Aysha Upchurch, the Dancing Diplomat, is a seed planter and soil agitator who creates, facilitates, and designs for radical change.  This translates to her working as a sought after performer, instructor and education consultant whose work sits at the nexus of youth advocacy, social justice, and transformative education.  She has spoken at national conferences about artfully designing classrooms centered around equity and cultural relevance, the importance of dance and movement in education, and embracing Hip Hop as a powerful literacy and cultural lens in schooling.  

Aysha holds an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University and an Ed.M from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has been on faculty at George Mason University, Howard Community College, and Salem State University.  She has also been a US State Department cultural envoy in Dance. Aysha is currently on faculty at Harvard, where she teaches courses on Hip Hop education and embodied learning, and launched HipHopEX - an intergenerational collaborative lab for high school and graduate student to experience and explore Hop Hop arts in education. Whether on the stage or in a classroom, Aysha is on the move to crush borders and show how Hip Hop and movement education are D.O.P.E. - dismantling oppression and pushing education.

Yeshimabeit Milner is the Founder & Executive Director of Data for Black Lives. She has worked since she was 17 behind the scenes as a movement builder, technologist and data scientist on a number of campaigns. She started Data for Black Lives because for too long she straddled the worlds of data and organizing and was determined to break down the silos to harness the power of data to make change in the lives of Black people. In two years, Data for Black Lives has raised over $2 million, hosted two sold out conferences at the MIT Media Lab and has changed the conversation around big data & technology across the US and globally.

As the founder of Data for Black Lives, her work has received much acclaim. Yeshimabeit is an Echoing Green Black Male Achievement Fellow, an Ashoka Fellow and joins the founders of Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street in the distinguished inaugural class of Roddenberry Foundation Fellows and most recently, was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30. 

Cheryl A. Giles is the Francis Greenwood Peabody Senior Lecturer on Pastoral Care and Counseling and a licensed clinical psychologist. She teaches courses on spiritual care, trauma and resilience for caregivers, and contemplative care of the dying.

A core faculty member of the Buddhist Ministry Initiative, Professor Giles received training and certification in end-of-life care from the Being with Dying program and GRACE: Training in Compassion-Based Interactions in the Clinical/Patient Encounter at Upaya Zen Center. She enjoys mentoring students who are preparing for chaplaincy, social justice advocacy, and those interested in research on trauma and the psychology of contemplative care.

Professor Giles is the co-editor of The Arts of Contemplative Care: Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work (Wisdom Press, 2012). 

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Her forthcoming book Black and Buddhist: What Buddhism Can Teach Us About Race, Resilience, Transformation, and Freedom with Pamela Ayo Yetunde will be published by Shambala Publication in January 2021.

Sequoria Dickerson has been to over 30 countries studying, working, and praying with her feet. She is the current Interim Director of Prophetic Resistance Boston, a nondenominational, nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit thatuses the development of leadership skills to empower citizens to organize their communities and find solutions to the problems they face. She also serves as the Program Director for World Voices in Brockton, MA where she teaches leadership skills to an after school youth choir. She previously served as a micro-finance consultant and nonprofit advisor in Cameroon, Central West Africa and spent several years organizing to change policies that perpetuate the school to prison pipeline and mass-incarceration in New Orleans, LA. Sequoria has also consulted with nonprofits on strategic planning and in fundraising strategies. She received her B.A. from Dillard University and is a fellow of the Melton Foundation, the Institute for International Public Policy, and the U.S. State Department’s prestigious Boren Scholars Program.

Azmera Hammouri-Davis, a poet, writer and Capoeirista, fosters critical pedagogy through Hip Hop and Capoeira. As a Fulbright Performing Arts alumna, her creative projects promote cultural identity and English literacy through arts and education. Rooted in the pursuit of racial justice and healing, she interweaves the African and Palestinian diasporas. Azmera is a Master of Theological Studies candidate at Harvard University. She taught English and CaPoetics at the Ramallah Friends School, an international education institution for Palestinian K-12 youth as a Religion, Conflict and Peace intern through the I Know I Can summer program in 2019. She currently serves as a Race Relations Proctor for the Dean of Students Office, Graduate Assistant for the Diversity and Explorations Now Initiative at Harvard Divinity School, and Founder/Creative director of Break The Boxes organization.