SPEAKERS
Camden Bianco was born into an eclectic family of many artists and musicians. It was an artistically submersive childhood where she learned to draw and paint from her best teacher, her father. Her family settled in the Asheville, North Carolina region where she grew a deep and abounding love for the wild of the mountains. Her father’s art lessons eventually led her to attend Savannah College of Art and Design where she graduated in 2008 with a degree in Painting. She spent the next several years working as an artist and art teacher.
She received a Masters in Counseling in 2014 and moved to the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania region to start her family. In the slow year of the pandemic, her father taught her his painting technique involving layers of texture and gold leaf and thin layering of oil paint. Her work now reflects much of her life, a love of the natural world in the style taught to her by her father. In her free time she can be found with her husband and three children in the woods foraging for wild edibles and rock climbing. Her work can be found at St.Claire Art Studio in Asheville, North Carolina.
CAMDEN BIANCO Jubilee Professional Artist-in-Residence
Ian DeWaard is the Ontario Director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC), a distinctly unique labour union on the Canadian labour relations scene that promotes worker agency, cooperative problem solving and workplace partnership. CLAC represents more than 60,000 workers across the county. During his more than 20 years with CLAC, he has organized and advocated for workers in a variety of industries, where he’s often served as lead negotiator in contract bargaining. He also lobbies on CLAC’s behalf for labour and employment policy and legislative changes in the federal, provincial, and municipal arenas.
Ian lives in Hamilton with his wife Tamara and his four teenage daughters. He is a graduate of Redeemer University.
IAN DEWAARD Ontario Director, Christian Labour Association of Canada
Brian Dijkema is the President, Canada at Cardus, and Senior Editor of Comment. He is a public policy analyst, public commentator, and writer.
He regularly works with municipal, provincial, federal governments, and civil servants on a wide range of policy issues. He consults widely with industry, business, labour, and civil society institutions. He is called upon to make presentations on research and policy to legislatures, and industry professionals, and contributes to media outlets on cultural and political issues across Canada and internationally, including the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, The Hub, National Affairs, and more. Brian and his wife Nicole, along with their four children, call Hamilton home.
BRIAN DIJKEMA President, Cardus
Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Co-Director of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Professor Okediji teaches contracts, international intellectual property (IP), patents, copyright, Biblical Law, and courses on Artificial Intelligence. She has held distinguishedvisiting appointments at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Emory Law School, Duke University School of Law, the University of Hawai’i School of Law, University of Haifa Law School (Israel), Tel Aviv University (Israel), and the University of Tilburg Law School (Netherlands). She has also held a professorial fellowship at the Thomas More LawSchool at the Australian Catholic University.
Professor Okediji’s research and scholarship examine innovation policy, the digital economy, and global knowledge governance. She advises governments and international organizations on a variety of issues at the intersection of IP, international economic law, and human development. She has authored an extensive array of articles, commissioned papers, and book chapters on the relationship between intellectual property, multilateral trade, and human development. She is widely cited for her scholarship on the design and implementation of IP norms in developing and least-developed countries consistent with human welfare goals and work on legal regimes related to Traditional Knowledge. She hasserved as a policy advisor to inter-governmental organizations, regional economic communities, and national governments on the formulation of copyright and patent policies in the digital era, and she has advised governments on the design of legal frameworks for Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge.
Professor Okediji has been named one of the 50 most influential figures in IP by Managing IP and received the 2019 Public Knowledge IP3 Award. She is a 2023 recipient of the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters. Her latest book, Traditional Knowledge and Modern Justice, is forthcoming in 2025.
RUTH L. OKEDIJI Professor, Harvard Law School
Dr. Rebecca Portnoff has dedicated her career to defending children from sexual abuse, working in the intersection of ML/AI and child safety for over a decade. She is currently Vice President of Data Science at Thorn, owning strategy and vision for machine learning (ML)/AI across the organization. The ML/AI and algorithmic solutions her team builds have global impact: used across hundreds of LE agencies, hotlines and technology companies. She acts as an ecosystem leader to address emerging threats against children via novel research, standard setting and cross-sector collaborations, bridging the gap between child safety experts and technologists.
Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Princeton University, where she also minored in vocal jazz, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. She is an MIT Tech Review 35 under 35 innovator, Fast Company AI 20, and serves on the UNICRI AI for Safer Children Advisory Board. Her work has been recognized and featured by outlets such as The NYTimes, the WSJ, the AP, Forbes and more.
