Freitas lectures at universities across the United States on her work about college students. Over the years, she has written for national newspapers and magazines, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and The Washington Post. She received her Ph.D. in Religion from Catholic University, and she’s currently a non-resident research associate at the Center for Religion and Society at Notre Dame. Freitas has been a professor at Boston University in the Department of Religion and also at Hofstra University in their Honors College. She has written children’s novels for Scholastic, Harper Collins, and FSG.

Professor Armando Fumagalli is Director of the Master’s program in Screenwriting, Fiction and Movies at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy, where he is also Extraordinary Professor of Semiotics. He has taught screenwriting for many years, including at the Italian National School of Cinema. He is the author of several books on communications, the media, and the relationship between literature, cinema and television. He is also a development consultant for the Lux video TV production company.

Jamel Gaines is the artistic director and founder of Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn. Gaines began dancing under the direction of Diane and Adrian Brown. His choreographic career began at Purchase University, where he received the Harry Bellefonte Scholarship graduating with a BFA. Under the tutelage of Kevin Iega Jeff and as a member of JUBILATION! Dance Company, Mr. Gaines developed his unique and nurturing approach to teaching and composing dance art.

Enrico Grugnetti is a Registered Nurse in Florida. He works in the Home Care Program for MCCI Group Holding taking care of elderly in their home setting. The main goal of his activity is to provide continuity of care for patients, as an intermediary between Primary Care Physicians, hospital and other medical and social care providers. The large majority of his patients are elderly who suffer from unstable chronic illnesses.

Grugnetti received his Nursing License in Italy in 1995. He worked for 7 years in the Cardiac-surgery department in Torino, Italy, as RN and as Head Nurse for a year. In 2002 he started his own activity in home care in Milan, Italy, first as a visiting nurse and then as a Nurse Manager. In 2008 he moved to the US, where he obtained RN Florida License.

Fr. Albert Holtz, OSB is a Benedictine monk of Newark Abbey, Newark, NJ. He teaches New Testament in the monastery's inner-city prep school. He has served as master of novices, retreat master for Benedictine communities around the U.S. & is currently Oblate Director. He is the author of Downtown Monks, Street Wisdom, Pilgrim Road, From Holidays to Holy Days & Walking in Valleys of Darkness: A Benedictine Journey through Troubled Times.

Annette Insdorf is Director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University, and a Professor in the Graduate Film Division of the School of the Arts (for which she was Chair from 1990-95).

Dr. Insdorf is the author of "Double Lives, Second Chances: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski" (which was recently re-issued by Northwestern University Press); "Francois Truffaut," a study of the French director's work; and the landmark study, "Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust." Her most recent book is "Philip Kaufman," which Leonard Maltin called "a thoughtful, scholarly study of one of America’s most underrated filmmakers." Her commentaries can be heard on many DVDs, and she has interviewed over one hundred film celebrities in her popular "Reel Pieces" series at Manhattan's 92nd Y.

Maria Teresa Landi, M.D., Ph.D. was trained in molecular epidemiology and clinical oncology. She is currently Senior Investigator at the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, MD. Her research focus on the genetic and environmental determinants of lung cancer and melanoma.She is currently exploring new approaches using high-throughput techniques and genome-wide association studies in the etiology of complex diseases *

* Dr. Landi will speak at New York Encounter in her personal capacity.

Raffaella Mariani grew up north of Milan, Italy. She has degrees in Classical Studies as well as Italian Literature. In 2009, Raffa, her husband, Andrea, along with their four children settled in Rochester, MN. 

Kenneth R. Miller is Professor of Biology at Brown University.  A cell biologist, he serves as an advisor on life sciences to The NewsHour, a daily PBS television program on news and public affairs, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  Miller is coauthor, with Joseph S. Levine, of a series of high school and college biology textbooks used by millions of students nationwide. In 2005 he served as lead witness in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial on evolution and intelligent design in Pennsylvania.

Jennifer Nedelsky, B.A. (Rochester) 1970, M.A. (Chicago) 1974, Ph.D. (Chicago), 1977. Prior to joining the University of Toronto, Professor Nedelsky was a Killam post-doctoral fellow at Dalhousie University (1977-79) and an  Assistant Professor of Politics at Princeton University (1979-1985). She was appointed Assistant Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of Toronto in 1986 and promoted to full Professor in 1995. In 1991 and 1994, she was Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. Professor Nedelsky's teaching and scholarship have been concentrated on Feminist Theory, Legal Theory, American Constitutional History and Interpretation, and Comparative Constitutionalism. In 2000 she was awarded the Bora Laskin National Fellowship In Human Rights Research. 

