to advise the company as it designed an anti-bias training for 175,000 employees—this, in the wake of an unjust arrest of two Black men in one of their Philadelphia stores. The viral exchange also inspired McGhee to kick off a cross-country journey throughout America, where she explored what we lose when we buy into the “zero-sum” paradigm—the idea that progress for some, comes at the expense of others. Her deeply personal experiences come together in her new book The Sum Of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. In it, she illuminates how racism is at the root of some of our most vexing public problems, from collapsing infrastructure to rising student debt.

The book has been endorsed by the likes of Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, as well as New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert, who shares, “The Sum of Us is a powerhouse of a book about the deep, enduring, cross-cultural, multi-generational, and real-life cost of racist policy-making in the United States.” Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza also dubbed it “a must read for everyone who wants to understand how we got here, but more importantly, where we can go from here—and how we get there, together.”

As the former president of the inequality-focused think tank Demos, McGhee has drafted legislation, testified before Congress, and become a regular contributor on shows like Meet the Press and Real Time with Bill Maher. She also led Demos’ own racial equity organizational transformation, resulting in a doubling of the organization’s racial diversity and growth across all measures of organizational impact. McGhee’s riveting talks communicate this with passion and seriousness, “challenging the paradigm of racial competition in this country.” Racism doesn’t just hurt us on a personal level. It divides and alienates companies and their employees, employees and their clients, clients and brands. The trickledown, explains McGhee, is far-reaching. Her talks address this with clear takeaways, like how to make the process mission-critical, how to get buy-in from your teams, and how to do it all with joy.

McGhee holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. She is the Chair of the Board of Color of Change, the country’s largest online racial justice organization, and serves on multiple other boards of trustees, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Demos. For the latest updates on Heather’s writing, speeches, and media appearances, visit www.heathermcghee.com.

Amy T. Khare, Ph.D. has worked nationally for the past twenty years as both a practitioner and scholar in the areas of urban inequality, affordable housing and community development. From Chicago, she serves as the Research Director of the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities and a Research Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University. She leads applied research projects and consults on organizational and systems change efforts with a focus on anti-racism, inclusion and equity. Most recently, Khare co-collaborated with the HOPE SF initiative on a guide on racial equity and reparations, co-edited the book What Works to Promote Inclusive, Equitable Mixed-Income Communities, and co-developed with Grounded Solutions two practical resources on racial equity in housing and community development. Khare is currently completing a book titled: Poverty, Power and Profit: Structural Racism in Redeveloping Public Housing Communities. In Chicago, Amy serves as a technical advisor to the City of Chicago’s Inclusionary Housing Working Group, a committee co-chair at Metropolitan Planning Council, and past principal consultant of The Cost of Segregation / Our Equitable Future project. Amy earned her BSW and MSW from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Khare’s work is inspired by her personal experience as a sibling in the disability rights movement.

Robin Rue Simmons is a strategist, civic entrepreneur and alderman of Evanston’s 5th Ward.  Ald. Rue Simmons began her career 22 years ago when she launched her first business as a real estate broker. Troubled by the wealth disparities and concentrated poverty in urban communities, she wanted to help young adults build wealth early through homeownership. Over the course of her entrepreneurial career, she has launched and operated multiple businesses, including a bookstore that offered free afterschool programming and a construction firm that employed dozens of minority skilled tradespeople, and has developed dozens of affordable homes funded by the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Rue Simmons was elected 5th Ward alderman for the City of Evanston in 2017. Since taking office, she has prioritized improving the lived experience and expanding opportunities for Black residents. Most notably, she led the passing of the nation’s first reparations program, which will be funded by the first $10 million of Adult Use Cannabis sales tax revenue. Robin is the chairman of the Reparations Committee and a strong advocate for social equity applicants in the cannabis business.

Known for her “Solutions Only” approach in service and business, Ald. Rue Simmons is the director of innovation and outreach at Sunshine Enterprises, which has supported over 1000 neighborhood entrepreneurs (98% African American, 74% women) in launching or growing a business. She also serves as chief strategist at Ujima Solutions Group, LLC, in addition to managing residential and commercial property that she owns. In her free time, she enjoys her family, new experiences and forest bathing.

Michael A. Pagano is Dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Director of UIC’s Government Finance Research Center, professor of public administration, Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (which was chartered by Congress to assist federal, state, and local governments in improving their effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability), former co-editor of Urban Affairs Review (2001-2014), and Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

He has published ten books, including Metropolitan Resilience in a Time of Economic Turmoil , Cityscapes and Capital and The Dynamics of Federalism, and over 80 articles on urban finance, capital budgeting, federalism, transportation policy, infrastructure, urban development and fiscal policy; since 1991, he has written the annual City Fiscal Conditions report for the National League of Cities. He has delivered more than one hundred papers and speeches and received funding from John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the National Research Council, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Pew Charitable Trusts, Brookings Institution, CEOs for Cities, National League of Cities, Chicago Community Trust, U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, and elsewhere.

He serves on a variety of professional organizations, including NASPAA (Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, the Metropolitan Planning Council (Chicago), the Pension Committee of the Civic Federation, and the Urban Land Institute. He earned a B.A. from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980.

Janet Smith is Professor of Urban Planning and Policy and Co-Director of the Nathalie P Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, University of Illinois at Chicago. For the past 30 years, Janet’s teaching, research and service has focused on community development, emphasizing community driven strategies. Most of her work is done through the Voorhees Center, which is a dynamic resource for residents, leaders, and policymakers seeking effective strategies for advancing equity, community livability and vitality. Grounded in the idea that all individuals have a right to quality housing, education, jobs, transportation and safety, the center’s approach is interactive and focused on supporting the efforts of its partners and informing policy and practice. Current research includes promoting green economic development, brownfield redevelopment, preventing rental housing displacement, and increasing inclusion of people with disabilities. Janet has a PhD in Urban Studies from Cleveland State University, and a BFA and Master of Urban Planning from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Rachel Weber is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Urban Planning and Policy Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches courses and conducts research in the fields of economic development, real estate, urban politics, and public finance.  She is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Urban Planning, a compilation of 40 essays by leading urban scholars. Her latest book, From Boom to Bubble: How Finance Built the New Chicago (University of Chicago Press) won the Best Book Award from the Urban Affairs Association in 2017. She is the author of over 45 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as numerous book chapters and published reports. In addition to her academic responsibilities, she has served as an advisor to planning agencies, political candidates, and community organizations on issues related to financial incentives, property taxes, and neighborhood change. She was appointed to then-presidential candidate Barack Obama´s Urban Policy Committee in 2008 and by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to the Tax Increment Financing Reform Task Force in 2011.

Amanda Williams is a visual artist who trained as an architect at Cornell University. Her creative practice employs color as an operative means for drawing attention to the complex ways race informs how we assign value to the spaces we occupy. Williams’ installations, sculptures, paintings and works on paper raise questions about the state of urban space and ownership in America. Amanda has exhibited widely, including the first of its kind exhibition, Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art in NY, the Venice Architecture Biennale, and a public commission with Andres L. Hernandez, at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis. She is co-designer of a forthcoming permanent monument to Shirley Chisholm in Brooklyn NY and part of the Museum Design Team for the Obama Presidential Center. A highly sought-after lecturer, including a mainstage TedTalk, Amanda’s projects have recently been published in ‘Black Futures’ and ‘Radical Architecture of the Future’. She sits on the boards of the Graham Foundation, The Black Reconstruction Collective (BRC) and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation. Amanda is the inaugural Artist-In-Residence at Smith College. She has previously served as a Visiting Professor at Washington University, Cornell University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Amanda lives and works on the south side of Chicago.