Speakers

Jeremiah “Jay” W. Nixon is a former state senator, four-term attorney general, and two-term governor who received national recognition as a strong fiscal manager, bringing people together and leading the state through difficult economic times and devastating natural disasters. He balanced Missouri's budget every year without raising taxes and made smart and historic investments in education, health care, and economic development. He also was praised for his appointment of more than 150 centrist bipartisan judges.

Internationally, Nixon led 14 foreign trade missions to countries in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Central America, and South America. He is also a nationally recognized appellate advocate. During his four terms as Missouri's attorney general, Nixon briefed and argued cases at all levels of state and federal courts of appeals across the country. He personally argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including the landmark Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, which reinstated Missouri's campaign contribution limits. He was also three times awarded U.S. Supreme Court Best Brief by the National Association of Attorneys General.

Today, Nixon continues his appellate advocacy in private practice with Dowd Bennett in St. Louis. His appellate arguments have earned unanimous favorable decisions from both Missouri Court of Appeals and the Missouri Supreme Court. His long track record of appellate success is attributable to his unique understanding of legislative and executive functions and his ability to synthesize and simplify the issues before the court. As Missouri's chief legal and law enforcement officer, Nixon developed a reputation for rooting out corruption, fighting crime and protecting consumers. In that role, he led an investigation into the acquisition of nonprofit Health Midwest hospital system by for-profit HCA that resulted in more than $1 billion being used to establish and fund two healthcare foundations in Missouri.

Nixon is also actively involved in Dowd Bennett's pro bono work and helps train the firm's more junior litigators. An avid outdoorsman, he is the 2015 recipient of the Sheldon Coleman Great Outdoors Award for his commitment to conservation and the outdoor economy. Additionally, Nixon is a dedicated supporter of strengthening access to mental health services.

Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer, Class of 1989, was appointed to the Missouri Court of Appeals, Western District, in May 2009, and served as the Chief Judge from 2016 to 2018.

Pfeiffer began his legal career in January 1992 with the law firm of Farrington & Curtis in Springfield, Missouri. In 1995, he moved back to his home town of Columbia, Missouri, where he and his law partner of 14 years, Wally Bley, formed the law firm of Bley & Pfeiffer, P.C. At both law firms, Pfeiffer specialized as a trial and appellate attorney in civil litigation.

Pfeiffer is active in the Missouri Bar Association, Boone County Bar Association, and Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association. He has also served as adjunct faculty (2010-2025) at �㽶��Ƶ. He is a judicial fellow of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, president (2023-2024) of the Council of Chief Judges of State Courts of Appeal, chair (2020-2025) of the Missouri Appellate Court Education Committee, and member of The Crossing Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

Dr. Troy D. Abel is an award-winning author, teacher, and professor of environmental policy in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning and affiliate faculty member of political science at Western Washington University. He also is an affiliate faculty member of Seattle University’s Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainability. Abel received a bachelor’s degree in public health from Indiana University, and from George Mason University he earned a master’s degree in public administration and Ph.D. in public policy. His expertise includes environmental justice, public policy, political science, sociology, and geography. He received Western Washington University’s 2017 social justice teaching award, was co-recipient of the 2012 Lynton Keith Caldwell Prize for the best book on environmental politics, and received the 1994 Joseph L. Fisher dissertation research award from George Mason University.

Gloria Ladson-Billings is a professor emerita and former Kellner Distinguished Professor of Urban Education at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is the immediate past president of the National Academy of Education and a past American Educational Research Association (AERA) president. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the British Academy, and the Hagler Institute at Texas A&M. Ladson-Billings researches effective teaching for African American students and applications of critical race theory to education. She authored The Dreamkeepers, Crossing Over to Canaan, and Beyond the Big House; edited nine books; and published 100+ articles. Her many honors include the Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship, Palmer O. Johnson Award, AERA Social Justice Award, Brock International Prize in Education, four honorary degrees, and the 2023 Professor A. Noam Chomsky North Star Lifetime Achievement Award. She holds honorary degrees from Morgan State University, the University of Alicante (Spain), the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and Umeå University (Sweden).

Paisley Currah teaches political science and gender studies at City University of New York. His prize-winning 2022 book, Sex is as Sex Does: Governing Transgender Identity, reveals the hidden logics that have governed sex-classification policies in the United States. Currah’s new book project, Legislating Gender, situates the current wave of anti-trans legislation within a longer history of the regulation of gender. His work has appeared in The Boston Review, N+1, Nature, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, and The Yale Review. From 2024 to 2025, Currah was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

Virginia Eubanks is a longform investigative reporter, essayist, memoirist, and associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY. She is the author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. Her investigative reporting and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, The Nation, Harper’s, and Wired. She is currently at work on a memoir about community violence, PTSD, and caregiving as well as a collection of oral histories of the global automated welfare state. When not sleeping in her truck in the Adirondacks, she lives in Troy, New York.

