WEric Alterman is an American historian, journalist, author, media critic, blogger and educator. He is a CUNY Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the author of eleven books. From 1995 to 2020, Alterman was "The Liberal Media" columnist for The Nation. He is now a contributing writer there, and at The American Prospect where he writes the "Altercation" newsletter.
WMelody C. Barnes is an American lawyer and political advisor. Formerly an aide and chief counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barnes later worked at the Center for American Progress, a think tank, before joining Senator Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. After Obama took office as president, Barnes was appointed director of the Domestic Policy Council, serving in that post from January 2009 to January 2012. After leaving the White House, Barnes assumed roles at the Aspen Institute and New York University. Since 2016, she has been at the University of Virginia, where she teaches law and is the Co-Director of the UVA Democracy Initiative.
WHeather Marie Boushey is an American economist. She is the president and CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has also worked as an economist at the Center for American Progress and the United States Congress Joint Economic Committee.
WPhilip J. "P.J." Crowley is the former United States Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, having been sworn into office on May 26, 2009. He resigned on March 13, 2011, following comments he made about the treatment of Chelsea Manning. Crowley was named the 2011-2012 recipient of the General Omar N. Bradley Chair in Strategic Leadership, a joint initiative among the United States Army War College, Dickinson College and the Pennsylvania State University – Dickinson School of Law. While in residence, Crowley conducted classes at the three institutions. He is currently teaching at George Washington University and is affiliated with the university's Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication.
WThomas Andrew Daschle is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a United States senator from South Dakota from 1987 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, he became U.S. Senate Minority Leader in 1995 and later the Majority Leader in 2001.
WRupert "Rudy" Frank de Leon Jr. is an American former senior Department of Defense official, military adviser, lobbyist, and foreign policy adviser. He served as the Deputy Secretary of Defense, described as the "second-highest civilian defense position", from March 31, 2000 until March 16, 2001, and before appointed as Deputy Secretary he had served as Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness from 1997 until 2000 and as Under Secretary of the Air Force from 1994 to 1997 in the administration of Bill Clinton.
WBrian Christopher Deese is an American economic and political advisor who is the 13th Director of the National Economic Council, serving under President Joe Biden. He also served as a senior advisor to President Barack Obama. Earlier in the Obama administration, Deese served as the deputy director and acting director of the Office of Management and Budget. Deese also served as deputy director of the National Economic Council. Deese served as the Global Head of Sustainable Investing at BlackRock.
WMaria Echaveste is a former U.S. presidential advisor to Bill Clinton and White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the second Clinton administration. She is one of the highest-ranking Latinas to have served in a presidential administration. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group, a policy, legislative strategy and advocacy group working with non-profit and corporate clients.
WMary Elizabeth Anania Edwards was an American attorney, author, and health care activist. She was married to John Edwards, the former U.S. Senator from North Carolina who was the 2004 United States Democratic vice-presidential nominee.
WEzekiel Jonathan "Zeke" Emanuel is an American oncologist, bioethicist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He is the current Vice Provost for Global Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy. Previously, Emanuel served as the Diane and Robert Levy University Professor at Penn. He holds a joint appointment at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School and was formerly an associate professor at the Harvard Medical School until 1998 when he joined the National Institutes of Health.
WChristy Goldfuss is an American government official who chaired the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) within the Executive Office of the President from 2015 to 2017. She served as Deputy Director of the National Park Service in the Obama administration. She also worked as a legislative staff member for the House Committee on Natural Resources and as a reporter.
WKate Gordon is an American lawyer, urban planner, non-profit advisor, and leader in the "green jobs" and climate risk movement. In 2019, she was appointed by Governor of California Gavin Newsom to lead the California Governor's Office of Planning and Research.
WAnthony Kapel "Van" Jones is an American news and political commentator, author, and lawyer. He is the co-founder of several non-profit organizations, a three-time New York Times bestselling author, a CNN host and contributor, and an Emmy Award winner.
