KPFA Creators & Guests

Simone Weichselbaum is a journalist who focuses on issues pertaining to federal law enforcement and local policing. She is also The Marshall Project’s co-chair of diversity & inclusion.Weichselbaum has spent more than 15 years reporting on a variety of urban criminal justice systems, previously working as a staff writer for the New York Daily News and the Philadelphia Daily News.Weichselbaum received a graduate degree in criminology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Darwin BondGraham is an ethnographer, historian, and journalist. Currently, he is the News Editor for The Oaklandside.Previously, BondGraham was an investigative reporter for The Appeal, covering police and prosecutorial misconduct. He has reported on gun violence for The Guardian, and was an enterprise reporter for the East Bay Express.BondGraham's work has also appeared with KQED, ProPublica and other outlets. He was the co-recipient of the 2017 George Polk Award for local reporting.BondGraham received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California Santa Barbara.

Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund and its educational program, The Palestine Center. He holds a PhD in History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His main area of research is Palestinian and Arab perceptions of the Zionist project and the Jewish question before 1948 and edited the book “Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire” (Haymarket, 2022). Jehad’s family continues to live in Gaza.

Bernice Yeung is an investigative journalist, currently working for ProPublica, where she covers labor and unemployment.Previously, Yeung reported for Reveal at the Center for Investigative Reporting.Yeung's first book, "In a Day's Work: The Fight to End Sexual Violence Against America's Most Vulnerable Workers," was published in 2018.Yeung received her B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University and her M.A. in Sociology with a focus on crime and justice from Fordham University.

Matthew Mahan is an American politician and tech entrepreneur.

Liam O’Donoghue is a journalist whose work focuses on the history of Oakland. He writes a monthly feature about the East Bay for SF Gate. He is the host and producer of the "East Bay Yesterday" podcast.O'Donoghue's work has appeared in KQED, Oaklandside, Berkeleyside, Mother Jones, Salon, East Bay Express, 99% Invisible, The Kitchen Sisters, and Snap Judgement.

Rashad Robinson is a civil rights leader. Currently, he is president of the nonprofit organization Color of Change.Prior to joining Color of Change, Robinson was a board member of RaceForward, Demos, State Voices, and the Hazen Foundation.Robinson became the president of Color Of Change in 2011. The organization's mission is to strengthen political and cultural power for Black communities in America. With CoC, he has expanded the organization's membership, organized a campaign to pull funding from the American Legislative Exchange Council, helped to protect the principle of net neutrality by pushing the FCC to reclassify broadband as a common carrier service, and pressured prosecutors to reduce the mass incarceration of black people, persuaded businesses like Mastercard and PayPal to stop accepting payments from white nationalist groups, and pressured business leaders to refrain from sitting on President Trump's Business Council.Prior to joining Color of Change, Robinson was Senior Director of Media Programs at GLAAD, where he led the organization's Right to Vote Campaign, and FairVote.Robinson has appeared on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and BET. He has a monthly column in US edition of The Guardian, and his work has appeared in New York Times, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, and USA Today.

Dr. Fatemeh Shams, also known as Shahrzad F. Shams, is a contemporary Persian poet, literary scholar and translator. Currently, she teaches Persian literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She is known for her poems and writings on political and socio-literary issues in Iran.Shams taught Persian literature and language at Oxford University, Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, and School of Oriental and African Studies in London, UK.Shams's poems have been translated into English, German, Arabic and Kurdish. Her first book, the collection, "88," was published in 2013. Her second collection, "writing in the Mist in London," was published in 2015. Her third collection, "When They Broke Down the Door," was published in 2016. Her non-fiction book, "A Revolution in Rhyme: Poetic Co-Option Under Islamic Republic," was published in 2021.Shams received her B.A. in Sociology from Tehran University and her Ph.D. in Oriental Studies from Oxford University.

Jeff Goodell is an American author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine. His writings are known for a focus on energy and environmental issues.

Dr. Julia Marcus is an infectious disease epidemiologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and Adjunct Faculty at The Fenway Institute.Dr. Marcus's research focuses on improving measures to reduce new HIV infections and promote sexual health. Her work on using harm reduction techniques for epidemics has appeared in The Atlantic.Dr. Marcus received her PhD in epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research.

Heather Vogell is an investigative reporter, currently working for ProPublica.Previously, Vogell was a reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she reported on education and suspect graduation rates, grade inflation, Georgia’s flawed student data system, and falsified test scores. Her collaborative work on the Atlanta cheating scandal won the 2012 Hillman Prize for Newspaper Journalism.Vogell received her degrees from Georgetown University and Columbia University.

Dr. Joel Beinin is a historian whose work focuses on the social history and political economy of modern Egypt, Palestine, and Israel, and on U.S. policy in the Middle East. Currently, he is Professor of History and professor of Middle East history at Stanford University.Previously, Beinin was a professor of history and director of Middle East studies at the American University in Cairo. He has written or edited twelve books.Beinin received his B.A. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University, his M.A. in Middle East Studies from Harvard University, and his M.A.L.S. in Library Science and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Michigan.

Jenny Odell is an artist, writer, and educator. She wrote the book named, "How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy."

May Jeong is an investigative reporter and magazine writer. She is best known for her investigation in to the MSF hospital bombing in Kunduz, Afghanistan for The Intercept, for which she won the 2017 South Asian Journalists Association’s Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Report on South Asia and the Prix Bayeux Calvados Award for War Correspondents in the Young Reporter category.Jeong's work has appeared in The Intercept, New York Times, London Review of Books, Harper’s, Financial Times, and In These Times.Jeong received her B.A. from the University of Toronto.

Dr. James Hamblin is an editor, physician, journalist, author, doctor, lecturer in public health at Yale University, and a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Hajar Yazdiha (born 1983) is an American sociologist focusing on the politics of inclusion and exclusion with regard to ethno-racial identities. She is the author of the 2023 book, The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Yazdiha was born in Berlin to refugees from Iran; she grew up in Northern Virginia and is on faculty at University of Southern California.

Dacher Keltner is a Professor of Psychology at University of California, Berkeley, where he directs the Berkeley Social Interaction Lab. He is also the founder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center and host of the podcast The Science of Happiness.

Peter Holley is a journalist. Currently, he is a Senior Editor at Texas Monthly.Previously, Holley was a report for The Washington Post. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Huffington Post, Newsday, NY Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Texas Monthly, the Houston Chronicle, and the San Antonio Express-News.Holley received his B.A. in Pre-Law Studies from American University and his M.A. in Journalism from Columbia University.

Phyllis Bennis is an American Jewish writer, activist, and political commentator. Focusing mainly on issues related to the Middle East and the United Nations, she is a strong critic of Israel and the United States and a leading advocate of Palestinian rights. She directs the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.