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Joyce Apsel

Joyce Apsel is a Master Teacher of Humanities in the Liberal Studies Program of the College of Arts & Sciences at New York University where for the last ten years she has taught courses in Great Books and seminars on Human Rights. She is Director and Founder of RightsWork International, a human rights educational initiative. She has a Ph.D. in history, J.D. degree, and graduate training in sociology; and her teaching and research emphasize a multidisciplinary approach. Research interests include comparative genocide and human rights, peace studies, children's rights and issues of pedagogy, and she has lectured nationally and internationally and published books and articles on these subjects. Recent publications include Museums for Peace: Past, Present and Future (co-edited with Anzai and Mehdi, 2008); "ON OUR WATCH: The Genocide Convention and the Deadly, Ongoing Case of Darfur and Sudan," (Rutgers Law Review, Fall 2008); ed. Darfur: Genocide Before Our Eyes (3rd rev. ed. 2007) and ed. Teaching about Human Rights (American Sociological Association, 2005). Dr. Apsel is currently President of the Institute for the Study of Genocide and past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Human Rights Review and a Juror for the Lemkin Award for the Outstanding Work on Genocide. Since 2002, she has served as the NGO/DPI representative at the United Nations for the International Museums for Peace.


John Canemaker

John Canemaker is an Academy Award-winning independent animator, animation historian, teacher and author. His personal films are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and are distributed by Milestone Film & Video (John Canemaker: Marching to a Different Toon). He is a full professor and director of Animation Studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Kanbar Institute of Film & Television

Canemaker won a 2005 Oscar for his 28-min. animated short The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation, and also created animation for the Oscar-winning documentary You Don't Have to Die (HBO); the Peabody Award-winner Break the Silence: Kids Against Child Abuse (CBS), and The World According to Garp (Warner Bros.).

His latest film project is Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood, a documentary directed by Peggy Stern for Turner Classic Movies. Canemaker created and directed the film's original animation sequences, based on legendary Warner Bros. animation director Jones' anecdotes about growing up in 1920s Los Angeles.

He has written ten books on animation history -- on subjects ranging from Winsor McCay and Felix the Cat, to Tex Avery and numerous Disney artists - that are among the most important and thoroughly researched in the field. His latest book, Two Guys Named Joe: Disney's Master Animation Storytellers Joe Grant and Joe Ranft, will be published by Disney Editions in fall 2010.

John Canemaker was awarded a 2006 Emmy Award for outstanding television graphic design (for The Moon and the Son); an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Marymount Manhattan College in 2007; and, for his work as an animation historian, a special award from the 2006 Zagreb Animation Festival and the 2007 Jean Mitry Award from Italy's Le Giornate Del Cinema Muto. He also received the 2007 Winsor McCay Award from ASIFA- Hollywood, in recognition of his career contributions to the art of animation.

In 2008, The Museum of Modern Art featured Canemaker's 1998 short film Bridgehampton in its Jazz Score show, with screenings throughout the day and original animation art from the film on exhibit in the gallery.


Ingrid Gould Ellen

Ingrid Gould Ellen is Associate Professor of Urban Planning and Public Policy at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Service and Co-Director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. She joined the Wagner faculty in the fall of 1997 and presently teaches courses in microeconomics, urban economics, and urban policy. Professor Ellen's research interests center on urban social and economic policy, with a particular focus on affordable housing, neighborhoods, and racial segregation. She is author of Sharing America's Neighborhoods: The Prospects for Stable Racial Integration (Harvard University Press, 2000) and numerous journal articles. Before coming to NYU, Professor Ellen held visiting positions at the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. She attended Harvard University, where she received a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics, an M.P.P., and a Ph.D. in public policy.


Jerome Lowenstein

Dr. Jerome Lowenstein was graduated from New York University in 1953 with a B.A., and received his M.D. degree from the NYU School of Medicine in 1957. His long career at NYU School of Medicine, where he isconsidered "a lifer", has always entailed teaching, research and clinical practice as a nephrologist.

He recalls the importance of his role models during these early years of his career. Lewis Thomas was Chairman of the Department of Medicine during the period of Dr. Lowenstein's medical residency and soon after, Dr. Saul J. Farber filled the same role. Both were major figures in medical education in this country. Dr. Lowenstein found educating medical students and young physicians, in classrooms and at the bedside, "rewarding, exciting, and intellectually stimulating". In 1979, increasingly aware the challenges that students and young physicians in training face to maintain their humanistic instincts at a time when the pace of medical education was becoming increasingly driven by the successes of biotechnology and the financial demands of the health care system, Dr. Lowenstein sought to create a program that would allow students to examine their experiences with their colleagues and their teachers. He recalled the importance of hospitals' 'midnight meals" during his years as a house officer. "The midnight meal which consisted of the day's leftovers, provided a fine opportunity to communicate with colleagues directly, rather than by beeper and phone, about the day's "medical leftovers." He initiated the program for Humanistic Aspects of Medical Education which involved weekly small group meetings for third year medical students during their clerkship in Medicine.

