"Speaking Truth to Power"

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Distinguished Speakers & Events

Throughout the year, GSPP invites scholars and practitioners who have made substantial contributions to the field of public policy.

The small size of the MPP program allows students to interact personally with these policy professionals, meeting both individually and in small groups.

Special Events & Speakers

This past year included:

  • Arie W. Kruglanski, Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park [ view webcast ]
  • The Thomas C. Schelling Symposium, [ view webcast ]
  • Dr. Imad Moustapha, Syrian Ambassador [ view webcast ]
  • Milton Leitenberg, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM) [ view webcast ]

The 2005-06 Academic Year Included:

  • Dimitri Zenghelis, UK government economic adviser who spent the last year working with Sir Nicholas Stern on the Stern Review on Economics of Climate Change, commissioned by Chancellor Gordon Brown [ view webcast ]
  • Joseph Wilson IV, Ambassador [ view webcast ]
  • Mr. Robert Klein, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine [ view webcast ]
  • Alice Waters, Restauranteur (Chez Panisse), Author, Advocate
  • Prof. John DiIulio, Jr., University of Pennsylvania [ view webcast ]
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The 2004-05 Academic Year Included:

  • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Professor of Environmental Law at Pace Law School and Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) [ view webcast ]
  • Former White House terrorism advisor to President Bush, and author of Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke
  • Robert Reich, University Professor and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University and at Brandeis’s Heller School of Social Policy and Management and former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton. [ view webcast ]
  • William Taylor, lawyer, and author of The Passion of My Times: An Advocate's Fifty Year Journal in the Civil Rights Movement
  • Comptroller General of the United States, and author of The National Growing Fiscal Imbalance: Perspectives and Issues, David M. Walker
  • Activist and author of best-seller The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith, Irshad Manji 
  • Warren Beatty, actor and political activist, guest speaker at GSPP's 2005 Commencement
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The 2003-04 Academic Year Included:

  • Prop. 54 Racial Privacy Debate with Equal Justice Society Director, Eva Patterson and UC Regent, Ward Connerly
  • Medical Marijuana Forum sponsored by GSPP with Professor of Public Policy and Law, Rob MacCoun
  • LoveLife talk by Founder and Director, David Harrison, MPP’00
  • GSPP Annual Alumni Dinner, US Secretary of Agriculture, Ann Veneman, MPP’71
  • Rhoda Goldman Health Lecture, “War With the Microbes: Winning the Peace”, Sackler Foundation Scholar and Noble Peace Prize Winner, Joshua Lederberg
  • Wildavsky Forum Part I, “Information & Political Processes”, Columbia University’s Professor of Business, Economics, and International & Public Affairs, Joseph Stiglitz
  • Lecture “Why a Massachusetts Liberal Will Be the Next President – And Other Amazing Prophecies,” Distinguished Visiting Professor, Robert Reich
  • Wildavsky Forum Part II, “Theories of Bounded Rationality and Their Policy Implications,” Stanford University’s Professor of Business, Jonathan Bender
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The 2002-03 Academic Year Included:

  • Raul Arriaga, Undersecretary of Environmental Protection, Mexico's Ministry of the Environment
  • Marion Nestle, Chair and Professor, Department of Nutrition and Food Studies, NYU
  • Kenneth Prewitt, Carnegie Professor of Public Affairs, Columbia University and Former Director of the US Census Bureau
  • Daniel Ellsberg, Author of “Secrecy, Freedom and Empire” & “Secrets, A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers”
  • Robert Reich, Professor at Brandeis University and Former Secretary of Labor, Maurice Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis’s Heller Graduate School and former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration
  • Dr. Alexey Arbatov, GSPP Regents’ Lecturer and Deputy Chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma
  • Dr. Ted Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT
  • J. Brady Keisling, former US Ambassador to the Embassy in Greece (resigned 2/2003)
  • Helen Caldicott, MD, founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Nuclear Policy Research Institute
  • Huey Johnson, President, Resource Renewal Institute
  • Roy Radner, Leonard N. Stern School Professor of Business at, New York University
  • Winston Hickox, Secretary, California Environmental Protection Agency
  • Eberhard Sandschneider, Director, German Council on Foreign Relations
  • Hekmat Karzai, Secretary of the Afghan Embassy to the United States
  • Robert Kagan and Dorothy Thornton, UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Law and Society
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Last updated: 07/30/2008