Bina Shah is a Karachi-based author of five novels and two collections of short stories. Her latest novel, Before She Sleeps, was published by Delphinium Books in August 2018. A regular contributor to The New York Times, Al Jazeera, The Huffington Post, and a frequent guest on the BBC, she has contributed essays and op-eds to Granta, The Independent, and The Guardian, and writes a regular op-ed column for Dawn, Pakistan’s biggest English-language newspaper. Sheworks on issues of women’s rights and female empowerment in Pakistan and across Muslim countries. In 2020 she was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des arts et des lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. On Twitter: @BinaShah.

Lisa Goldman has been a journalist and editor for 20 years. She worked in the Middle East for more than a decade, starting out as a news editor at Haaretz newspaper and then moving on to reporting for international media outlets. She is a member of the team that co-founded +972 Magazine, now the leading English-language media platform in Israel-Palestine. Lisa is also a former fellow with the International Security Program at New America, the Washington, D.C. think tank. She lives in Montreal. Follow her on Twitter @lisang.

Terrell Jermaine Starr is the senior reporter at The Root, where he writes about U.S.-Russia politics and race in America. He is a former Fulbright fellow in Ukraine, and a Peace Corps volunteer in Georgia. He lived in the former Soviet Union for four years and has been a reporter for 10 years.

Starr holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Illinois: one in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, and the other in journalism. 

Jeffrey Yoskowitz is a writer and food entrepreneur. His articles on food, culture, and the environment have been published by the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Gastronomica. As a co-owner of The Gefilteria, he travels the globe speaking, cooking, and teaching about reclaiming heritage foods. Yoskowitz co-authored The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods (Flatiron Books); it was a 2016 finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.  He will begin teaching culinary anthropology at The City College of New York in the fall. He fell in love with compost when working as a fellow and a pickle apprentice at Adamah Farm in Connecticut. Jeffrey has cooked as a guest chef at the James Beard House kitchen and was named to the Forbes Magazine 30 under 30 list for Food and Wine. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @JeffYosko

Hadeel al-Shalchi is a digital journalist and former foreign correspondent. She worked as a radio reporter, producer, and news reader for the CBC in Ottawa before becoming a Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, covering the Arab Spring from Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya. In 2012, she joined Reuters as its first Libya correspondent. Hadeel also reported on the war in Syria from Aleppo. She is fluent in Arabic. At Studio 20, she has focused on data journalism and podcasting.

Rokhl Kafrissen is a playwright and journalist in New York City. Her bylines include The Forward, Haaretz and Lilith. Her Rokhl’s Golden City column appears twice a month in Tablet and covers the world of new Yiddish arts and culture. Follow her on Twitter @RokhlK

Tania Hary is the executive director of Gisha, an Israeli NGO founded in 2005, whose goal is to protect the freedom of movement of Palestinians, especially Gaza residents. Follow her on Twitter @tanihary

Anna Lind-Guzik is Executive Director and founder of The Conversationalist. She is a writer, attorney and scholar of Soviet history, authoritarianism, feminism and human rights. She hosts the weekly podcast “Unbreaking Media” which examines politics and culture through an intersectional feminist lens. Follow her on Twitter @alindguzik.