Edik Baghdasaryan is head of the Yerevan-based "Investigative Journalists NGO" and Editor-in-chief of Hetq Online . He also lectures on investigative journalism at Yerevan State University. Mr. Baghdasaryan is one of the most active investigative journalists in Armenia today, having covered a range of issues including corruption, human trafficking, and illegal deforestation.

Peter Balakian is the author of many books including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response which won the 2005 Raphael Lemkin Prize. He is Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor of Humanities at Colgate University, where he has directed the Peace and Conflict Studies Program and was the first Director of Colgate's Center forEthics and World Societies.

Halil Berktay is Associate Professor of History, at Sabanci University (Istanbul, Turkey); until recently also Program Coordinator for both History and Turkish Studies; currently on research leave and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle East Studies at Harvard. BA-MA Economics (Yale '68); PhD History (Birmingham, UK '91). A founding member of the History Foundation of Turkey, as well as of the Turkish branch of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly. A member of the editorial advisory boards of (formerly) the Journal of Peasant Studies and (now) the Journal of Agrarian Change , as well as, until recently, of the Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies . Also a member and vice-chairperson of the History Education Committee of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe (Thessaloniki), as well as a member of the advisory board of Pasts, Inc Centre for Historical Studies at CEU (Budapest). Doctoral focus was on the self-particularisations of 20th century Turkish nationalist historians, especially over the "non-feudal nature," so-called, of the Ottoman social formation. Broader research interests over the last decade have come to cover : the initial construction of Turkish national memory in the early 20th century; the Young Turks' and the Kemalist revolutions in comparative perspective; the role of ethnic cleansings, atrocities and genocides in revolutions and nation-building; the construction of national forgetting, self-exoneration or denial (with special emphasis on the Armenian genocide of 1915). Other recent work includes : comparative studies and critiques of nationalist textbooks and history education, as well as attempts to create alternative textbooks and teachers' resource files, both for Turkey and Southeast Europe. Publications : three large and two smaller books, two edited books, plus numerous articles (including some in English, German and Hungarian as well as many in Turkish).    

Robert Kalantari is an electrical engineer with over 25 years of involvement with the nuclear power industry.   As the Engineering Manager at a Framingham-based consulting company (EPM), he has been responsible for implementation of many projects involved with safety analysis and safety inspection of nuclear power plants throughout the world. He has assisted the nuclear industry in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, and Korea.   Mr. Kalantari was a Consultant to the U.S. Department of Energy for preparation of Reactor Core Protection Evaluation Methodology for Fires at RBMK and VVER (Soviet-designed) nuclear power plants. He has been involved with safe shutdown analysis and inspection of over 50 nuclear power plants throughout the world.   In November of 2003 Mr. Kalantari participated in a two-week mission with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the inspection of Armenia's Medzamor Nuclear Power Plant.

Dikran Kaligian is the chairman of the Armenian National Committee-Eastern US and Associate Editor of the Armenian Review . He has taught history at Westfield State and Wheaton Colleges in Massachusetts. He received his doctorate from Boston College where his dissertation was entitled "The Armenian Revolutionary Federation under Ottoman Constitutional Rule, 1908-1914."

Antranig Kasbarian serves as a Program Director for the New York-based Tufenkian Foundation. His work focuses on Nagorno-Karabagh, involving small business development, social and economic recovery, and the resettlement of strategic border areas. He holds a PhD in Geography from Rutgers University. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the geography of nationalism during the 1988-1994 war in Karabagh, based largely on his own experiences on the ground. He is a former editor of The Armenian Weekly, and currently serves on   the Board of the Armenian National Committee-Eastern United States. He also chairs the "Armenians and the Left" organizing committee.

Ursula Kazarian is founding Director of the Armenian Environmental Network (AEN).   She first visited Armenia in 2001 to study and live, and in 2003-2004 served as Project Developer in the Tbilisi office of the Caucasus Environmental NGO Network (CENN), and later as the CENN Armenia Country Director in Yerevan.   During this time, she worked with local and international organizations to increase public awareness on urgent environmental issues pertaining to public health, human rights, and democracy-building.   Ursula also has several years of experience in the U.S. working for water utility conservation programs and in environmental consulting on federal energy programs. She earned her B.A. in International Affairs (concentrating in International Environmental Resources) from George Washington University.   She holds a dual M.A. in International Relations and Natural Resources & Sustainable Development from American University and the United Nations University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica.   Ursula is currently a dual J.D./L.L.B. student at American University and Alfonso X El Sabio in Madrid, Spain.