Dr. Lowenstein's research began with studies of the renal hemodynamic changes in patients with essential hypertension. After a long and interesting trail, he undertook studies of the role of prostaglandins in goldfish adapted to sea water! spending several summer months working in the Mt. Desert Island Marine Biology Laboratory in Salsbury Cove, Maine, where he was introduced to transport physiology, a discipline which had its origins in the years after he studied physiology at NYU.

In 1991, he recognized that the reason the subject of acid-base physiology was generally considered by medical students and physicians as extremely daunting and arcane was possibly the lack of physical metaphors which facilitate understanding. He set out to describe acid-base regulation based on an understanding of the recently identified proteins that carry out the transport of acids and bases across cell membranes. The physical metaphor of known transport proteins which function as "exchangers", "pumps", and "channels" replaced the abstract concept of vectors with varying velocities in accounting for the movement of molecules across membranes. Acid and Basics: A Guide to Understanding Acid-Base Physiology was published by Oxford University Press in 1993. In his preface, Isaac Asimov wrote, "With the utmost delicacy, transport proteins facilitate the movement of ions across the cell membrane and preserve acid-base balance. It is impossible to read this book and to fail to understand the ins and outs of the process and, moreover, to get an appreciation of the wonders and delicacy of the intricate organization that leads to what we call life."

Having tasted the rich experience of creative writing, Dr. Lowenstein went back to examine his experiences with the Humanistic Medicine program. The next three years were devoted to writing essays about patients and medical education. The Midnight Meal and other Essays about Doctors, Patients, and Medicine was published by Yale University Press in 1997 and reissued by University of Michigan Press in 2005.

Dr. Lowenstein was familiar with the contributions of Lawrence J. Henderson on the subject of acid-base physiology and further research into his other writings about systems theory and the "fitness of the environment" challenged Lowenstein to explore and "interact" with his ideas in a fictional biography that, he felt, might be more interesting and creative than a straightforward scholarly biography. Henderson's Equation (Gadd Books) was published in 2008.

In 2001 he became one of the founding editors of the Bellevue Literary Review. He serves as the Nonfiction Editor for this publication which receives about 3000 submissions (fiction, creative nonfiction, essays and poetry) for each of its twice-yearly issues. In 2005, Dr. Lowenstein founded the Bellevue Literary Press, a small trade book press dedicated to publishing books at the intersection of literature, health, science and healing. With 16 books already in distribution, the Bellevue Literary Press has already received considerable attention and praise.

Dr. Lowenstein continues to maintain a busy clinical practice and a full teaching commitment which compliment his increasing literary activities.


Andrew Spielman

Dr. Andrew I Spielman is Professor of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at NYU College of Dentistry. He has been an educator for over 21 years, and has been tenured at NYU since 1996. Dr. Spielman graduated Summa cum laude and Valedictorian from University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Tirgu Mures, Romania (1974) with a D.M.D. degree, completed a certificate in Maxillofacial Surgery at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Faculty of Medicine (1981) in Haifa, Israel, and a MS and PhD in Oral Biology/Biochemistry in 1983 and 1988 (respectively) from University of Toronto, Canada. He spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia where he is still Affiliated Scientist.

Dr. Spielman has been with NYU since 1989. He is nationally known for his expertise in molecular mechanisms of bitter and sour taste. He published extensively in the area of taste including a textbook on the cell biology of taste and smell. Andrew received grants from NIH, NSF, private foundations and industry throughout his career. He was the president of the American Association of Oral Biologists (1998) and more recently, the chair of the Section on Educational Research/Curriculum Development of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA). In spite of his extensive administrative duties over the past ten years as chair of the Basic Science Division (1998-2001) and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs (2001- present) he continues to teach to dental students in areas of Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Oral Biology, Pathology, Diagnosis and more recently, History of Dentistry and Medicine. Starting this fall he will also teach at the College of Arts and Science as part of the Freshman Honors Seminars series a course on History of Medicine and Dentistry. He has received many awards including, the Canadian Medical Research Council Fellowship and most recently the ADEA - Dental Educator Award (2007). He was recently inducted as a fellow of the Pierre Fauchard Academy.


Tyler Volk

Tyler Volk is currently Science Director of the NYU Environmental Studies Program. He teaches a variety of undergraduate courses, including a MAP course on the biosphere, an environmental science course on limits to the earth, a freshman honors seminar on metapatterns and an advanced honors seminar comparing biological and cultural evolution evolution. An interdisciplinary thinker and synthesizer, Volk has written four books: Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind, which explores common patterns in biology, culture, and the human mind; Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth which shows how the biosphere's systems are organized; and What Is Death?: A Scientist Looks at the Cycle of Life, in which he examines the role that death plays in the support of life on various scales, from bacteria to human cognition. In the fall of 2008, The MIT Press published his latest book, CO2 Rising: the World's Greatest Environmental Challenge, and in Fall of 2009 Chelsea Green will publish Death/Sex (a double-authored "double" book.)