(512) 657-8631 [email protected]

2017 cohort of Dallas Public Voices Announcement

Dallas Public Voices is part of a bold multi-year, multi-institution initiative launched by The OpEd Project in partnership with leading universities and foundations nationwide. It was piloted at Yale, Princeton and Stanford universities, and has since launched in collaboration with a dozen institutions and foundations, including the Ford Foundation and the McCormick Foundation. The 2017 cohort will join one of the most powerful emerging networks for public impact thought leadership – both in Dallas and across the nation. Over the next three months, the cohort members will endeavor to test the best existing research, learn from live experiments, tackle big philosophical questions and create an environment that is wildly generative of ideas. They will be matched with seasoned journalist mentors, and transform their ideas into concrete results that light up the world.

Following a tremendously competitive application process, we are pleased to announce the twenty civic and social justice leaders who will make up the 2017 cohort of Dallas Public Voices:

Froswa Booker-Drew Director of Community Affairs, State Fair of Texas
Jessica Dixon Weaver Associate Professor, SMU Dedman School of Law
Hillary Evans Public Policy Consultant, Leadership ISD
Alicia Farhat Dallas Programs Director, Brighter Bites
Sadie Funk Executive Director, First3Years Texas
Kaitlin Guthrow Executive Director, Reading Partners of North Texas
Christina Hanger Executive Director, Dallas Afterschool Network
Annie Lord Chief Program Officer, CitySquare
Candace Lucas-Bledsoe Graduate of Liberal Studies Faculty, Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education
Sara Martinez Justice for the Peace, Precinct 5 Dallas County
Margo McClinton Stoglin  Executive Director, IGNITE Texas 
Yulise Reaves Waters Assistant City Attorney & Community Courts Prosecutor, City of Dallas
Alia Salem Executive Director, Council of American-Islamic Relations Dallas-Fort Worth
Jennifer Sampson McDermott-Templeton President and CEO, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas
Aditi Sinha Director of Diversity and Leadership, Teach for America
Elizabeth Sodel Blum Senior Community Development Advisor, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Eva Szalkai Csaky Director, Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity
Jamila Thomas Coordinator for African American Success Initiate, Dallas ISD
Maria Gabriela Vega Staff Attorney, Equal Justice Center
Annie Wright Director of Evaluation, Southern Methodist University Center on Research & Evaluation

For more information about the 2017 cohort members see Photos and Bios

The inaugural Dallas Public Voices Leadership & Advisory Committee led the 2017 nomination and selection process.Members represent different Public Voices cohorts (2013 – 2016) and key areas of interest throughout the city of Dallas. Each member of the committee was an outstanding representative of her respective cohort, with numerous publishing successes and a clear commitment to the Public Voices mission.The Boone Family Foundation is grateful for the Advisory Committee’s leadership recruiting an outstanding 2017 cohort.