Our Speakers
Samantha Shebib
Dr. Samantha J. Shebib is a social scientist and assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research interests are embedded in interpersonal/family relationships.
Tony Bingham
Tony Bingham is an artist based in Birmingham Alabama. Bingham teaches studio arts at Miles College, and his mixed-media work in iron sculpture and photography explores the roles of labor, craft, and memory at sites with connection to African-American heritage. With these processes, Bingham pays homage to the ways of rural black folks who take what is there before them and make the things they need, an act which reveals a connection to their origins as an African people.
Lucy Kaufman
Lucy Kaufman is the Assistant Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Alabama, where she focuses on the social history of the fast-changing world of Elizabethan England. A graduate of Yale and Cambridge, Lucy taught at the University of Oxford before coming to Alabama. Her first book, A People's Reformation, explores the foundations of the Church of England and the everyday people who built it.
Jacob Budenz
Jacob Budenz is a queer writer, multi-disciplinary performer, educator, and witch with an MFA from University of New Orleans and a BA from Johns Hopkins University whose work explores the intersections between otherness and the otherworldly. A 2020 winner of the Baker Innovative Projects Grant for SIMAETHA: A DREAMBABY CABARET, Jake has work in journals including Slipstream, Taco Bell Quarterly, Baffling, Wussy Magazine, and more as well as anthologies by Mason Jar Press and Lycan Valley publications.
Dan Grossman
Dan Grossman, M.A. is a third year Medical/Clinical Psychology PhD student at UAB in the lab of Dr. Peter Hendricks, where he works on clinical trials of psychedelic therapy for a wide range of indications. Prior to doctoral training, Dan worked at Yale School of Medicine, the National Center for PTSD, and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), and took a gap year in 2017 to pursue Buddhist monastic training in northern Vermont. His clinical and research interests center on the nuances of trauma treatment with psychedelics.
Jonathan Wiesen
Dr. Jonathan Wiesen is Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is currently writing a book on U.S. anti-Black racism in the German imagination from 1918-1968. For 25 years he has taught classes on the Holocaust to university students.
Jared Margulies
Dr. Jared Margulies is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama. His research focuses on the political ecology of human-wildlife interactions, wildlife trades, and the politics of biodiversity conservation.
Timothy Levine
Timothy R, Levine is Distinguished Professor and Chair of Communication Studies at UAB. His research has been covered in media outlets such as the New York Times, National Geographic, and NPR. Malcolm Gladwell’s book Talking to Strangers is based on Levine’s work. Levine is the author of Duped: Truth-default Theory and the Social Science of Lying and Deception.
Luke William Hunt
Luke William Hunt is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama, where he teaches in the department's Jurisprudence Track. After graduating from law school, he was a law clerk for a federal judge in Virginia. He then worked as an FBI Special Agent in Virginia and Washington, D.C., followed by his doctoral work in philosophy at the University of Virginia.
Ali Parden
Ali Parden, MD, FACOG is double-board certified in Obstetrics and Gynecology and Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery. She currently practices at the Urology Centers of Alabama and has a decade of experience in female and male sexual health.
Tiffany Marcantonio
Tiffany Marcantonio, PhD is a Professor at the University of Alabama. Her research is focused on sexual assault prevention with an emphasis on sexual consent and alcohol use. She’s been working in the field of sexual violence prevention for nearly a decade.
Randy Law
Dr. Randy Law is Professor of History at Birmingham-Southern College. He is an internationally-recognized expert on the global history of terrorism and the author ofTerrorism: A History (2nd ed., Polity, 2016).
Joshua Buford
Joshua Burford is the Co-Founder & Director of Outreach & Lead Archivist for The Invisible History Project. He is an award-winning historian, archivist, and educator with over 20 years of experience creating stronger communities for Queer and Transgender people across the U.S.
Christopher Lynn
Dr. Christopher Lynn is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. He specializes in cultural impacts on health, with an emphasis an tattooing, immune function, and the South Pacific.
Maigen Sullivan
Maigen Sullivan, PhD is Co-Founder and Director of Research & Development for the Invisible Histories Project (IHP), a nonprofit working with institutions and communities to collect, preserve, research and make accessible the rich and diverse histories of the LGBTQ Deep South.
Will Hart
Dr. Will Hart is currently an Associate Professor in the psychology department of the University of Alabama. His research generally focuses on understanding the mechanics of malevolent personality constructs, like narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, but he also studies positive traits like authenticity and happiness in addition to person perception, attitudes, persuasion processes, and how people select goals. Will has over 100 publications on these topics, and his research has been featured in some of the top journals in psychology.
Joyce-Zoe Farley
Dr. Joyce-Zoe Farley is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Public History and African American Studies at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research on urban insurrection of the 20th century uses oral history to tell a counternarrative to the many metanarratives about urban rebellion and the city, explicitly the troupes and ideas of Black agency, performance, trauma, resistance, and survival.
Natalie Bennie
Natalie Bennie is a PhD candidate in Communication Arts & Sciences at Penn State University, as well as a political debate consultant. As a debate coach for both students and adults, she has developed debate education curriculum in 4 different countries, including for one year in Germany as a Fulbright grantee. Her academic research centers on public deliberation and argumentation in the context of monuments and memorials.
Sergio Fabi
Dr. Sergio Fabi is an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Alabama. His research on Theoretical Physics explores gravity, gauge theories, and non-commutative geometry. His work on Mathematical Physics: explores Category Theory and Lie groupoid. He earned his doctorate from the University of Alabama.
Margaret Peacock
Dr. Margaret Peacock is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama. She specializes in the history of media and propaganda, with an emphasis on Russia, the Middle East, and the Cold War.