Advisory Board
Frans de Waal, World’s Leading Expert on Primate Psychology, New York Times Best-Selling Author
Dr. Frans B. M. de Waal is a biologist and primatologist known for his work on the behavior and social intelligence of primates. His first book, Chimpanzee Politics (1982), compared the schmoozing and scheming of chimpanzees involved in power struggles with that of human politicians. Ever since, de Waal has drawn parallels between primate and human behavior, from peacemaking and morality to culture. His scientific work has been published in hundreds of technical articles in journals such as Science, Nature, Scientific American, and outlets specialized in animal behavior. His popular books – translated into fifteen languages – have made him one of the world’s most visible primatologists. His latest books are Our Inner Ape (2005, Riverhead) and The Age of Empathy (2009, Harmony).
De Waal is C. H. Candler Professor in the Psychology Department of Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Center, in Atlanta. He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (US), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 2007, he was selected by Time as one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People Today, and in 2011 by Discover as among 47 (all time) Great Minds of Science.
Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Distinguished University Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management
Benn R. Konsynski arrived at Goizueta Business School following six years on the faculty at the Harvard Business School where he taught in the MBA program and several executive programs. Prior to arriving at HBS, he was a professor at the University of Arizona where he was a co-founder of the university’s multi-million dollar group decision support laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University.
He has published in such diverse journals as Communications of the ACM, Harvard Business Review, IEEE Transactions on Communications, MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, Data Communications, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, Information Systems, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.
Michael Elliott, Winship Distinguished Professor of English
Michael A. Elliott (B.A., Amherst, 1992; Ph.D., Columbia, 1998) specializes in the literature and culture of the United States from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century, with particular emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to American cultures and the place of Native Americans in the United States. His undergraduate teaching runs from courses in the nineteenth-century novel to twentieth-century cultural theory. Elliott’s most recent research and graduate teaching revolves around questions of historical representation in the public spaces of the United States.
Samiran (Shomu) Banerjee, Professor of Economics
Samiran (Shomu) Banerjee is a professor of economics at Emory University who specializes in applied microeconomic theory, industrial organization, and experimental and environmental economics. He is a distinguished lecturer and has a number of publications devoted to his study of economics, including “A Simplified Test for Preference Rationality of Two-Commodity Choice,” and “The Scope Test Revisited,” both with J. Murphy, and other articles and entries in journals and publications relating to applied economics.
Noëlle McAfee, Professor of Philosophy
Noëlle McAfee is a professor of philosophy at Emory who specializes in democratic theory and practice, transitional justice, feminist philosophy, contemporary European thought, and American pragmatism. She is the principle investigator for a project with the Kettering Foundation on media and democracy and the associate editor of the Kettering Review, a journal of political thought. As a philosopher committed to making the humanities more engaged with public life, McAfee works widely with communities of scholars, deliberative practitioners, new media leaders, and journalists throughout the world.
Her latest book, Democracy and the Political Unconscious (Columbia University Press, 2008), charts a course for democratic practice in a world sorely needing transformation. It explores the potential of deliberative dialogue and other public testimonies to work through the traumas of oppression, terror, and brutality that keep political communities from developing spaces and practices through which all can help shape their common world. Her other writings include Habermas, Kristeva, and Citizenship (Cornell University Press), Julia Kristeva (Routledge), and Standing with the Public: the Humanities and Democratic Practice (Kettering Foundation Press).
