Theme: A Vision of Hope

Over our lifetime, the way we define hope changes. Through good times and bad, what shapes our evolving vision of hope? Is it world events and local communities, or an internal driving force? How do you define hope and where does that hope take you and your communities?

1108 Park Street
Roberts Theatre
Grinnell, Iowa, 50112
United States

Ajuna Kyaruzi

Software Engineer at Google

Ajuna Kyaruzi is a Software Engineer at Google, where she works on the Google Maps Notifications team. Kyaruzi was born and raised in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and as an international black woman in tech she often finds herself navigating diverse cultures. At Grinnell College, she was also a leader of student groups including the African Caribbean Student Union, Women in Computing, Association of Computing Machinery Student Chapter and Grinnell Appdev. The 2017 graduate has continued building those spaces as the Program Manager for Africode, a non profit aiming to help all Africans in Tech be successful. She manages their mentorship program that matches African college students with tech professionals as mentors for their early career development.

David Mura

Writer

David is a writer and a Sansei, a third generation Japanese American. His most recent book is A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing. He’s written two memoirs, Where the Body Meets Memory, and Turning Japanese, which won the Oakland PEN Josephine Miles Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book. His novel, Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire, was a finalist for the MN Book Award, the John Gardner Fiction Prize and the Virginia Commonwealth Cabell First Novelist Award. His four books of poetry include the National Poetry Contest winner After We Lost Our Way, The Colors of Desire, which won a Carl Sandburg Literary Award, Angels for the Burning, and The Last Incantations. Among his awards, Mura has received a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers’ Award, a US/Japan Creative Artist Fellowship, two NEA Literature Fellowships, two Bush Foundation Fellowships, five Loft-McKnight Awards, Minnesota State Arts Board grants, and a Discovery/The Nation Award.

Dr. Schvalla Rivera

Associate Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion, Chief Diversity Officer and Senior Advisor

With more than 15 years of experience, Dr. Rivera has experience in fields such as residence Life, multicultural student affairs, international student affairs, and academic advising. A strong advocate for diversity, inclusion and equity issues in higher education, Dr. Rivera is a Certified Diversity Executive, and has collaborated to create institutional diversity policies and respond to bias-related incidents. She also collaborates with faculty to assist in diversifying curriculum and creating culturally competent learning environments. Dr. Rivera is passionate about mentoring and career advocacy. She holds a B.A. in Social Science, an M.S. in Political Science and a Ph. D. in Curriculum and Instruction. A strong believer in servant leadership, her work is her passion and calling. She hopes to change the world through education, grace, and humor.

Emily Howe

Public Health

Emily Howe is a 2016 alum and former employee of Grinnell College where she worked closely with previous TEDxGrinnellCollege speaker Jen Jacobsen to promote sexual respect on Grinnell’s campus. Currently, Emily is a Master’s in Public Health candidate at University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health concentrating in Maternal, Child, and Family Health. Emily is a sexuality educator, focused on healthy relationships and creating a safer and more caring world. Having grown up in Idaho, Emily would always rather be in the mountains, and when not studying, Emily coaches Special Olympics, cooks virtual dinners with friends and family, or tends to her growing plant collection.

Jeetander Dulani

Special Counsel with the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Jeetander is a Special Counsel with the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in Washington, D.C., where he represents leading public and private companies in global antitrust matters, government investigations, and complex litigation and appeals. His work has been recognized by Super Lawyers and The Legal 500. Jeetander maintains an active pro-bono practice focused on wrongful convictions and high impact public interest and civil rights litigation. Previously, he was an associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he led a strategy consulting practice that helped government and commercial clients evaluate and develop operational plans through the use of predictive models and simulation. At Booz Allen, he was awarded the Professional Excellence Award for leading a pro- bono project on HIV/AIDS in India that resulted in testing and treatment policy changes by the Indian government. He is also an active runner and committed father to two wonderful children, Uma and Siddhartha.

Meghna Ravishankar

International Development Practitioner

Meghna Ravishankar is an international development practitioner from Bangalore, India who now works in the food and agriculture space. She is passionate about development ethics and philosophy, and community-led solutions for social change. Meghna earned her BA in Global Development and Entrepreneurship from Grinnell College in 2017 and her MA in International Development from Brandeis University in 2019. She absolutely loves empathy-based social justice efforts and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and loathes structural inequity and raisins.

Sarah Henderson

Museum

Sarah Henderson grew up in rural Iowa. She loved history and art throughout high school and after a battle with stage four cancer in her sophomore year she realized that she wanted to dedicate her life to public service through museums where she could utilize her love for these two disciplines. She attended Grinnell College where she became very connected to The Grinnell College Museum. Sarah then moved to Washington DC to attend Georgetown University for a Masters in Contemporary Art and Museum Studies. She studied at Sotheby’s Institute in London for a semester where she earned a certificate in Arts Business. Sarah interned at The Museum of Modern Art, The Supreme Court of the United States Curatorial Department, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Sarah started fulltime at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library in Iowa and has learned to be an integral partner in this educational model.