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.