Peter Martins was the Ballet Master in Chief of New York City Ballet for 35 years, the only person to preside over the company as long as its founder, George Balanchine. Born in Denmark, Martins began his association with NYCB in 1967, when he was invited to dance the title role in George Balanchine’s Apollo during the company’s appearance at the Edinburgh Festival. He then performed as a guest artist for three years before joining the company as a principal dancer in 1970. Prior to his retirement from dancing in 1983, Martins performed a wide variety of roles and was lauded for his outstanding partnering skills and noble stage presence. In 1981, Martins was named Ballet Master, a title he shared with Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and John Taras. From 1983 to 1989, he served as Co-Ballet Master in Chief with Robbins, running day-to-day operations. He assumed sole directorship of the company in 1990 and was also Chairman of the Faculty of the School of American Ballet, NYCB’s official school. In 2000, founded the New York Choreographic Institute.
Martins began his career as a choreographer in 1977. He has created nearly 90 ballets set to music by composers as diverse as Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, Wynton Marsalis, and John Adams. His full-length productions for New York City Ballet include The Sleeping Beauty (1991), Swan Lake (1999), Romeo + Juliet (2007), and La Sylphide (2015). Martins’ autobiography, Far From Denmark, was published in 1982. Among other awards, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark made him a Knight of Dannebrog, a Knight of the First Order, and, in 2013, a Commander of the Knights of Dannebrog, Denmark’s highest civilian honor. In 2008, the French government made him a Commander in the Order of Arts and Letter. That same year, Martins was inducted into the National Museum of Dance’s Hall of Fame, in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Jose Martinez, Ph.D. is Professor of Sociology (ret.) at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. He is the author of Inequality in American Education: The Entrenchment of a Two-Tiered System; Diversity, Funding, and Standardized Testing in American Education; Covid-19 and the Transformation of American Society; and Football in American Society. He has contributed chapters in texts such as Diversity in the Workforce. Dr. Martinez holds degrees in education, history, and psychology, and his doctorate is in sociology. He has taught for over thirty years. The media calls on him regarding social issues, and he was a regular co-host on the PBS program Hispanic Perspectives. He also has held administrative and other positions in agencies at all levels: the federal, state, county, local, and school district.

Kawal Deep Kour holds a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. A drug abuse prevention specialist, she is currently Director of the South Asian Drugs and Addictions Research Council and a former board member of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP). She is the author of History of Intoxication: Opium in Assam, 1800-1959 and many other publications.

Kawal Deep Kour holds a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati. A drug abuse prevention specialist, she is currently Director of the South Asian Drugs and Addictions Research Council and a former board member of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP). She is the author of History of Intoxication: Opium in Assam, 1800-1959 and many other publications.

Ralph G. Giordano is a professional architect born in New York. Recently retired to New Jersey, he has authored nine books on American culture and served as a series editor for six other innovative publications. Giordano is a member of the Authors Guild. He earned a master’s degree from the City University of New York and a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the New York Institute of Technology. Giordano’s work has been featured in The New York Times and New York Daily News, among other publications. In 2007, he was honored with the prestigious Council of the Arts Humanities Award on Staten Island (COAHSI), recognizing his long commitment to the arts and humanities within New York City. Inducted into the College of Staten Island Alumni Hall of Fame, an additional honor came with the President’s Dolphin Award for Outstanding Service and Contribution to the College of Staten Island. Faculty Appreciation Awards for excellence in teaching came from Student/Athletes of Kean University in New Jersey and the Student/Athletes at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). He has taught as an adjunct professor in various disciplines of World History, American Studies, and Architecture at the College of Staten Island, Wagner College, Kean University, and Union County College. In 2011, he was featured in a BBC Radio documentary and has been guest on many other radio programs.

