Our Team

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    Shira Hoffer, Founder and Executive Director

    Shira is the founding Executive Director of The Viewpoints Project. A 2025 graduate in Social Studies and Religion, she served on Harvard’s Intellectual Vitality Committee for two years, advising and presenting on new strategies for promoting constructive disagreement on campus. She is also former fellow and research assistant at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics’ Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Program, and a practicing mediator in Massachusetts courts. Her senior thesis explored differing campus speech behaviors between religious and secular college students.

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    José Valdez Genao, Director of Programming

    José is a 2025 college graduate with a bachelor's degree in Government and a minor in Education from Harvard College. Prior to joining Viewpoints, he interned at the United Nations and UNESCO, conducting research to support global policymaking, and organized international conferences and debates, promoting diplomacy and cross-cultural cooperation. A native of the Dominican Republic, he founded and served as Director General of a local NGO that has helped more than 400 low-income students access scholarships and build critical-thinking skills. He cares deeply about expanding equitable access to educational opportunities, civic engagement, and civil discourse.

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    Sarahann Yeh, Director of Operations and Finance

    Sarahann is a social impact professional with nearly a decade of experience in diplomacy, philanthropy, and non-profit management. She previously served as a U.S. diplomat and corporate philanthropy strategist, working in over 10 countries to facilitate dialogue, deliver educational programs, and advance positive social change. While working in Guatemala, Sarahann founded a diplomatic diversity council and led a five-year strategy development process. She is a strong believer in global citizenship and actively sponsors a scholarship for U.S. community college students to study abroad. She holds a M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland. 

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    Jason Vadnos, Director of Campus Partnerships

    Jason is a junior at Vanderbilt University majoring in Human & Organizational Development and Culture, Advocacy, & Leadership. He serves as a Dialogue Vanderbilt Student Ambassador, helping shape campus policies and programs that promote respectful, evidence-based, and open-minded cross-partisan conversation. As a Research Assistant at Vanderbilt’s Civil Discourse Education Lab, he teaches students to communicate across divides and advocate effectively at personal, community, and policy levels. Beyond campus, Jason partners with nonprofits to build a national network of educators and administrators advancing civic engagement and civil discourse in higher education.

  • Tess Sumner, Social Media Intern

    Tess Sumner is a freshman at Harvard College, where she plans to study Government and English. Originally from rural New Hampshire, she enjoys the outdoors and skiing. She’s looking forward to spreading awareness about disagreeing curiously and is excited to amplify Viewpoints' message on social media!

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    Anna Nelson, Program Associate

    Anna is a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin - Madison. There she studied political philosophy, philosophy of education and gender studies. Her undergraduate thesis focuses on pedagogical methods of improving disagreement in the gender studies classroom. Her interest in pedagogy stemmed from her experience as an intern at the Center for Ethics and Education where she created curriculum and audio content. At Wisconsin, she also restarted an abolitionist collective and publication, The Madison Journal of Literary Criticism where she facilitated discussion on the carceral state and oversaw the magazine’s production as Co Editor in Chief. She is now living Des Moines, Iowa building her writing portfolio, catching up on her backlog of reading lists and enjoying a rest from school.

Board of Directors

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    David Seibel

    David Seibel is Co-Founder and President of Insight Partners and Insight Collaborative. A Harvard-trained lawyer and faculty at the Program on Negotiation, he specializes in negotiation, conflict resolution, and strategic relationship management. He has taught and consulted globally, advising clients from corporate leaders to international prosecutors, with a focus on creating value and strengthening relationships.

  • Erec Smith

    Erec Smith is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania. He is also the president and co-founder of Free Black Thought, a website dedicated to highlighting viewpoint diversity within the African American population.  Although he has eclectic scholarly interests, Smith’s primary work focuses on the rhetorics of anti-racist activism, theory, and pedagogy. Smith’s recent writings include several op-eds and books, including A Critique of Anti-Racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment (2020) and The Lure of Disempowerment: Reclaiming Agency in the Age of CRT (2022).

  • James Honan

    James Honan is a Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a longtime faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School. For more than three decades, he has taught and advised leaders across higher education, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector, with a focus on financial stewardship, strategic planning, and organizational performance. Notably, James served as Faculty Chair of several executive programs at Harvard, including the Nonprofit Financial Stewardship program. He has taught in leadership institutes around the world and consulted widely with universities, schools, foundations, and NGOs on strategy and governance. 

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    Ned Hall

    Edward J. Hall is an American philosopher and Norman E. Vuilleumier Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He is known for his expertise on philosophy of science and epistemology. Hall graduated from Reed College in 1987, and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy at Princeton University in 1996. He taught at MIT until 2005, when he moved to Harvard.

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    Angela Orlando

    Angela Orlando is a Managing Director at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. Her work in Advancement specializes in strategic fundraising, major gift work and volunteer management. Angela has served as a Board member and Chair of Development at both Crossroads Academy in Lyme, NH and The Family Place in Norwich, VT.

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    David Hamburger

    David Hamburger is executive director of Persuasion, a nonprofit publication and community dedicated to defending the principles of liberal democracy at home and abroad. In addition to Viewpoints, he serves on the national board of the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. David is a graduate of Johns Hopkins and Leiden universities and lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

  • Robert Friedman

    Robert Louis Friedman is a veteran global investor who has held senior leadership roles across major asset management firms. He serves on advisory boards at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania, where he has endowed major humanities and literary initiatives, including a nationwide humanities symposium and an annual distinguished writer lecture. A published literary essayist, he holds graduate degrees from UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, Harvard Divinity School and the Harvard Extension School, and supports projects advancing literature, education, and the arts.

Advisors

  • Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith

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    Nadine Strossen

  • Monica Guzman

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    Avé Luke-Simpson

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    Sam Pratt

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    Osamagbe Osagie

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    Christian Carmody

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    Tatiana Geron

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    Annie Rappeport

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    Daniel Hart