Elliot Ackerman (A03, F03) spent eight years in the military as both an infantry and special operations officer. He operated as the primary combat advisor to a 700-man Afghan commando battalion responsible for capture operations against senior Taliban leadership. Ackerman is a decorated veteran, having earned a Silver Star and Purple Heart for his role leading a Rifle Platoon in the November 2004 Battle of Fallujah. 

Elliot Ackerman’s fiction and essays have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker and The Atlantic. He has also been interviewed in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well as appeared on Charlie Rose, The Colbert Report, and NPR.

Episode 1: Elliot Ackerman

Justine Hardy is a British journalist, author, psychologist, and conflict trauma therapist. She founded Healing Kashmir in 2008, an integrated mental health project that aimed to address the debilitating mental health situation in the region due to the long-lasting territorial conflict primarily between India and Pakistan. This program aims to incorporate standardized stress treatments with local knowledge and systems in outreach centers around the state, a suicide helpline, and a statewide primary mental health care. 

Justine is also the author of six books, ranging in subject from war to Hindi film, and was the runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize in 2010. She writes for prolific publications, including The Financial Times, The Times, and Vanity Fair. She has been involved in several BBC strands, including the BAFTA-nominated series Urban Jungle. 

Currently, Justine is a residential INSPIRE fellow at Tufts University’s Institute of Global Leadership and The Center for Humanities at Tufts.

Episode 2: Justine Hardy

Allie Bohm (A07) is a current student at Georgetown University Law Center and a former Advocacy & Policy Strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union. She has worked to push for legislation that protects the location and communication privacy of everyday citizens and was particularly influential in electronic privacy legislation in Montana, Maine, and Utah.

 While attending Georgetown Law Center, Allie has worked for Senator Durbin on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Office of the White House Counsel under President Obama, and Commissioner Burrows of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, among other pursuits.

Episode 3: Allie Bohm

Celene Ibrahim, Tufts University’s Muslim Chaplain, is a scholar and public educator that is deeply committed to Islamic scholarship and to building interfaith communities. 
She has been recognized as a Harvard Presidential Scholar, and has been a Fellow at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Her work has been highlighted by the Religion Initiative of the Council on Foreign Relations. 
Ms. Ibrahim lectures and publishes widely on topics including Muslim feminist theology, Islamic family law, and the histories of interreligious encounters.

The Jumbolayas