Henry F. Fradella is Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, where he also holds affiliate appointments in law and in the interdisciplinary studies program on law and behavioral science. He received a B.A. in psychology from Clark University; a master’s in forensic science and a law degree from George Washington University; and his Ph.D. in justice studies from Arizona State University. He researches substantive and procedural criminal law, the dynamics of legal decision-making, and the consequences of changes in legal processes. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Justice. He is the author or co-author of 12 books including Punishing Poverty: How Bail and Pretrial Detention Fuel Inequalities in the Criminal Justice System; Stop and Frisk: The Use and Abuse of a Controversial Police Tactic; Sex, Sexuality, Law, and (In)Justice; Mental Illness and Crime; Defenses of Excuse in American Law; a criminal law casebook; and four textbooks. He had written nearly 120 articles, book chapters, reviews, and scholarly commentaries. Dr. Fradella previously edited Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society and the Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Criminal Law Bulletin since 2019.

Emrah Akyüz is Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Energy Politics at Bingol University, in Turkey, where he has taught since 2020. He completed his master’s degree at Edinburgh University with a thesis on “urban social movements” and received his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds with a thesis on the effects of the Fukushima and Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant accidents on human rights. Dr. Akyüz conducts scientific research on environmental and energy policy. His books include Nuclear Power and Human Rights in Japan: The Fallout of Fukushima, 100 Unknown Scientific Facts on Environmental Issues, Save the World: Clean Environment Scientific Secrets, ABC of Environmental Science: Environmental Issues and Policies for Beginners, Environment and Human Rights: A Study on Turkey, City and Urbanization with Its Different Dimensions (ed.), Environmental Justice, and Environmental Ethics and Spinoza (ed.), and Nuclear Energy: Perception or Reality?.

Leslie Gruis served at the National Security Agency for 30 years. Originally recruited as a mathematician with a Ph.D. from Northwestern University, Dr. Gruis was talent-spotted for her people and policy-setting skills and rapidly became a rising star. She ascended through the ranks, became the head of an organization that funded start-ups for classified applications, and then entered the high-level policy arena just as the intelligence community began to face unprecedented privacy challenges. These included the role of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court in targeting Americans and major changes to the intelligence community forced by the privacy revelations of whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Dr. Gruis’s long-standing interests in the rights of Americans and the American dream coalesced in a deep interest in privacy as a concept. She influenced intelligence community policy on privacy for the rights of Americans and wrote a number of classified policy documents on that subject. Upon retirement, Dr. Gruis began a second career writing about the privacy rights of the American public. She focused on what Americans are entitled to know and what can be done to protect them from exploitation by giant commercial organizations. Dr. Gruis is the author of Privacy: Past, Present, and Future. She also writes for traditional and online media, appears on radio and television, and gives frequent public appearances. Dr. Gruis lives in Maryland with her family.

James R. Russo is an independent researcher who holds graduate degrees from Louisiana State University and the University of Richmond. He has taught at those schools and at Tulane University. Russo’s primary scholarly interests are the cinema and comparative literature. He has recently published Film Nation: William Troy on the Cinema, 1933–1935; The Bookman: William Troy on Literature and Criticism, 1927–1950; Drama According to Alexander Bakshy, 1916-1946; Analyzing Film: A Student Casebook; Pillars of Society: Ibsen, Shaw, Brecht; and Open Hatch: The Theater Criticism of Robert Hatch, 1950-1970.

Ann G. Simonds is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, Eugene. She has published articles in various anthropological journals and extensively studied Franz Boas’s works on the Northwest Coast.

Richard L. Bland is a retired Arctic archaeologist and translator. He has translated over 250 articles and books, primarily from Russian and German, into English. Recent examples with Academica Press include The Peoples of Ancient Siberia: An Archeological History (by A. P. Okladnikov) and Warfare in the Russian Arctic (A. K. Nefedkin).

Don Dumond served as Director of the Museum of Natural History at the University of Oregon. He has more than 100 substantive publications in journals, plus fourteen authored or co-authored books.