Speaker

Dorian Abbot

Dorian Abbot is Associate Professor, Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago. He has an undergraduate degree in physics (2004) and a PhD in applied math (2008), both from Harvard. He joined the University of Chicago as a Chamberlin Fellow in 2009 and joined the faculty in 2011.

Abbot uses mathematical and computational models to understand and explain fundamental problems in Earth and Planetary Sciences. He has worked on problems related to climate, paleoclimate, planetary habitability, and exoplanets. In 2021, he was “disinvited” from an honorary lecture at MIT because he “openly advocated moral and philosophical views that are unpopular on university campuses.”

Speaker

Peter Boghossian

Dr. Peter Boghossian is a Founding Faculty member at the University of Austin, Texas, a founder of and advisor to the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR), and the director of National Progress Alliance. Peter has a teaching pedigree spanning more than 25 years that focuses on the Socratic method, scientific skepticism, and critical thinking. Peter’s dissertation explored increasing the moral reasoning of prison inmates and aiding their desistance from crime. Peter’s most recent book is How to Have Impossible Conversations, and his writing can be found in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Philosophers’ Magazine, Scientific American, Time Magazine, Skeptic, National Review, and elsewhere. His work is centered on bringing the tools of professional philosophers to a wide variety of contexts to help people think through what seem to be intractable problems. Peter’s current work and activity can be found at Substack, Twitter, and his webpage. Twitter: @peterboghossian

Speaker

Suzanne Nossel

Suzanne Nossel is the CEO, PEN America and author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All.

Prior to joining PEN America, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. She served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, leading US engagement in the UN and multilateral institutions on human right issues, and in the Clinton Administration as Deputy to the US Ambassador for UN Management and Reform.

Nossel coined the term “Smart Power,” which was the title of a 2004 article she published in Foreign Affairs Magazine and later became the theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure in office. She is a featured columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and has published op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times, as well as scholarly articles in Foreign Affairs, Dissent, and Democracy, among others. Nossel is a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Moderator

Robert Shibley

Shibley is the author of Twisting Title IX. During his 15-year career at FIRE, Robert has aided students and faculty members at hundreds of colleges and universities and personally traveled to dozens of campuses to educate students, faculty, and administrators about First Amendment issues. A free- speech activist who himself faced campus censorship, Robert’s writing has appeared in many national publications, including The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, and TIME. He has also represented FIRE on NPR, The O’Reilly Factor, CNN Tonight, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Stossel, Fox & Friends, and CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, as well as many other national and international television and radio programs.

Shibley is a native of Toledo, Ohio, and a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law.