Partner at Moody Nolan
Brian Tibbs is with the architecture firm Moody Nolan, Inc. He was the Nashville project manager for the Music City Center architectural design team. In his role, Tibbs worked closely with architects from Atlanta-based Thompson, Ventulett, Stainback and Associates and Nashville-based Tuck-Hinton Architects. He recently completed the Meharry Medical College Cal Turner Family Campus Center project, the first new construction on the Meharry campus in 40 years.
A native of Huntsville, Alabama, Tibbs is a 1991 architectural graduate of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Since coming to Nashville in 1997, his work includes the historic restoration and renovation of Cravath Hall at Fisk University, which received the prestigious Historic Preservation Trust Honor Award. He also managed the architectural design and construction of student centers at Jackson State University in Mississippi and Winston Salem State University in North Carolina and East Tennessee State University.
Chloe Philpot
Chloe Philpot is a current junior at East Tennessee State University, pursuing a BA in English, with minors in legal studies and philosophy. At ETSU, she is the current president of the Creative Writing Society. She has been part of Southern Word in Nashville since 2018, competing on their Brave New Voices team in 2018 and 2019. She was also a member of OutLoud Huntsville’s slam team in both 2018 and 2019. In 2019, Chloe was recognized as a Scholastic Art and Writing National Medalist in Poetry and was published in Scholastic’s The Best Teen Writing of 2019. She currently supports Southern Word’s Write with Pride program, developing brave and supportive writing and sharing spaces for LGBT+ youth.
Musician and Actor
In 1994, he introduced the world to Keb’ Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed debut. Two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with Just Like You. In his career, Keb' earned 4 more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart 7 times; collaborate with the likes of Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne, Willie Nelson, and Bonnie Raitt; have compositions recorded by B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis Beat, B Positive, and Martha Stewart Living; and earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance. On the screen Keb’ appeared in Martin Scorcese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic children’s series Sesame Street. A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ also performed on Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair, Department of Human and Organizational Development Professor
Marybeth Shinn studies how to prevent and end homelessness to create opportunities for groups that face social exclusion. Beth teaches research methods, including Community Inquiry, which is the introductory methods course for doctoral students, Public Policy Development and Advocacy, and Philanthropy and Social Problem Solving. Funded by the Philanthropy Lab, students study community needs and decide how to give away $50,000 or more.
Beth chairs the Community Research and Action admissions committee and serves on the Shared Governance Committee for the University. Locally, Beth serves on the Governance Committee for Nashville’s Continuum of Care. She also served on the Healthy Nashville leadership Council. At the national level, she serves on advisory boards for the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Board of Directors for the Partnership for the Homeless in New York City.
Associate Professor Vanderbilt University
Renã A. S. Robinson is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Vanderbilt University and the inaugural Dorothy J. Wingfield Phillips Chancellor’s Faculty Fellow. Dr. Robinson received her B.S. in Chemistry with a concentration in Business from the University of Louisville in 2000 and her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Indiana University.
She is one of the newest faculty members of the Vanderbilt Memory and Alzheimer’s Center. Her passion for helping those affected by Alzheimer’s disease and understanding health disparities is manifested in her former role as Associate Director of the Outreach, Recruitment and Education Core of the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer’s Disease Center in 2017. Dr. Robinson and her research team are actively engaged in Alzheimer’s disease outreach and awareness activities.