Advisory Board

Jan C Ralph

Jan Ralph is the founding partner of Ephemera Environmental Design, SI. He has worked for over a quarter-century at the United Nations. Most recently, he served as Chief, Communications Services Section, UN Department of Public Information, holding this position for over five years. Prior to that, for almost ten years Mr. Ralph was Senior Information Officer, UN Department of Public Information and Chief, Photography Exhibits Section, Radio and Visual Services, UN Department of Public Information. His background and education include the New York Institute for Photography, New School for Social Research, Pratt Institute, and Columbia University. Concurrently, during his tenure at the United Nations Mr. Ralph served for 17 years as Secretary, United Nations Exhibits Committee. Prior to that he served as Member, UN Stamp and Metal Design Committee; Member, Board of Directors International Photographic Council (IPC). Mr. Ralph served from 1984—2000 as Technical Coordinator/Technical Director for the Joint UN Information Committee and United Nations Pavilion Executive Producer and Technical Director for JUNIC including: The New Millennium Expo, 2000, Hanover, Germany Expo 1998, Lisbon, Portugal World Cities Expo, 1995, Tokyo, Japan Expo 1993, Taejon, Republic of Korea Expo 1992, Genoa, Italy Expo 1990, Osaka, Japan As a writer, editor and producer, his credits include: Visions—Fifty Years of the United Nations.

Paul Root Wolpe 

Paul Wolpe is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Bioethics, Raymond Schinazi Distinguished Research Professor of Jewish Bioethics, Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, Neuroscience and Biological Behavior, and Sociology, and the Director of the Center for Ethics at Emory University. Dr. Wolpe also serves as the Senior Bioethicist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He is Co-Editor of the American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), the premier scholarly journal in bioethics, and Editor-in-Chief of AJOB-Neuroscience, and sits on the editorial boards of over a dozen professional journals in medicine and ethics. Dr. Wolpe is a past President of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the country’s oldest medical society. Dr. Wolpe is the author of over 125 articles, editorials, and book chapters in sociology, medicine, and bioethics, and has contributed to a variety of encyclopedias of bioethical issues. A futurist interested in social dynamics, Dr. Wolpe’s work focuses on the social, religious, ethical, and ideological impact of technology on the human condition. His teaching and publications range across multiple fields of bioethics and sociology, including death and dying, genetics and eugenics, sexuality and gender, mental health and illness, alternative medicine, and bioethics in extreme environments such as space. A leader in the field of Jewish bioethics, Dr. Wolpe is a founder of the Academic Coalition for Jewish Bioethics and the Society for Jewish Ethics, and sits on a number of Boards and Advisory groups of Jewish Organizations. He co-authored the guide to Jewish end-of-life issues, Behoref Hayamin: In the Winter of Life. Dr. Wolpe sits on a number of national and international non-profit organizational boards and working groups, and is a consultant to academic institutions and the biomedical industry. In July 2010, he testified to the President’s Commission on the Study of Bioethical Issues in Washington, DC on ethical issues in biotechnology. A dynamic and popular speaker internationally, Dr. Wolpe has been chosen by The Teaching Company as a “Superstar Teacher of America” and his courses are distributed internationally on audio and videotape. He is also a frequent contributor and commentator in both the broadcast and print media, most recently being featured on 60 minutes and with a personal profile in the Science Times of the New York Times.   Understanding the United Nations Waging Peace—a video documentary on the career of Boutros Boutros Ghali, UN Secretary-General. He is currently working on the revision of Understanding the United Nations, the official United Nations guidebook and United National Pictorial Book and is Technical Consultant Chesterfield County, Virginia on a project to develop a History of Flight at the Science Discovery Learning Center, entitled QUEST! Explore the Human Experience!  

Lucas Richman

Lucas has served as Music Director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra since 2003 and as Music Director and Conductor for the Bangor Symphony Orchestra since 2010. His command of the core repertoire, coupled with his finesse in presenting new and contemporary works, continues to illustrate Mr. Richman as a source of musical expertise and artistic excellence. The Knoxville News-Sentinel recently wrote, “Whatever the source of inspiration was, in what is approaching three decades of writing about the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, I have not heard a better total concert than the extraordinary program the KSO played Thursday night at the Tennessee Theatre…All due credit, of course, goes to maestro Lucas Richman for elevating the orchestra to new levels. It is his leadership that has made a concert of this quality possible.”

Mr. Richman received a GRAMMY Award (2011) in the category of Best Classical Crossover Album for having conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on Christopher Tin’s classical/world fusion album, Calling All Dawns. He has appeared as guest conductor with numerous orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Russian National Orchestra, the SWR Radio Orchestra of Kaiserslautern (Germany) and the Zagreb Philharmonic (Croatia). M° Richman served as Assistant and Resident Conductor for Mariss Jansons and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra between 1998-2004 and, from 1988 to 1991, he was the Assistant Conductor for the Pacific Symphony Orchestra. In recent years, he has collaborated with notable soloists such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Garrick Ohlsson, Lang Lang, Midori, Gil Shaham, Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Frank Peter Zimmerman, Mark O’Connor, Andre Watts and Radu Lupu.

Mr. Richman and the Knoxville Symphony were the recipients of the 2006 Bank of America Award for Excellence in Orchestra Education. The KSO “Music and Wellness Program” was recognized for its partnership with community organizations to extend the healing power of music, including its collaboration with Komen Knoxville which provided a grant for the KSO to record his song for breast-cancer awareness, We Share A Bond. In addition, Broadcast Music Inc., in recognition of the workshop he has run for fourteen years on conducting for film, presented him with their Classic Contribution Award at the annual BMI Film and Television Awards Gala in 2007.

Maureen Eke

Maureen Eke is  a distinguished Professor of Literature at Central Michigan University.