Paul Polak is founder of Colorado-based nonprofit International Development Enterprises and author of Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail (2008). Contact through Carrie Barnes at ELISE Communications.

Jason DeParle is a senior writer at The New York Times and the author of American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare.

Jeffrey Sachs is one of the foremost experts on the economics of poverty. He is director of the Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and professor of health policy and management at Columbia University. He is also special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. From 2002-06, Sachs was director of the U.N. Millennium Project and special […]

Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Political Science at the City University of New York, is an expert on U.S. poverty and welfare policy and the author of several books.

Stephen Pimpare is a professor of american politics and public policy for the politics & society program and social work department at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of A People’s History of Poverty in America (2008) and The New Victorians: Poverty, Politics and Propaganda in Two Gilded Ages. He is working on a book titled A Celluloid […]

Lawrence M. Mead, a politics professor, teaches courses about welfare reform, politics and public policy at New York University. He co-authored Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty & Welfare Reform.

Guian McKee is an associate professor at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia whose expertise includes poverty and civil rights. He is the author of The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (2008) — which features a War on Poverty-funded job training program that developed out of an African-American church […]

David Ellwood, Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy at Harvard University and dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is a noted expert on poverty and welfare. He is an author who co-chaired President Clinton’s Working Group on Welfare Reform, Family Support and Independence.

Mary Jo Bane is Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management at Harvard University and co-coordinator of the Program on Religion and Public Life.  She is co-author of Lifting Up the Poor: A Dialogue on Religion, Poverty & Welfare Reform. A former assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, her […]