Martin A. Nowak is Professor of Biology and of Mathematics at Harvard University and Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He works on the mathematical theory of evolution including the evolution of cooperation and human language, the dynamics of virus infections and human cancer.

Photo Copyright Filip Malinowski & Carlo Pisani

Paolo Palamara is the founder and Co-President of Diamante Development Corporation, a real estate development company and general contractor in Ontario.  Mr. Palamara has studied Technology and Science of Construction in Pescara, Italy, and at the Faculty of Architecture in Pescara, Italy.

He has been self-employed in the construction industry for over 25 years as a contractor providing structural formwork for over 150 commercial and institutional projects in Canada, California, and Taiwan. As a real estate developer and builder, Mr. Palamara has completed a multitude of high rise condominium towers from land acquisition to design, rezoning, marketing and construction. 

Elizabeth Peralta is a graduate from Port Chester Senior High School in Westchester New York. She is currently in her last year studying History and English at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights.

Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts is the director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program and curator of anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History. Since joining the Smithsonian in 1985, Rick has dedicated his research to piecing together the record of Earth’s environmental change and human adaptation.  His ideas on how human evolution responded to environmental instability have stimulated wide attention and new research in several scientific fields.  Rick has developed international collaborations among scientists interested in the ecological aspects of human evolution.  He leads excavations at early human sites in the East African Rift Valley, including the famous handaxe site of Olorgesailie, Kenya, and Kanam near Lake Victoria, Kenya.  He also co-directs ongoing projects in southern and northern China that compare evidence of early human behavior and environments from eastern Africa to eastern Asia. 

Laurie Collins Quirk is the Chair of the English Department of Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C. Laurie Quirk has taught AP Literature and Composition since 2007.  She most happily describes herself as wife, mother, daughter, sister and friend. 

Kimberly Shankman is the Dean of the College at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS.  She received her PhD in Political Science from Northern Illinois University.  Subsequently she taught in the Politics and Government Department at Ripon College from 1985-2001, when she left to take her current position at Benedictine College. 

Her research interests are American political thought and constitutional law.  She is the author of Compromise and the Constitution: The Political Thought of Henry Clay.  Additionally, she has published articles relating to the privileges or immunities clause of the 14th amendment and other aspects of constitutional law.  Her recent scholarship focuses on the relationship between reason and public life, including a paper on “Truth and Democracy” presented at the University of the Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy and a talk on “Human Capital in Caritas in Veritate” at Columbia University in New York, “What the Catholic Church Demands of Those in Power” for the Crossroads Cultural Center in New York, and “Reason, Truth, and Democracy: Pope Benedict on Public Life” at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

Tim Shriver is a social leader, an educator, activist, film producer, and business entrepreneur. He is the Chairman of Special Olympics, and in that capacity he serves 4.4 million Special Olympics athletes and their families in 170 countries. He has helped transform Special Olympics into a movement that focuses on acceptance, inclusion, and respect for individuals with intellectual disabilities in all corners of the globe. 

Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. Smith's research focuses primarily on religion in modernity, adolescents, American evangelicalism, and culture. Smith received his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1990 and his BA from Gordon College in 1983. Smith was a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 12 years before his move to Notre Dame.

Archibald Spencer, Associate Professor in the John H. Pickford Chair in Theology at Northwest Baptist Seminary, Canada. 

At Associated Canadian Theological Schools (ACTS), Dr. Spencer is actively engaged in teaching, presentations, and thesis supervision in the fields of Systematic, Philosophical, Historical and Ecumenical Theology. He also teaches in the undergraduate department of Religious Studies at Trinity Western University where he is an associate faculty member as Associate Professor of Theology.

Dr. Spencer has developed an international reputation as a scholar, speaker and theologian; including Catholic circles where he has developed an ecumenical dialogue with the lay movement, Communion and Liberation, and the Italian Theologian, Luigi Giussani. He has spoken on theological themes in the UK, Ireland, Italy and all over North America, including institutions such as Trinity College, Dublin, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Seattle Pacific University, McGill University and many other places of learning.