Dr. David Weill is the former Director of the Center for Advanced Lung Disease and Lung and Heart-Lung Transplant Program at Stanford University Medical Center. He is currently the Principal of the Weill Consulting Group which focuses on improving the delivery of pulmonary, ICU, and transplant care. Dr. Weill has served in a variety of international and national roles, both in the private and public sectors, and has authored numerous medical articles, book chapters, and editorials.
Jeanette Weiland currently works for the New Orleans Business Alliance (NOLABA) as the Senior Vice President of Bio, Innovation, & Special Projects. In this role, she reports to the CEO and is responsible for facilitating collaboration with local institutions and companies, attracting new businesses and investment to the City, assisting existing businesses and startups with retention and expansion efforts, and working with area partners to help ensure that the state’s legislative environment is friendly to all of these efforts.
Qian Julie Wang was born in Shijiazhuang, China. At age 7, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, with her parents. For five years thereafter, the three lived in the shadows of undocumented life in New York City. Qian Julie's first book is a poignant literary memoir that follows the family through those years, as they held onto hope and joy while confronting poverty, manual labor, and the perpetual threat of deportation. A graduate of Yale Law School and Swarthmore College—where she juggled classes and extracurriculars with four part-time jobs—Qian Julie is now a litigator.
Mark J. VanLandingham, Ph.D., is the Thomas C. Keller Professor at Tulane University. He currently teaches Population Mobility and Health and Health Problems of Developing Societies (with Katherine Andrinopoulos). Professor VanLandingham directs Tulane’s Center for Studies of Displaced Populations (CSDP) and leads research teams focusing on rural-to-urban migration within Southeast Asia; long-term post-disaster recovery; and acculturation, health, and well-being among Vietnamese immigrants living in New Orleans.
Emma Straub is the New York Times-bestselling author of four novels—All Adults Here, The Vacationers, Modern Lovers, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures—and the short story collection Other People We Married. Her books have been published in more than 20 languages, and All Adults Here is currently in development as a television series. She and her husband own Books Are Magic, an independent bookstore in Brooklyn, New York.
Anne Snyder is the Editor-in-Chief of Comment Magazine and the author of The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Renewing our Social and Moral Landscape. From 2016-2019 she directed The Philanthropy Roundtable‘s Character Initiative, a program that sought to help American foundations and business leaders strengthen “the middle ring” of morally formative institutions.
Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and a 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award Winner for Nonfiction, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. He has received fellowships from the Andrew W.
Annette Sisco is co-author with Tulane professor Peter Ricchiuti of “Being Your Own Boss Is Terrific: Unless You’re Calling in Sick...Because Then You Know You Are Lying!” well as the 2013 “Stocks Under Rocks.” She has worked for more than 25 years as a reporter, columnist and editor at New Orleans newspapers and currently serves as features editor of The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate and NOLA.com. Annette is a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and a graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism in Bloomington.
Maleeha Siddiqui is an American writer of Pakistani descent who loves to tell unapologetically Muslim stories for all ages. By day, Maleeha works as a regulatory affairs professional in the biotech industry. She grew up and continues to reside with her family in Virginia. Barakah Beats is her debut novel and an Indies Introduce pick. Her forthcoming middle-grade book, Bhai For Now takes a fresh and fun new spin on the Parent-Trap story.
