Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

Neha Dixit is an independent journalist and author based in New Delhi. For over two decades, she has reported on politics, gender, labour, and social justice in South Asia, producing investigative, narrative, and long-form journalism for Al Jazeera, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Caravan, The Wire, and others. 

Her work has exposed extrajudicial killings, hate crimes, human trafficking, unethical clinical trials, and sectarian majoritarian violence. She has won over a dozen national and international awards, including the International Press Freedom Award (2019) from Committee to Protect Journalists, the Chameli Devi Jain Award (2017), and the Lorenzo Natali Prize for Journalism (2011).

Her book, "The Many Lives of Syeda X" (Juggernaut), traces 30 years in the life of a migrant Muslim woman navigating Delhi’s informal labour economy, holding over 50 jobs without minimum wage. The book, a vivid portrait of urban India’s invisible workforce, was named Book of the Year 2024 by The Hindu and the Deccan Herald among others. It won the Ramnath Goenka Sahitya Samman and Kalinga Best Debut Award and a Special Jury Mention by the CG Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing.

Ms. Dixit's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by President's Leadership Fund. 

Rob is a researcher on AI consciousness and welfare, working at the intersection of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and the ethics of AI. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from NYU and currently serves as Executive Director of Eleos AI, a research organization dedicated to understanding and addressing the potential wellbeing and moral patienthood of AI systems. Previously, he was a researcher at the Center for AI Safety and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University.

Professor Long will deliver the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies' 2025-26 Golo Mann Lecture.

Jeff Kukucka is a professor of psychology at Towson University and a decision scientist whose work aims to optimize the human element of forensic and medicolegal decision-making. He previously held a leadership position on NIST's OSAC for Forensic Science—a federal organization that develops and promotes best practice standards for all areas of forensic science—and he recently oversaw the nation's first-ever independent audit of restraint-related deaths in police custody, the findings of which raised concerns over bias and error in autopsy decisions. He also frequently trains forensic examiners and attorneys on these issues, and he has testified as an expert witness in nine U.S. states.

Louis Tay is the William C. Byham Professor of Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Purdue University and Co-Founder of ExpiWell. A leading expert in psychological measurement, well-being, and artificial intelligence applications in psychology, Tay has pioneered frameworks for understanding how AI systems can be rigorously evaluated for bias using principles from psychometric theory.

Tay's scholarship has shaped multiple fields through his editorial leadership of major reference works. He has co-edited five handbooks: Big Data in Psychological Research (APA Books), Handbook of Well-Being (DEF Publishers), Handbook of Positive Psychology Assessment (Hogrefe), Oxford Handbook of the Positive Humanities (Oxford), and Technology and Measurement around the Globe (Cambridge). His research has appeared in journals including American Psychologist, Nature Human Behavior, Psychological Bulletin, and Journal of Applied Psychology.

Tay has contributed to United Nations research reports on well-being and consults for top tech companies and Fortune 500 organizations on topics including AI and measurement bias. He currently leads research funded by the John Templeton Foundation examining whether and how AI conversational agents can cultivate character virtues. As co-founder of the tech company ExpiWell, he developed a platform used by researchers worldwide for ecological momentary assessments.

Dr. Tay's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the President’s Office and Open Academy.

Jonathan Mahler P’26 is a longtime staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of the bestselling Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx Is Burning, which was adapted as an ESPN miniseries; The Challenge; and The Gods of New York, which was named a best book of the year by the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Economist, and Amazon. At the Times magazine, he covers a wide range of topics including politics, entertainment, education, media, the law, sports. His journalism has received numerous awards and been featured in The Best American Sports Writing.

(Photo credit: David Jacobs)

G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the School of Public and International Affairs. Ikenberry is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. In 2018-2019, Ikenberry was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford University. In 2013-2014, Ikenberry was the 72nd Eastman Visiting Professor at Balliol College, Oxford, and a Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Ikenberry is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Ikenberry is the author of eight books, most recently, A World Safe for Democracy:  Liberal Internationalism in the Making of Modern World Order (Yale, 2020), and Debating Worlds: Contested Narratives of Global Modernity and World Order (Oxford, 2023). He is also author of After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after Major Wars (Princeton, 2001), and Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton, 2011).

Professor Ikenberry will deliver the 2025-26 Lecture in Diplomacy and International Security in Honor of George F. Kennan.

Ruth Marcus is a contributing writer at The New Yorker who focusses on law, the courts, and the rule of law under President Trump. She joined The New Yorker after a 40-year career at the Washington Post, where, most recently, she was an associate editor and an opinion columnist. During her time at the Post, from where she resigned in protest in spring 2025, she covered the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Justice Department; served as deputy national editor; and was a deputy editor overseeing the op-ed section. She was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Commentary. 

Marcus holds a B.A. from Yale College, where she wrote for the Yale Daily News, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

(Excerpted from the New Yorker Magazine)

Jane Naomi Iwamura is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of the West. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on Asian American religions, race, and popular culture in the United States, with a specialized emphasis on visual culture and Japanese American lived religions. She is the author of Virtual Orientalism: Religion and Popular Culture in the U.S. (Oxford, 2011) and co-editor of Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America (Routledge, 2003). Her scholarship has appeared in journals, including American Quarterly and Amerasia Journal.

Iwamura co-founded the Asian Pacific American Religions Research Initiative (APARRI), where she serves as a Co-PI and Project Director. She also sits on the National Editorial Board of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion. 

Iwamura holds a Ph.D. in Rhetoric from UC Berkeley and an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, bringing a rich background in philosophy, cultural studies, and religious history to her work.

Dr. Iwamura's Athenaeum presentation is co-sponsored by the Kutten Lectureship in Religious Studies at CMC.

David Armitage is a prize-winning writer and teacher who has a worldwide reputation for his historical work. He is currently the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University and an Honorary Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge. 

Armitage has written extensively about the histories of Britain, the British Empire, and the United States, with a particular focus on the international and global trajectory of political ideas. His nineteen books as author or editor include The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (2000), Foundations of Modern International Thought (2014), Civil Wars: A History in Ideas (2017) and, most relevant to the Athenaeum lecture, The Declaration of Independence: A Global History (2007). He is currently working on a study of opera and international law.

Professor Armitage is the inaugural speaker for the Class of 1974 Speaker Series.