2009 Speakers and Moderators

is president of the Children’s Defense Fund, which she founded in 1973. She has received several prestigious awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award. Edelman has authored many books, including The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation (Hyperion, 2008) and I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children (Amistad, 2005). She is a board member of the Robin Hood Foundation, the Association to Benefit Children, and City Lights School. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.