As an undergrad, Dr. Mannie Liscum struggled to shine, earning a solid C average in his time at SUNY-Plattsburgh. One mentor in his Ph.D. program at The Ohio State University, who had faced similar struggles, took a chance on him. From OSU, Mannie moved to the Carnegie Institution of Washington at Stanford University for a postdoc, then joined the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1996. In nearly 30 years at Mizzou, he has taught a wide range of courses — from Introductory Biology to Plant Physiology, Honors Eugenics, Developmental Biology, and Desert Agriculture — while mentoring 14 Ph.D. students, six postdocs, and more than 50 undergraduates. His research has focused on light-regulated plant growth and development, especially phototropism, and in recent years has expanded to the history of eugenics and the persistence of prejudice, particularly antisemitism. A published military historian, Liscum also values work-life balance: spending time with family, traveling, attending concerts, watching movies, reading, carving pumpkins in October, and learning Hebrew, which is a struggle for his non-language brain!

Sean O’Brien is the University of Missouri Board of Curators Distinguished Teaching Professor at UMKC School of Law, where he has taught criminal law and procedure since 2005. He also serves as Habeas Assistance and Training Counsel for the Eighth Circuit and has represented people in death penalty cases nationwide since 1983. O’Brien has qualified as an expert witness on capital defense standards in courts across the United States and argued Supreme Court cases, including Schlup v. Delo, which established the “actual innocence” standard in habeas proceedings, and Stewart v. Martinez-Villareal, which empowered courts to block execution of insane prisoners. He directed the research and writing of the Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams in Death Penalty Cases and publishes and lectures nationally on death penalty, indigent defense, and mental-health issues. O’Brien has served as Jackson County public defender, executive director of the Missouri Capital Punishment Resource Center, chair of the MoBar Criminal Law Committee, and president of the Missouri Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has been recognized for decades of work freeing the innocent and preventing unjust executions, most recently securing the exoneration of Sandra Hemme after 43 years in prison — the longest-serving exonerated woman in U.S. history. O’Brien’s honors include the Spurgeon Smithson Award, KCMBA Lifetime Achievement Award, Missouri Lawyer’s Weekly Lawyer of the Year, and 2023 UMKC Alumnus of the Year, along with multiple state and national awards for advocacy on behalf of the poor.

Hassaan Sipra, Class of 2010, is a former consultant and senior researcher from COMSATS University Islamabad, Pakistan. He has worked in the climate, sustainability, environmental research, and policy domains in several developing countries. Beyond his engagement work on solar geoengineering for the Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG), Sipra has been or currently is a team member on several grants-based research projects through the Resources for the Future, the Harvard Global Empowerment Meeting Incubation Fund, The Degrees Initiative, the World Health Organization, and UK Advanced Research and Invention Agency. Sipra focuses on air quality and water and waste management. He has served as a Working Group member on Climate Security for the National Security Division of Pakistan. He is a former Yale Law School Gruber Fellow on Global Justice/Women’s Rights and former Andrew Sabin International Environmental Fellow. Sipra received a master’s degree in environmental management from Yale University and a bachelor’s degree in economics and environmental science from �㽶��Ƶ.

Dr. Evonnia Woods is a Black feminist sociologist who specializes in social inequalities, political economies, power, and movements. Her movement-building approach integrates education, research, and organizing to address social justice issues. Woods currently co-authors a mid-Missouri monthly take-action newsletter and co-hosts Women’s Issues, Women’s Voices: a weekly feminist community radio show on KOPN-Columbia (89.5 FM), where she discusses social justice issues with other experts and community leaders.

Dr. B.J. Fletcher is an assistant professor in the School of Public Management and Policy at the University of Illinois-Springfield. He is a �㽶��Ƶ alumnus from the Class of 2008 who received his Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. His research and teaching interests focus on areas related to public policy, food policy and food systems, phenomenology, social equity, urban policy, smart cities, sustainability policy, science and technology policy, AI, and ethics. He is the co-director of the Institute of Applied Phenomenology in Science and Technology.

Sydney Franklin, Class of 2018, is a former policy officer at the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. Previously, Franklin was the Europe and Eurasia Policy Officer for the first U.S. Special Representative for Racial Equality and Justice (SRREJ), where she worked to advance the human rights of members of marginalized racial, ethnic, and Indigenous communities. Her portfolio also included managing the Department’s Roma Issues Working Group and informing policy and programmatic engagement on incidents of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE) or white nationalist terrorism. Franklin also led SRREJ engagement with the United Nations Permanent Forum on People of African Descent. Prior to that role, Sydney spent three years in the Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs working on criminal justice sector training and capacity building, globally and in the Caribbean, through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, a U.S. security cooperation partnership with 13 Caribbean countries. Franklin holds a bachelor’s degree in security studies (national security) and Spanish from �㽶��Ƶ.

Rodney Lyles stands at the helm of Feeding Kids by Faith Inc. as the executive director, where his fervent passion for community service ignites action that radically transforms children's lives. A distinguished alumnus of �㽶��Ƶ, Lyles graduated in 2013 after two years as captain of the Blue Jays football team: a powerful showcase of his leadership and unyielding dedication, both on and off the field.