Stephen Kurkjian has been an investigative reporter with the Boston Globe for more than 38 years. Among his more than 25 regional and national awards, he has shared in the winning of the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting on two occasions for The Globe and the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. He recently returned from a two-week reporting trip to Istanbul where he sought to reconstruct the assassination of AGOS editor Hrant Dink and analyze the credibility of the on-going investigation.

Khatchig Mouradian is a journalist, writer and translator. He has a B.S. in Biology and is currently working on his MA thesis in Clinical Psychology. He was an editor of the Lebanese-Armenian Aztag Daily from 2000 to September 2006, when he moved to Boston and became the editor of the Armenian Weekly. His articles, interviews and poems have appeared in a large number of publications in both Armenia and the Diaspora. Many of his writings have been translated into more than 10 languages. He also contributes to a number of U.S. and European publications. He has lectured extensively and participated in conferences in Armenia, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Syria, Austria and the U.S.

Jeff Masarjian is Executive Director of the Armenia Tree Project   (ATP)--a position he has held since 2001. In this work, he has merged his professional life with his personal commitment to the environment and to the people of Armenia.   Prior to ATP, Jeff has pursued a career in clinical social work, family treatment, and organizational management in the non-profit sector.   He founded, and for 13 years directed, a specialized foster care program for children at risk.   In addition to having a private practice as a licensed social worker, he taught a course in community services administration at the University of Massachusetts for 10 years

Anne Shirinian-Orlando was born in Yerevan and came to the US in 1971. She attended the University of Pennsylvania, then Drexel University, where she received an MS in Engineering. She later earned her Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. She continues to do environmental research at Rutgers University. For over 17 years, she has been volunteering for environmental issues in Armenia, mainly for the Greens Union of Armenia (GUA). As part of the GUA effort, she has campaigned for replacing Armenia's Medzmor nuclear power plant with sources of alternative energy, and remains a vociferous critic of polluting industries and environmental degradation caused by anthropogenic activities.

Henry Theriault is Associate Professor of philosophy and coordinates the Center for the Study of Human Rights at Worcester State College ( Massachusetts , USA ). He received his B.A. from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts . His research interests include genocide denial, mass violence against women, and long-term justice for genocide and other mass human rights violations. His publications include "An Analytical Typology of Arguments Denying Genocides and Related Mass Human Rights Violations" (Comparative Genocide Studies [University of Tokyo] Volume 1, 2004), "Free Speech and Denial: The Armenian Case," in Facing Backward, Moving Forward:   Confronting the Armenian Genocide (ed. Richard Hovannisian, Transaction Press, 2003), and "Universal Social Theory and Genocide Denial" (Journal of Genocide Research, June 2001; reprinted in Defining the Horrific:   Readings on Genocide and Holocaust in the Twentieth Century, ed. William L. Hewitt [Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004]).  

Gayane Torosyan
Born in Yerevan, Gayane Torosyan graduated from Yerevan State University with a degree in mathematics. In 1995, she won a two-year graduate fellowship to complete a Masters degree at the University of Iowa School of Journalism. After a brief stint in Armenia, she returned to Iowa in 1998 and obtained her Ph.D. in journalism in 2003. Combining academic work with professional journalism, Torosyan has also worked as a reporter and program host at NPR's affiliate radio station in Iowa City for almost ten years. In August 2005 she joined the faculty of the State University of New York-Oneonta as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Arts. Her academic interests include international media and broadcast journalism.

Jeffrey Tufenkian is President of the Yerevan-based Armenian Forests NGO. He has eighteen years of advocacy experience in the US on a variety of issues including environmental protection, human rights, public health, and consumer protection. He holds a BA degree in humanities and his work has included organizing students, developing policy, media advocacy, lobbying, fundraising, candidate campaign management, and nonprofit management. Mr. Tufenkian first came to Armenia in 2002 to explore then initiate the forest campaign, which eventually became Armenian Forests NGO. He is also co-founder of the Kanach Foundation, through which he co-authored the first adventure sport book of independent Armenia, entitled Adventure Armenia: Hiking and Rock Climbing.