Great ideas should be shared. A component of our mission is to aggregate and amplify the work of prominent social scientists, journalists and educators. Working together to share information about positive human progress helps all of us become better consumers of information.
Matt Ridley
Author, Speaker and Member of UK House of Lords; Author of The Rational Optimist
“Isn’t it amazing what we’ve accomplished in the last 50 or 100 years? …A total transformation in human life chances.”
Steven Pinker, PhD
Experimental Psychologist; Psychology Professor, Harvard University; Author of “The Better Angels of our Nature”
“Optimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy. So is pessimism.”
Belinha De Abreu, PhD
Media Literacy Educator, Researcher, Author
Belinha S. De Abreu, PhD. is a global media literacy educator. She served as an International Expert to the Forum on Media & Information Literacy for UNESCO’s Communication & Information Section. Her research interests include media and information literacy education, educational technology, global perspectives, critical thinking, privacy & big data, young adults, and teacher training. De Abreu’s focus is on the impact of learning as a result of media and technology consumed by K–12 students; providing students with viable, real-life opportunities for engaging in various technological environments while in turn encouraging students to be creative and conscious users of technology and media. She serves as the President of the International Council for Media Literacy (IC4ML) and teaches at Sacred Heart University.
Jimmeka Anderson
PhD candidate at UNCC; Media Literacy Educator
“Media can be used to oppress or liberate. It is up to us to teach the next generation how to use this powerful tool for the good of humanity.”
Jimmeka Anderson is a Media Literacy Expert/Educator, and the Founder and Executive Director of Black Girls Film Camp. She also serves as a Project Manager for the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), Project Fellow for the Cyber Citizenship Initiative with New America, and as an Advisor for the American Library Association (ALA) Media Literacy in Libraries for Adult Audiences initiative.
Gina Ross
Author, Psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing and Conflict Resolution Trainer; President of International Trauma-Healing Institute USA and Israel; Author of a book series on healing trauma and “Breaking News: The Media and The Trauma Vortex – Understanding News Reporting, Journalists and Audiences.”
“We have the choice at each moment to speak and act from the Healing Vortex or the Trauma Vortex.”
Barry Glassner, PhD
Sociologist; Author of “The Culture of Fear”
“Americans live in the safest period in human history, in the safest place in human history. Unfortunately, there are so many fears that preoccupy us, many that are unfounded.”
Martha Groves
Freelance Journalist; Former Los Angeles Times reporter; Recent article “Power to the People”
“Truth is our most important commodity. Without it, neither society nor government can properly function. With it, we can—together—address America’s genuine afflictions with open hearts and minds.”
Michael Shermer, PhD
Presidential Fellow at Chapman University; Founding Publisher of Skeptic Magazine; Author of “The Moral Arc”
“We’re living in the most moral period in human history.”
Paul J. Zak, PhD
Founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies; Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University; Author of “Trust Factor”
“Trust requires viewing those with whom one works as whole and complete human beings, not as pieces of human capital.”
Frank W. Baker
Media Education Consultant; Author of Media Literacy in the K12 Classroom, 2016, ISTE; Recognized for his lifelong work in media literacy by UNESCO’s Global Alliance Partnership for Media & Information Literacy
“Frank Baker may be the most media-literate educator in America.” – John Norton, Editor of Middleweb’s Of Particular Interest, 1/13/09
Frank is a national Jessie McCanse Awardee and “Leaders in Learning” honoree. He is a consultant to the SC Writing Improvement Network, and former consultant to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). He has developed a nationally recognized media literacy resource website and is also an avid nature photographer. To learn more, read his detailed biography.
Tessa Jolls
President of the Center for Media Literacy (CML)
Tessa Jolls is President and CEO of the Center for Media Literacy (U.S.), and Founder of the Consortium for Media Literacy. In 2022, she authored a Fulbright-NATO Report, “Media Literacy as Strategic Defense,” as part of a Fulbright-NATO Security Studies Award. She is a Contributing Scientist at UCLouvain and a Regional Representative on UNESCO’s MIL Alliance’s International Steering Committee.
For Tessa’s long list of accolades and accomplishments, check out: https://www.medialit.org/about-cml#board
Renee Hobbs
Founder & Director of Media Education Lab
Professor Renee Hobbs is an internationally-recognized authority on digital and media literacy education. Through community and global service and as a researcher, teacher, advocate and media professional, Hobbs has worked to advance the quality of digital and media literacy education in the United States and around the world. She is Founder and Director of the Media Education Lab, whose mission is to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service.
Doowan Lee
Technologist; National Security Expert
Doowan Lee is a technologist and national security expert who has developed and executed numerous data analytic projects on aggregating, detecting, and analyzing large-data sources on foreign and extremist information operations. As a principal scientist with DoD, he has extensively worked with federal innovation and R&D programs from DARPA, IWTSD (CTTSO), and OSD. Lee has also worked at and with several Silicon Valley tech companies, leveraging machine learning and natural language processing models to detect and defeat foreign origins of information operations and cyber threats. He has founded two tech startups scaling generative AI to scale information attribution. Lee has extensively published in leading journals and magazines on how to mitigate and prevent the harms of malign influence exploiting the openness of the information environment. As a member of the Social Media Task Force at Georgetown University and a board advisor to the Georgetown National Security Law Center, he has engaged with numerous public and government institutions to enable and empower policy discussions aimed at mitigating the ill-effects of disinformation and cyber threats. Central to this work is a focus on how the extremist and foreign actors exploit the content ecosystem and emerging technologies to undermine organic political processes and democratic values.