May 2025 Lectures

LOCATION

The May lectures will be held online via Zoom and will be on Wednesdays and Fridays from 10:30-11:30 AM. 

RESERVATIONS
No registration is required to attend online lectures. The Zoom link will be sent to all those subscribed to the OLLI newsletter the morning of the lecture. If you do not receive the OLLI newsletter and would like to attend, please subscribe here.

LECTURES

Carolina Jimenéz Sandoval, Human Rights in Latin America 
May 21
10:30 AM
Online via Zoom

Carolina Jiménez Sandoval is the President of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA). She has over 20 years of experience in research and advocacy for human rights in the Americas and throughout the world. She guides WOLA’s team to achieve strategic impact in social justice and human rights.

Prior to WOLA, she served for almost seven years as Deputy Research Director for the Americas with Amnesty International in Mexico City, leading a team of researchers documenting human rights violations and designing advocacy strategies. Prior to that, she was program officer for the Open Society Foundations’ Latin America Program and International Migration Initiative.

From 2008-2010, she was the country director of the Jesuit Refugee Service on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. She also worked at the United Nations University in Japan and in Argentina with the Gender and Public Policy Unit of the Latin American Faculty of Social Science.

She has a PhD in international studies from Waseda University, Japan; a master’s in international law and Asian studies from Chuo University, Japan; a master’s in international relations from the University of Cambridge, England; and a BA in international relations from the Universidad Central de Venezuela.

She is a frequent contributor in English and Spanish to media outlets and publications in Latin America, the US, and Europe, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, PBS, CNN, BBC, The Guardian, and others. She is a national of both Venezuela and Mexico.

 

Josh Stewart, Nonprofit Alternatives in Banking and Housing 
May 23
10:30 AM
Online via Zoom

Joshua Stewart is Director of Federal Policy & Advocacy at the Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises (FAHE). He helps local member groups have their voices heard in Washington, DC. He has more than ten years of experience analyzing and changing federal policy on poverty, housing issues, homelessness, and community/economic development.

Before joining FAHE in 2019, Joshua was with the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV) from 2013 to 2019. His portfolio there included congressional and governmental relations, policy development, and advocacy-focused communications. The common theme of his career has been the drive to educate: to inform Congress and other policymakers of the reality of the situation in the field, to insert experts from the community into national policy discussions, and to highlight to policymakers that there are bipartisan solutions to seemingly intractable social problems.

Prior to his time at NCHV, Joshua conducted historical research on social support structures, poverty, and homelessness in 19th and 20th-century New England. Other of his published works focus on veteran issues, memorialization, and social theory more broadly. He received his M.A. in Historical Archaeology from the University of Massachusetts Boston in 2013 and his B.A. in Anthropology from Gettysburg College in 2011.

 

Colin Hines, The Green New Deal 
May 30
10:30 AM
Online via Zoom

Colin Hines is a co-founder of and helps convene the Green New Deal group. He is also a Co-Director of Finance for the Future and is an occasional advisor to Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas. He worked at Greenpeace International for ten years, where he campaigned against nuclear power and was the Coordinator of its International Economics Unit. Colin helped to form the grassroots NGO, Localize West Midlands, and is the author of Localization: A Global Manifesto (2000) and Progressive Protectionism (2017). He is also the author of Art Deco London (2003).

 

OLLI does not endorse any of the viewpoints expressed by the speakers in its series.

We thank the Lecture Committee and all those who suggested and contacted speakers: Ellen Babby, Joe Belden (Chair), Tamara Belden, Helen Blank, Jim Blasiak, Ethan Buyon, Edward Cohen, Martha Cutts, Lisa Harper, Dave Hensler, Jeanne Kent, Lynn Lewis, Mark Nadel, Irvin Nathan, Paul Vamvas, and Marc Pearl.