stefano albertini

Originally from Bozzolo, in the province of beautiful Mantua, Italy, Dr. Stefano Albertini holds a Ph.D Stanford University and lives in New York City.
A scholar of Machiavelli, his kaleidoscopic culture spans across the 19th-century novel,  literature and cinema, and contemporary Italian history and politics. He is professor of Italian literature and Cinema at the Department of Italian Studies at New York University. 
Since 1998 he serves as the Director of beloved Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, the Italian cultural hub at New York University. He conceives and implements the exquisitely rich calendar of events of the Casa -around 120 per academic year!). These include art exhibits, film screenings, lectures, theatrical performances, concerts, book presentations, and so much more. 
In the Summer he directs the Summer program of NYU in Florence, Italy.

teresa fiore

Author and scholar Dr. Teresa Fiore is originally from Agrigento in Sicily. She lives in New York CIty. 
She is the Theresa and Lawrence R. Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at Montclair State University. The recipient of several fellowships (De Bosis, Rockefeller, and Fulbright), she is the author of Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies (Fordham UP 2017), which received the 2017 AAIS/American Association of Italian Studies Book Prize in the 20th-21st centuries category and an Honorable Mention at the 2018 MLA Marraro Prize in Comparative Literature involving Italian, was also nominated for the 2018 Bridge Book Award and voted Runner Up Winner of the Edinburgh Gadda Prize – Established Scholars, Cultural Studies Category.
Her numerous articles on migration to/from Italy linked to 20th- and 21st-century Italian literature and cinema have been published in Italian, English and Spanish in prestigious journals, and edited collections. Dr. Fiore’s current project focuses on food and hunger in Sicily at the time of the Allied Landing in 1943. She has also published in the field of Translation (Donne in Traduzione), and on the topic of innovation in Italian Studies (TILCA) with a special focus on the concept of Critical Made in Italy.

paola igliori

Born in Rome, Italy, Paola Igliori is a poet, writer, filmmaker & researcher. 
Her first book Entrails, Heads and Tails, (photographic essays and conversations with iconic artists of the time -Louise Bourgeois, Enzo Cucchi, Cy Twombly, Francesco Clemente, Julian Schnabel among others- was published by Rizzoli in 1992.  In 1990 she started Inanout Press, and published: Chocolate Creams & Dollars (1992), on the last collaboration between Paul Bowles and the Moroccan storyteller Mohamed Mrabet; 18 Poems, by Tano Festa (1992), Stickman (1994), a book about Native American warrior, poet, musician and activist John Trudell; American Magus­ Harry Smith, a Modern Alchemist (1996), about the extraordinary film maker, ethnomusicologist, anthropologist, painter, and magician who, in 1952 compiled a most important Anthology of America’s Folk Music (Folkways 1952).  
Igliori has worked closely with powerful diverse spiritual teachers as Dr. Mishra, Wallace Black Elk, and Ron Young. These relations have informed her spiritual and artistic work afterwards. For many years now, she has been running her farm and cultural center, Villa Lina, in Ronciglione, near Rome, in Etruscan Tuscia, where in 2016 she founded the multidisciplinary and multicultural association Villa Lina Bio-Fucina Institute, whose manifesto is exploring and developing, through the different arts, spirituality, science, herbalism, and traditional or experimental cuisine, the power of intention with connection in Nature, trying to decipher the alpha and the omega of its secret language.

don palmer

Originally from Ohio, journalist and music critic Don Palmer has been for a long time a resident of Brooklyn, New York.

He began his career in music and arts in the early 1980s, working with Pete Seeger's Sing Out magazine and in New York City’s mayor Ed Koch press Office. Later he would write speeches for the Brooklyn Borough president; join the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) where he served as the Director of the Individual Artists Program; and, publish over one hundred articles on jazz, blues, world, and the early days of rap and hip-hop music in the Village Voice, the New York Times and others. Through his work with NYSCA, he was thanked in the credits of the Oscar-winning documentary Born into brothels, used as a plot device by theater Company, Radiohole, and never missed a show by the Wooster group.

he resides in Baltimore, where he consults with the Maryland Arts Council, serves on the community board of WNYC and the donor advisory board of Single Carrot Theater, and raises money for Creative Alliance, Maryland NARAL, and Boston Hill's Social Action Task Force.

brandon ross

Brandon Ross is a New York City-based guitarist/composer/singer/songwriter. As a performing and recording artist, Ross has collaborated with many innovative voices in modern music, such as Lawrence D "Butch" Morris, Wadada Leo Smith, Cassandra Wilson, Henry Threadgill, Me’Shell N’degeocello, Cassandra Wilson, Bill Frisell, Me'Shell N'degeocello, Arrested Development, Archie Shepp, Muhal Richard Abrams, and many others.
Ross also leads For Living Lovers, his Chamber Music for Improvisers acoustic duo with acoustic bass guitarist, Stomu Takeishi, and is a co-leader of the power trio Harriet Tubman (with bassist Melvin Gibbs and drummer JT Lewis). Ross is a 2014 Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grantee, an ASCAP Foundation commissioned composer, Rockefeller Foundation MAP Grant recipient, NYSCA Composition grant recipient, and ASCAP writer and publisher member. 

judith w. ross

Originally from New York City, Judith Ross lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Her career began in public child welfare and family services. In 1974 she joined the Children’s Cancer Research Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia becoming a leading figure in the field of Pediatric Oncology Social Work. In 1990 she was appointed Director of Social Work at MetroHealth Medical Center, an urban public health system in Cleveland, and for ten years was responsible for a large staff of allied health professionals and a budget of about two million dollars.
Since 2000, Ms. Ross has been a consultant to non-profit organizations, designing and managing numerous grant funded projects. She received awards in foundation and government funding for service and research programs, including international projects. She served on national and local advisory committees and task forces addressing a range of health, social risk and educational issues.
In 2002, Ms. Ross was appointed Director of Development of the Cleveland Public Theatre, a non-profit theatre with a social equity mission, focused on innovative performance, community programming and education of disadvantaged youth and vulnerable adults. She created a fundraising program to help grow the organization which gained significant stature and notable foundation support and a significant increase of the budget, from the initial annual $400.000 to $1.4 million. During her twelve-year tenure, Ross raised more than 7 million dollars in grant, individual and corporate funds for the Cleveland Public Theater.