Kazu Haga

Opening Virtual Keynote

Kazu Haga is a trainer and practitioner of nonviolence and restorative justice, a core member of the Fierce Vulnerability Network, a founding core member of the Ahimsa Collective, a Jam facilitator and author of Healing Resistance: A Radically Different Response to Harm and Fierce Vulnerability: Healing from Trauma, Emerging through Collapse. He works with incarcerated people, youth, and activists from around the country. He has over 25 years of experience in nonviolence and social change work. He is a resident of the Canticle Farm community on Lisjan Ohlone land, Oakland, CA, where he lives with his family. You can find out more about his work at www.kazuhaga.com.

kristy kumar

Host for Opening Virtual Keynote

kristy kumar (she, her, hers) is the City of Madison’s inaugural Equity and Social Justice Manager. kumar and her team oversee the Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiative, Disability Rights and Services, Neighborhood Resource Teams, and Language Access. kumar provides leadership and strategic guidance to the Mayor, legislators, and all City departments in normalizing intersectional equity, organizing staff to work together for transformational change, and operationalizing new practices, policies, and procedures that help everyone experience wellbeing. Previously she worked at Brown University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Malaysia. She has a background in anti-human trafficking efforts, youth-organizing, interpersonal violence prevention, and community care. kumar received her M.A. in Human Rights focusing on race, gender, and equity from the University of Denver and a B.A. in Political Science and Global Poverty and Practices from the University of California, Berkeley. She’s a proud first-generation immigrant whose passions include daydreaming about her next meal and who she can share it with and enjoying nature with her partner, two kids, and dog.

Khury Petersen-Smith

Contributor for Closing Generative Dialogue

Khury Petersen-Smith is the Michael Ratner Middle East Fellow and the Co-Director of the New Internationalism Project at IPS. He researches U.S. empire, borders, and migration and strategizes with activists to work against the violence that the U.S. carries out and supports around the world. Khury focuses especially on U.S. militarism in the Middle East and in the Pacific, and movements that resist it. He graduated from the Clark University Graduate School of Geography in Massachusetts, after completing a dissertation on U.S. military bases in the Pacific. He is one of the co-authors and organizers of the 2023 Black Voices for Ceasefire statement, which was signed by over 6,000 Black activists, artists, and scholars.

Silky Shah

Contributor for Closing Generative Dialogue

Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to end immigrant detention in the United States, and the author of Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024). Originally from Texas, she began fighting the expansion of immigrant jails on the US-Mexico border in the aftermath of 9/11 and has been working as an organizer on issues related to racial and migrant justice for over two decades. Her writing on immigration policy and organizing has been published in Teen Vogue, The Nation, Truthout, Inquest, and The Forge and she has appeared in numerous national and local media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC.

Ray Broad

Host for Closing Generative Dialogue

Ray Broad is a student and facilitator beginning their time in UW-Madison’s Human Ecology MS program. Prior to this, Ray was an undergraduate at Beloit College with majors in Critical Identity Studies, Psychology, and Worldbuilding- a self-designed major- with a minor in Education and Youth Studies. They have used their time in education to design and teach their own course, Speculative Activism, which now exists under the name “Intro to Worldbuilding” within the now-available Worldbuilding major. As they exit their undergraduate and enter the world beyond it, they aim to expand their knowledge from academic to community-based.

Ejeris Dixon

Contributor for Closing Generative Dialogue

Ejeris Dixon (they/she) is an organizer, writer, and strategist with 25 years of experience leading organizations within racial justice, LGBTQ, anti-violence, prison and police abolition, and economic justice movements. They are the Founding Director of Ejerie Labs where they focus on political education, supporting organizers, and building movement strategy towards creating transformative futures and curtailing rising fascism. Ejeris was the Founding Executive Director of Vision Change Win Consulting until 2024, where they focused on creating organizational development, community safety, and security practices for social justice organizations. Ejeris serves as the host of the Fascism Barometer, a podcast and learning hub that discusses fascism’s rise in the United States, and how to organize against it. Ejeris is also the co-editor of Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha, which became a finalist for the Lambda Literary award in LGBTQ Anthology. Ejeris is also a co-founder of the Progressive Safety Alliance, a national network of leftist security providers working to educate and support social justice organizations through security and safety threats. Over the past twenty-five years Ejeris has directly worked on thousands of incidents of violence and directly organized around more than a hundred murders of Queer and Trans People of Color. Ejeris's writing, analysis, and advocacy have been featured in Truthout Magazine, Rolling Stone, Huffington Post, SPIN Magazine, the New York Times, The New Yorker, NBC, CNN, Ms. Magazine, and The Nation.

Libby Tucci (she/her)

Director of Learning & Movement Building at YWCA Madison

Libby Tucci (she/her) has been dedicated to social justice in one form or another for most of her life. She is currently the Director of Learning & Movement Building at YWCA Madison, and has been with the YWCA for almost 16 years. Libby’s work (for 10 years at the beginning of her “professional” life) in the field of supporting survivors of domestic violence in varying moments of their journeys led her to become further connected and committed to the exploration of healing from the violence of white supremacy and patriarchy. She is passionate about working to dismantle white supremacy in all of its manifestations—inside of her, in the ways that she shows up in the world, and in our collective culture and structures. She believes that, not only can we all heal from the violence of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism, but we can also nurture more liberated, interconnected, and compassionate ways of existing together. We can take good care of each other and build a culture in which we can celebrate the beauty of our shared humanity. In addition to this healing work, Libby is into foraging, cooking, learning how to make medicine out of plants, gathering Beloveds for good food and vibes, watching comedy, and moving through the seasons with familiarity and presence with our more-than-human kin.