Thomas Perez

Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division
of the Department of Justice

Speaker bio to be available soon.

Congressman Andre Carson

Representing Indiana's 7th District

First elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in early 2008 as part of a special election, Congressman André Carson was voted in to his first full term in Congress last November. After his victories in multiple elections, Congressman Carson is “going strong” according to the Indianapolis Star, which writes that he has “[proven] himself to be relentlessly positive and seriously hardworking.” His ambitious agenda for the remainder of the 111th Congress includes growing the nation’s economy, pushing for true comprehensive health care reform, and cutting our nation’s dependence on foreign oil by building a clean energy economy.

Congressman Carson serves on the prestigious Financial Services Committee, which oversees all components of the nation's housing and financial services sectors including banking, insurance, real estate, public and assisted housing, and securities. In this role, Carson has worked to tighten federal regulations over financial institutions, whose risky lending practices have hurt our economy. And he’s pushed for policies to address the foreclosure crisis and protect homeowners in the future from unscrupulous, predatory lenders.

André's law enforcement background consists of nearly a full decade of public service. He has served as a Local Board Officer/Investigator for the Indiana State Excise Police for nine years, throughout Indiana. As our nation's growing concern for Homeland Security developed, André was detailed to the Indiana Department of Homeland Security's Intelligence Fusion Center. There he worked in an anti-terrorism unit to provide Indianapolis and all of Indiana with the security measures necessary for our physical safety. André has a Bachelors degree in Criminal Justice Management from Concordia University-Wisconsin and a Masters in Business Management from Indiana Wesleyan University.

Deborah Amos

National Public Radio Foreign Correspondent

Deborah Amos covers Iraq for NPR News. Her reports can be heard on National Public Radio's award-winning Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Weekend Edition. She has returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC's Nightline and World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline.

Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR, where she was most recently the London Bureau Chief. Previously she was based in Amman, Jordan, as an NPR foreign correspondent. Amos won several awards, including an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and a Breakthru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She spent 1991-92 as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and is the author of Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (Simon and Schuster, 1992).

Howard Gordon

Executive Producer of "24"

Howard Gordon is the Executive Producer of the Fox hit drama “24.” Howard worked in television for more than two decades, working on such hit shows as “Spencer: For Hire,” “Beuaty and the Beast,” “The X Files,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Angel.” Gordon joined the “24” team in 2001, and wrote several episodes in the first two seasons. He subsequently crafted the entire story arcs for Seasons 3 and 4. Since 2006, Gordon has served as “24's” executive producer and show-runner. In this role, he is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the show, including overseeing writers and crew members, developing story lines, writing scripts, casting actors, minding budgets and running interference with studio and the network.

Dave Eggers

Author of "Zeitoun" & Screenwriter of "Where the Wild Things Are"

Speaker bio to be available soon.

Dr. Aslam Abdullah

Editor of the Muslim Observer

Aslam Abdullah is editor in Chief of America's Muslim English weekly, Muslim Observer, director of the Islamic Society of Nevada, trustee of American Federation of Muslims of Indian origin and General Secretary of the World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations. Additionally, he is the secretary of the Interfaith Council of Nevada as well as President of the Muslim Alliance of Nevada, a consultative body of Muslim organizations in Nevada. He was recently elected vice president of the Muslim Council of America, a newly formed organization dedicated to serving Muslims in policy and political related matters.

He is the author of 11 books and 700 papers and article on youth, minorities, development and religion. He has appeared on several national and local media network and commented on issues related with Islam and Muslims.

Zarqa Nawaz

Creator/Director of "Little Mosque on the Prairie"

"Little Mosque" creator Zarqa Nawaz, a mother of four from Regina, Saskatchewan, started out making short films over 10 years ago reflecting the humor of being Muslim in North America (and especially in the rural Canadian town where she lives) before realizing that there was enough material to build an entire TV show. With the cooperation of the CBC, which devoted significant resources to the project, "Little Mosque" was born, and Muslims can now see characters on TV that quite possibly look like the ones in their own community. The success of the debut has sparked significant interest and curiosity from several international markets (in the US, Europe, and the Middle East) where the show is syndicated.

Debuted in January 2007, the show is the top-ranked show on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has beat American Idol when aired in the same time slot in Canada. The show also now airs in more a dozen countries around the world, including France, Switzerland, the Palestinian Territories, Turkey and across North Africa.

Connie Rice

Civil Rights Advocate

Constance Rice, co-director of The Advancement Project, is known for her success in tackling problems of inequity and exclusion. The Advancement Project is a public policy and legal action group that supports organizations working to end community problems and address racial, class and other barriers to opportunity. She has received more than 50 major awards for her work in expanding opportunity and advancing multi-racial democracy.

As a litigator, Rice has filed class action civil rights cases redressing police misconduct, race and sex discrimination and unfair public policy in transportation, probation and public housing. She filed a landmark case on behalf of low-income bus riders that resulted in a mandate that more than 2 billion dollars be spent to improve the bus system. And in 1999, Rice launched a coalition lawsuit that won $750 million for new school construction in Los Angeles - money previously slated for less crowded, more affluent suburban school districts. In these and other cases, Rice has led multi-racial coalitions of lawyers and clients to win more than $4 billion worth of injunctive relief and damages.

In her non-litigation work in the 1990s, Rice served as counsel to the Watts gang truce and spearheaded a statewide campaign to save equal opportunity programs. Mayors Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan appointed Rice to the governing board of Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power where she served as president and enacted contracting reforms and environmental advances. In 1998, Rice helped lead a successful campaign to place aggressive public school reformers on the governing board for Los Angeles’ public schools.

Kareem Salama

Country Singer & Songwriter

Kareem Salama is a Muslim American musician with a distinctly country flavor. The Oklahoma native of Egyptian immigrants is a budding country singer who explicitly draws from Islamic themes. Kareem has released two albums, “This Life of Mine” (2007) and "Generous Peace" (2006) has and toured around the United States and the United Kingdom to curious and appreciative audiences. Kareem has a Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa College of Law.

Jamiah Adams

New Media Consultant & Trainer

Speaker bio to be available soon.