REBECCA PORTNOFF Vice President of Data Science, Thorn
KATHERINE SIKMA WADSWORTH Leadership Coach and Organizational Development Consultant
Katherine Sikma Wadsworth is a leadership coach and organizational development consultant. With 20 years’ experience in the church and nonprofit sectors, she is passionate about developing leaders and collaborating with others to find creative solutions to complex problems. She serves with the Human Formation Coalition and is on the faculty for the Pittsburgh Leadership Foundation. Katherine is also part of the preaching team at Christ Community Church of the South Hills, and she hosts a weekly podcast called You Gotta Try This!
She has a Bachelor's degree in Communication from Calvin University, a Master's degree in Higher Education from Geneva College, and a Master's degree in Leadership from Duquesne University. Katherine served with the CCO from 2004-2017.
GIDEON STRAUSS Professor and Academic Dean
Gideon Strauss is Associate Professor of Leadership and Worldview Studies and Academic Dean at the Institute for Christian Studies, an interdisciplinary graduate school where the gospel's message of renewal shapes our pursuit of wisdom, based in Toronto, Canada, where he mostly teaches in the educational leadership program. He is delighted by being married to Danielle, being a parent to adults, having grandchildren, participating in the life of an Anglican parish church, listening to crime and science fiction audio books while washing the dishes and doing the laundry, and going for walks.
STEPHANIE SUMMERS CEO, Center for Public Justice
Stephanie Summers is the CEO of the Center for Public Justice. Ms. Summers is a co-author with Washington Post columnist Michael J. Gerson and Katie Thompson of Unleashing Opportunity: Why Escaping Poverty Requires a Shared Vision of Justice (Falls City Press). A frequent speaker and moderator, recent topics include Christian activism in Reformed Public Theology (Baker Academic) and leadership in The Routledge Handbook of Religious Literacy, Pluralism, and Global Engagement (Routledge). Ms. Summers is a recipient of the inaugural Duke Divinity Reflective Leadership Award. She received her M.S. in Nonprofit Management from Eastern University.
Prior to her appointment at the Center for Public Justice, she spent 12 years with the CCO, where her roles included Vice President for the Eastern Region and Vice President for Organizational Development. Ms. Summers began her career in nonprofit administration as executive director of The Open Door, a church-based youth center in Pittsburgh, PA.
KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR Reader, Writer, and Professor
Karen Swallow Prior earned her Ph.D. in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo. She is a popular writer and speaker, as well as a columnist for Religion News Service. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Vox, The Washington Post, Christianity Today, and many other places. Her most recent book is The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023).
S. JOSHUA SWAMIDASS Physician, Scientist, and Professor
Dr. S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, PhD is a physician, and scientist, an associate professor at Washington University in Saint Louis. Dr. Swamidass runs a computational biology group using artificial intelligence to explore science at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and medicine. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement Science (AAAS) and the American Scientific Affiliation (ASA), the founder of Peaceful Science, and author of The Genealogical Adam and Eve.
MISSY WALLACE Strategic Leader and Consultant
With two decades of experience in the corporate and education sectors, followed by a decade in formal ministry, Missy brings a wealth of expertise to her role.
She is a former Managing Director of Redeemer City to City (CTC) and its Global Faith and Work Initiative (GFWI). Previously, she was the Founder and Executive Director of Nashville Institute for Faith and Work. She has published several articles including for The Gospel Coalition and Eventide, and she is a contributing author to a book about the integration of mercy and justice with faith and work.
Before she entered ministry, she also helped start Ensworth High School in Nashville and worked at The Boston Consulting Group, Time Warner, and Bank of America in Chicago, NYC, Singapore, Bangkok and Charlotte.
She has a BA from Vanderbilt and an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University. She is married to Paul and when not working or enjoying their three grown children, they love hiking anywhere from urban streets to mountain passes. Ask her about her recent 500 mile walking pilgrimage.
RUSS WHITFIELD Founding Pastor, Grace Mosaic DC
Russ Whitfield serves as pastor of Grace Mosaic, a cross-cultural church in Northeast Washington, DC that belongs to the Grace DC Network. He is also the Assistant Coordinator of Cross-Cultural Advancement for Reformed University Fellowship and a Guest Lecturer in Practical Theology at Reformed Theological Seminary’s Washington, DC campus.
He has made written contributions to Heal Us, Emmanuel: A Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation and Unity in the Church (White Blackbird Books, 2016), All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church (White Blackbird Books, 2018), and 9Marks Journal. Russ and his lovely wife, Vanessa, are raising four fun-loving children in Washington, DC.