Katie Gimbar is an 8th grade Mathematics and Algebra I teacher at Durant Road Middle School in Raleigh, NC. A North Carolina State University graduate, she received a bachelors degree in middle school mathematics and science education in 2003. Her teaching certification is K- 6 and Middle Grades Math and Science (6-9). Gimbar is a Nationally Board certified teacher and currently is working with the Friday Institute for Education Innovation by implementing an innovative teaching

Dr. Lodge McCammon is a Specialist in Curriculum and Contemporary Media at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation. His career in education began in 2003 at Wakefield High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he taught Civics and AP Economics. McCammon received a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2008 and continued his work here by developing innovative practices and sharing them with students, teachers and schools. He developed a teaching and professional development process is called FIZZ, which encourages and models best practices in implementing user-generated video and online publishing in the classroom to enhance standards based lessons. McCammon is also a studio composer who writes standards-based songs, with supporting materials, about advanced curriculum for K-12 classrooms. More information, user-generated videos, and songs can be found at Dr. Lodge McCammon's website (www.iamlodge.com).

Valerie Faulkner is a Teaching Assistant Professor in the Elementary Education department at NC State where she specializes in Math Methods. Her background includes a B.A. in Anthropology from Duke University, an M.Ed. in Special Education from NC State, and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in mathematics also from NC State. Because her own interest in math waned as she went through middle and high school and because of her extensive experience in the public schools as a special educator, she has had the opportunity to see mathematics instruction from the view of the underdog. This experience inspired her to develop a specialty in mathematics education and to promote instruction that merges what we know about the brain with what we know about rigorous mathematics. In particular, she advocates that behaviorism is correct and constructivism is correct: The understood dichotomy that has arisen between the two is false and damaging.

Valerie has published two extensive textbook and teacher resource guides for teaching pre- algebra to high school students along with two practitioner articles on number sense. She recently published an article from her dissertation that investigates students with an identified disability, teacher impressions of student ability, actual student ability, and how these variables predict placement in algebra by the eighth grade.

John Coggin is the Emerging Leaders Fellow at the Institute for Emerging Issues. An alumnus of NC State, John recently completed graduate studies at Harvard University, where he studied social capital and community development under Robert Putnam. While at Harvard, he was an author of one of the first academic investigations into the social and political mobilization of the modern Tea Party movement. At the Institute for Emerging Issues, John works on engaging youth and other communities in North Carolina not typically included in the public policy process.

Neel Mandavilli is a student at North Carolina State University studying the human condition. His interests center on the powers of introspection and conversation, and how these processes enable the individual—and society—to develop. A lover of exploration, Neel plans to begin the study and practice of Vipassana Meditation this summer to further understand the nuances of his own mind.

Lav Chintapalli is a doctoral candidate at N. C. State’s department of Leadership, Policy and Adult and Higher Education. Her research focuses on the contextual interaction between culture and education with an interest in ethnography, sociocultural codes, educational systems, narratives and the looped intersection of them all. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Microbiology, a minor in Genetics, a certificate in Computer Science, a Masters in Training & Development, all from N. C. State. She has a penchant for media and technology as they relate to education and learning. Her work has been published in scholarly journals and conference proceedings. Lav is also a writer and a poet, published in online and print literary magazines, and an avid blogger. She is the author of a children’s book, The Crayon Who Wore A cap, and a free iBook for iPad, My Trip To The Carnival In Italy. You can find her at www.lavchintapalli.com

Sheila Smith McKoy is the director of the African American Cultural Center at North Carolina State University where she is also the director of the Africana Studies Program, an Associate Professor of English and African Studies and the editor of Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora. Smith McKoy has a special interest in the impact of hazing rituals in sororities and fraternities. This expertise was hard won: her son Raymond’s education was interrupted for eight years due to injuries he sustained during pledging.

Her work has appeared in numerous publications including the critically acclaimed Schomburg series African American Women Writers 1910 – 1940, Callaloo, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Mythium, Research for African Literatures, Representation and Womanhood: The Legacy of Sara Baartman (2011) and Cotemporary Black Men’s Fiction and Drama (2001). Her book, When Whites Riot: Writing Race and Violence in American and South African Cultures (2001) received critical attention in the U.S. and in South Africa.

Anuja Acharya is a Raleigh native and a proud graduate of William G. Enloe High School and currently a senior in Political Science and English at North Carolina State University. She has worked for several government entities, including the North Carolina State Government Internship Program with the Administrative Office of the Courts, as well as the Office of the Lt. Governor. She has also had poetry published in NC State’s literary journal The Windhover, as well as NC State’s Undergraduate Research Journal, Ink. In addition, she had the opportunity to spend the semester studying abroad at the University of Dundee in Scotland during her junior year. She has an interest in world affairs and social justice for many years.

Becca Bishopric grew up in a small town in the northern piedmont of North Carolina called Eden. She was a feminist from an early age and especially enjoyed volunteering for different non-profit organizations in her hometown. Throughout high school she developed a passion for working with youth and horses through the North Carolina 4-H Program. In college she continued to pursue her passion for education and youth development while exploring her curiosity for international relations and global health issues. This research and personal experiences led her to pursue a new desire to work specifically on interpersonal violence prevention and women’s issues at home and throughout the world. Today she is a senior at North Carolina State University majoring in Interdisciplinary Studies: Global Public Health with a minor in Biological and Animal Science. Her goals are to attend law school and work on international and national policy and law that will empower women and encourage equality for all.

Anuja and Becca were named 2012 WomenNC Fellows, which allowed them to conduct research on problems facing women in NC that relate to the theme of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, and then connect these issues on a global level. They presented this research at the UN CSW conference in February of 2012.

Kevin Miller is junior studying Entrepreneurship and International Studies and is a Caldwell Fellow. Kevin lived in Latin America for 9 months last year studying abroad in Costa Rica, working with a non-profit he co-founded in the Dominican Republic (www.que-lo-que.com), teaching English to ex-prostitutes, and backpacking through 9 countries. The last two weeks of this adventure took him to Cuba. After graduation, Kevin will travel the world for a year then pursue a career in social entrepreneurship. Kevin hopes to use business to help people pursue their passions here and in the developing world.

Performance By: The Poetic Portraits of a Revolution project (PPR). The project has sent nationally-renowned spoken-word poets and youth educators Kane Smego and Will McInerney, along with project translator and interpreter Mohammad Moussa and professional photographer and videographer Sameer Abdel-khalek to the streets and communities of Egypt and Tunisia last summer to chronicle the stories of the revolution.