WMark Albert Robert Kleiman was an American professor, author, and blogger who dealt with issues of drug and criminal justice policy. A professor of public policy at New York University, in 2015, Kleiman became the director of the Crime and Justice Program at NYU's Marron Institute of Urban Management. Kleiman was an expert in the field of crime and drug policy and authored several books in the field.
WDenis Richard McDonough is an American government official serving as the 11th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs under President Joe Biden since 2021.
WMatthew Miller is an American journalist, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a monthly columnist for Fortune, regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and The Atlantic Monthly, and author of The Two Percent Solution. He also appears regularly on CNN.
WJonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine.
WPhilip Dunton Murphy is an American financier, diplomat, and politician who has served as the 56th governor of New Jersey since January 2018. He succeeded Republican Chris Christie in the governorship. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2009 to 2013 under President Barack Obama.
WJohn David Podesta Jr. is an American political consultant who served as White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001 and Counselor to President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2015. Before that, he served in the Clinton Administration as White House Staff Secretary from 1993 to 1995 and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations from 1997 to 1998.
WJohn Prendergast is a human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as a New York Times best-selling author. He is the Co-Founder with George Clooney of The Sentry, an investigative and policy team that follows the dirty money connected to war criminals and transnational war profiteers. John is also the Strategic Director of the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
WSteven J. Ricchetti is an American political aide serving as a Counselor to the President under President Joe Biden. He was the chairman of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. Ricchetti previously served as Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden during the Obama administration and Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations under President Bill Clinton. In between stints in Democratic administrations, Ricchetti has worked as a lobbyist.
WJoseph J. Romm is an American author, editor, physicist and climate expert, who advocates reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming and increasing energy security through energy efficiency, green energy technologies and green transportation technologies. Romm is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2009, Rolling Stone magazine named Romm to its list of "100 People Who Are Changing America", and Time magazine named him one of its "Heroes of the Environment (2009)", calling him "The Web's most influential climate-change blogger".
WMichael Signer is an American attorney, author, and politician who served as mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia.
WAnna Deavere Smith is an American actress, playwright, and professor. She is known for her roles as National Security Advisor Dr. Nancy McNally in The West Wing (2000–06), hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in the Showtime series Nurse Jackie (2009–15), and as U.S. District Court Clerk Tina Krissman on the ABC show For the People (2018–19).
WEugene B. Sperling is an American economist who was director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He is the only person to serve as national economic advisor under two presidents. Outside of government, he founded the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution in 2002.
WPeter P. Swire is the Elizabeth and Tommy Holder Chair and Professor of Law and Ethics in the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is an internationally recognized expert in privacy law. Swire is also a senior fellow at the Future of Privacy Forum and a member of the National Academies of Science and Engineering Forum on Cyber Resilience. During the Clinton Administration, he became the first person to hold the position of Chief Counselor for Privacy in the Office of Management and Budget. In this role, he coordinated administration policy on privacy and data protection, including interfacing with privacy officials in foreign countries. He may be best known for shaping the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act Privacy Rule while serving as the Chief Counselor for Privacy. In November, 2012 he was named as co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), to attempt to mediate a global Do Not Track standard. In August 2013, President Obama named Swire as one of five members of the Director of National Intelligence Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.
WNeera Tanden is an American political consultant and government official who has been a senior advisor and staff secretary to President Joe Biden since 2021. Tanden previously served as president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal advocacy organization, where she worked in different capacities since its founding in 2003.
WLaura D'Andrea Tyson is an American economist and former Chair of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton Administration. She also served as Director of the National Economic Council. She is currently a professor at the Haas School of Business of the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior fellow at the Berggruen Institute.
WSarah Rosen Wartell is a public policy executive and housing markets expert who serves as president of the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan social and economic policy research institute in Washington D.C. She previously worked in the Federal Housing Administration and National Economic Council, and co-founded the Center for American Progress.
WMatthew Yglesias is an American blogger and journalist who writes about economics and politics. Yglesias has written columns and articles for publications such as The American Prospect, The Atlantic, and Slate. In November 2020, he left his position as an editor and columnist for the news website Vox, which he co-founded in 2014, to publish through Substack.