Dr. James Anderson
James William Anderson, PhD, is a psychotherapist and Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University, where he teaches courses on Personality Psychology and the Psychology of Film. His focus is on psychobiography, the use of psychology in the study of notable people, such as historical figures, novelists and other artists, and creators of popular culture.
Among those he has written about are Simone de Beauvoir, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Henry James, Alice James, Oprah Winfrey, Harvey Milk, Frank Lloyd Wright, Sigmund Freud, Carol Gilligan, Mohandas Gandhi, B. R. Ambedkar, Edith Wharton, and Anaïs Nin. His book, Psychobiography: In Search of the Inner Life, was published last October by Oxford University Press.
Dr. Selçuk Şirin
Selçuk Şirin, Ph.D., is a Professor of Applied Psychology at New York University. His research focuses on the lives of marginalized children and enhancing professionals’ ability to support their needs. He specializes in studying youth during fragile times, including Muslim American youth post-9/11, refugee youth navigating displacement, and immigrant youth adjusting to new environments.
Dr. Şirin has received multiple awards, including Teaching Excellence Awards from Boston College and NYU, the Young Scholar Award from the Foundation for Child Development for his work on immigrant children, and the Review of Research Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). He served on the National Academies of Sciences committee on Supporting Parents of Young Children. He also led and successfully completed the 1 Million Book Project, through which he distributed over one million books to children free of charge to promote early literacy.
In addition to his academic work, he is a columnist for Oksijen, highly respected Turkish weekly, and the author of several bestseller books, including Turkey at a Crossroads and Justice vs. Misery (Turkish) as well as Muslim American Youth (English).
Monda Raquel Webb
MONDA RAQUEL WEBB is an award-winning author, filmmaker and performing artist. She is an independent storyteller dedicated to telling little known stories hidden in the crevices of history’s pages. A visual archeologist, she’s committed to organic storytelling from a woman’s lens, that elevates, educates, and uplifts humanity.
After graduating with a degree in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Rhode Island in 1990, Monda began her production career as a traffic coordinator for City Cable 16, a municipal channel in Washington, DC. She quickly climbed the ranks and served in all aspects of production, from grip, to production assistant, to producer to on-air talent. As producer, she won awards from the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors (NATOA) for Production in several different categories.
Monda, voted Filmmaker of the Year in 2020 by the National Black Movie Association, established Little Known Stories Production Company, LLC in 2015. Monda’s two short films Zoo (Volkerschau) and Pooch Sitter have played the festival circuit since 2015 and won several awards nationally, and internationally.