Diane E. Levin, Jean Kilbourne

Diane E. Levin, Ph.D. is Professor of Education at Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts where she has been training early childhood professionals for over twenty-five years. She teaches courses on play, violence prevention, action research and a summer institute on “Media Madness”. She leads an annual service-learning program for Wheelock students and alumni to Belfast, looking at on “How Schools Can Help Communities Affected by Conflict Heal: Lessons from Northern Ireland.”

Levin’s has a B.S. in Child Development from Cornell University, an M.S.Ed. in Special Education from Wheelock College, and an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Sociology of Education and Child Development from Tufts University.

An internationally recognized expert, Levin helps parents and professionals understand and counteract the harmful effects of such societal forces as violence, war, media and commercial culture on children. She gives over thirty keynote addresses, trainings and workshops for parents and teachers a year—throughout the United States and in such countries as Australia, Great Britain, Greece, Jamaica, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Portugal, the Republic of Ireland, and South Korea.

Jean Kilbourne, Ed.D., is internationally recognized for her pioneering work on alcohol and tobacco advertising and the image of women in advertising. The New York Times Magazine named her one of the three most popular speakers on college campuses. Her award-winning films include the Killing Us Softly series, Slim Hopes, Calling the Shots, and Spin the Bottle. The author of Can’t Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel, she is a frequent guest on radio and television programs such as Today and The Oprah Winfrey Show. She has testified for the U.S. Congress and been an adviser to two surgeons general. A Senior Scholar at the Wellesley Centers for Women, she lives in Newton, Massachusetts