Kemi Yemi-Ese is a therapist, visual artist, and disability rights advocate based in Austin, Texas. Her paintings focus on her experiences living with a disability and are inspired by her Nigerian heritage.

Ava Halvai is the founder of ARTXV, the first non-fungible token (NFT) collective for neurodivergent artists. She uses her platform to amplify the work of the disabled community on Web3 and blockchain to ensure they are at the forefront of new technologies.

Titi Shodiya is an engineer, content creator and scientific auditor. She co-hosts the podcast Dope Labs and is the deputy quality manager at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Sean Sherman is a chef born and raised in Pine Ridge, S.D., and a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe. His primary focus is the revitalization and evolution of Indigenous foods systems throughout North America. In 2014, he opened The Sioux Chef, a business providing catering and food education in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area.

Yvette Marquez is a home chef who shares family Mexican recipes on her blog and YouTube, and in her cookbooks, Muy Bueno and Latin Twist.

Michael W. Twitty is a culinary historian and food writer who documents and educates on African American culinary traditions of the historic South and its connections with the wider African Atlantic world, as well as parent traditions in Africa.

Adriana Amaral is a professor at the School of Creative Industries at Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS) in Brazil. She is an expert on pop culture and fan studies in the context of digital culture and media.

Malakai is a director who describes her mission as “to be a disruptor by telling world-building and fantastical narratives that turn archetypes of the Black diaspora on its head.” She is the founder and CEO of the nonprofit Made in Her Image, which provides opportunities to women and nonbinary youth of color to create their own films, scripts, content and more.

Ayanna Thompson is a professor of English at Arizona State University and the director of the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. She is a Shakespeare scholar, a consultant, and an expert on race in performance in Renaissance drama. She is the author of several books, including “Blackface” (2021).

Michelle K. Sugihara is the executive director of CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment), a nonprofit professional organization that supports emerging and established Asian and Pacific Islander creatives in Hollywood through fellowships, consulting and partnerships with production companies.

Craig Santos Perez is an Indigenous Chamoru (Chamorro) from Guam who is an associate professor of the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa’s English department. He teaches eco-poetry — poetry that addresses environmental disaster — and creative writing and Pacific literature.

Mary Kathryn Nagle is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and attorney who specializes in tribal sovereignty and Indigenous people’s rights and safety.

B. Brian Foster is a writer and sociologist from Mississippi who holds a joint appointment in sociology and southern studies.

Terry Loftis is the president and executive director of The Arts Community Alliance, a nonprofit supporting the arts in North Texas through grant making, capacity building and thought leadership.

An Xiao Mina works on program strategy and operations at Meedan, a technology nonprofit that builds software for newsrooms and NGOs to improve the quality of information online.

Karen Tongson is a professor of English, gender and sexuality studies, and American studies and ethnicity, and chair of the Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California.

Hussein Rashid is the founder of islamicate, L3C- a consultancy focused on religious liberty and cultural competency.

Mariana Ibañez is an associate professor and the chair of the UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and  the co-founder and principal of the architectural studio Ibañez Kim.

Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of education, an assistant professor in the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, and a writer of nonfiction, poetry, comics, children’s books and plays.

Henry Godinez is a professor in the department of theatre at Northwestern University and the resident artistic associate at the Goodman Theatre, where he also served as the director of

Vamsee Juluri is a professor of media studies and Asian studies at the University of San Francisco.

Constance Iloh is is a visual artist, anthropologist, photographer and qualitative methodologist. She illuminates forms of oppression and structural violence within social contexts and organizations.

Travis L. Gosa is an assistant professor of Africana studies at Cornell University and a faculty associate at Cornell’s Center for the Study of Inequality.

Angela Rye is principal and CEO of IMPACT Strategies, a political consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to empower young professionals in economic development, civic engagement and political involvement.

Bakari Kitwana is a cultural critic, journalist and activist specializing in hip-hop, youth culture and Black political engagement.

Nisi Shawl is a writer of speculative fiction. Their story collection Filter House co-won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, given annually to works of speculative fiction which explore and expand our understanding of gender roles.

Syreeta McFadden is a writer and professor of English at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York.

Laila Lalami is a Moroccan-American writer and a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside.

Ellen Oh is an author and the co-founder of the organization We Need Diverse Books. She writes fiction for middle-grade and young adult audiences, including the Prophecy fantasy series.

Daniel José Older writes young adult science fiction and fantasy, including the Bone Street Rumba and Shadowshaper Cypher series.

Nilanjana Bhattacharjya is an ethnomusicologist and popular music scholar who focuses on South Asian popular music and film in India, as well as in the South Asian diaspora.

Anthony Abraham Jack is an assistant professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and holds the Shutzer Assistant Professorship at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Ana López is a professor of communication, director of the Cuban and Caribbean Studies Institute, and associate provost for faculty affairs at Tulane University.

LeiLani Nishime is a professor of communication at the University of Washington.

Jason King is chair of the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and an associate professor.

Oliver Wang is a music writer and cultural critic whose work has been published in almost every major hip-hop magazine: The Source, XXL, Vibe, Scratch and others.

Hua Hsu is an assistant professor of English and director of American Studies at Vassar College and a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Frederick Douglass Opie is a professor of history and foodways at Babson College. He blogs about food and food history here.

Laura Martinez, a Mexico City native, is a journalist and editor specializing in Spanish-language marketing, media and advertising.

Jason Johnson is an associate professor in the School of Global Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University. He is also politics editor at The Root and a contributor to MSNBC.

Galina Espinoza is the president and editor in chief of Rewire.News, where she leads a team of editors and journalists reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice.

Danielle Lee is an assistant professor of biology at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and a self-described hip-hop maven and outreach scientist who writes about urban ecology and biology.

Marc Lamont Hill is the Steve Charles Professor of Media, Cities and Solutions at Temple University.

Leila Cobo is a vice president and the Latin industry lead at Billboard. She’s the organizer and host of Billboard’s annual Latin Music Conference, and was host of Estudio Billboard, a weekly interview show.