Driven by an insatiable thirst for knowledge, Lyles advanced his education at Western Governors University, securing both his M.B.A. and a Master of Science in management and leadership. These impressive milestones are the foundation of his strategic foresight and relentless drive to effect profound change within his organization. Under Lyles’ leadership, Feeding Kids by Faith Inc. has expanded its reach and magnified its impact, ensuring children in underserved communities receive consistent access to hot, nutritious meals.

Lise Pearlman, creator and co-producer of American Justice on Trial, is the award-winning author of The Sky’s the Limit: People v. Newton (2012) and American Justice on Trial: People v. Newton (2016). Pearlman is recognized as the nation’s leading expert on the landmark 1968 Huey Newton trial, which transformed the American “jury of one’s peers” from the traditional 12 white men to the diverse panels of individuals often taken for granted today. She later appeared in Stanley Nelson’s acclaimed PBS documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Pearlman was in the first class of undergraduates at Yale University to include women (1971) and is a Berkeley Law graduate. She was also the first woman to head an established California law firm and later served as the first presiding judge of the State Bar Court of California. She has written multiple prize-winning books, including a biography of Newton’s pioneering lawyer Fay Stender, and has given presentations nationwide for more than 25 years. Pearlman has lived in Oakland, California, for over five decades with her husband, attorney Peter Benvenutti. They have three daughters and four grandchildren.

Allison Frisella Rois is an associate attorney at Dowd Bennett LLP practicing commercial and complex litigation. She earned her J.D. from Saint Louis University School of Law in 2023, graduating magna cum laude in the top 11% of her class. In law school, she was a teaching assistant for Legal Research and Writing, online editor for the Saint Louis University Law Journal, and externed with Judge Audrey G. Fleissig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. She graduated magna cum laude from �㽶��Ƶ in 2020 with a political science degree, where she played tennis and soccer, joined the Blue Blazers Investment Committee, and served as president of Kappa Alpha Theta. Frisella Rois lives in St. Louis with her husband, Michael ’20 ΔΤΔ, and their golden retriever, Gus.

Jingjing Yu, Class of 2010, is the Associate Director of Investigation with Habitat for Humanity International. Since graduating from Westminster in 2010, Yu has built her career in forensic accounting and investigations, working across diverse industries and global markets. At Habitat for Humanity, Yu manages cases across the globe, focusing on financial misconduct, workplace issues, and organizational integrity. Her path began at PwC's Forensic Services division, where she worked on significant cases, including class-action settlements and regulatory investigations under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Her work has included projects ranging from the Deepwater Horizon settlement to developing monitoring programs and remediation efforts using technology tools to improve organizational processes. Previously, Yu worked at Walmart as the Forensic Investigator Senior Manager, where she conducted investigations across North America, South America, and Asia, drawing on her bilingual abilities in English and Mandarin. Today, she focuses on creating environments where people feel safe to report concerns and building systems that help organizations maintain ethical standards.

Kelly Hill is the executive director of Heart of Missouri CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), where she has led the organization since 2016. She oversees the day-to-day operations of an agency with 13 staff and nearly 200 CASA volunteers who serve close to 400 children in foster care each year. Hill earned her Master of Social Work from the University of Missouri in 2012 after completing her Bachelor of Social Work at Evangel University, where she was named Outstanding Student in the Field of Social Work. Her professional experience includes work in child abuse prevention, child welfare, and family preservation, as well as developing a financial management coaching program at Love Columbia. Recognized as a 20 Under 40 honoree by COMO Magazine in 2020, Hill has also served on the National CASA/GAL Urban Leadership Council and the Missouri CASA Board of Directors.

Scout Gibson has served as the executive director of the Fulton Public Schools Foundation for the past three years, leading efforts to strengthen community support for Fulton students and teachers. Gibson has more than 20 years of experience in non-profit administration, fundraising, and marketing for organizations, from local Boy Scouts to Mercy Hospital groups.

Laura Burg is a Tulsa, Oklahoma, native who first came to Fulton in 2001 to play basketball for William Woods University. She married her college sweetheart, and together they have three rowdy boys, an eclectic brood of animals with baggage, and more laundry than anyone could ever hope to keep up with. Burg’s lifelong passion for volunteering has included everything from training service dogs for individuals with mobility impairments to becoming a foster parent and taking in seven kids over a three-year period. She has served as the executive director of the Callaway County United Way for the last two years, working alongside the Board of Directors to partner with local nonprofits that are serving the most vulnerable in Callaway County.

Since 2008, Nanette Ward has been a volunteer advocate daily engaged with survivors of human trafficking, coordinating with agencies and organizations to help meet diverse survivor needs, and conducting anti-trafficking training to the community. For many years, she has served as a member of what was originally the Community of Christ Race and Ethnicity Task Force and is now the World Church Diversity and Inclusion Team. Her past professional work experience was in the disability field doing direct services, advocacy, and training, and for a city human rights commission handling complaints of discrimination, facilitating small-group community dialogue, and training volunteer facilitators. When asked what she wants for her birthday or Christmas, she always replies, “World peace.”