Speaker Bios
Howard Dodson, Jr.
Executive Director, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library
Howard Dodson, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library since 1984, is a specialist in African American history and a noted lecturer, educator, and consultant. Under Dodson's leadership, the Schomburg Center has developed into the world's most comprehensive public research library devoted exclusively to documenting, interpreting and publishing the literature, history and culture of the African diaspora. During his tenure, the center's collections have more than doubled and now total more than 10 million items; annual users have increased from 40,000 to more than 125,000. Two successful capital campaigns have raised more than $41 million. In addition, the center produces and presents four to six exhibitions and 50 to 75 programs annually.
Dodson has published five books, including Jubilee: The Emergence of African-American Culture and Becoming American: The African American Journey.
Dr. Victor Karunan
Chief, Adolescent Development and Participation (ADAP) Division of Policy and Practice, UNICEF-New York Adolescent Development and Participation Division of Policy and Practice
Victor Karunan is presently Chief, Adolescent Development and Participation, in the Division of Policy and Practice, UNICEF Headquarters in New York. Between 2000 and 2004, he was project officer for participation and partnerships with UNICEF Regional Office for East Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok.
He has a Ph.D. in the social sciences from the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands with specialization in peasant studies and rural development in Asia. He has worked over 30 years with NGOs in South and Southeast Asia in the fields of human rights, social movements, participatory research, policy advocacy and training/capacity building. Between 1988 and 1992 he worked as the secretary general of Pax Romana — an international human rights and development NGO — based in Geneva, and worked closely with the UN Human Rights Commission and established the Asia Pacific Task Force on Human Rights in Geneva.
He has also taught Sociology and Development Studies at the Asian Social Institute in Manila, the Philippines, Chulalongkorn and Mahidol Universities in Thailand, and the Institute of Social Studies, the Netherlands. Between 1992 and 1995 he worked as a development evaluation consultant for European donor agencies and has conducted research, evaluations and training programs among community organizations and NGOs in many countries in South and Southeast Asia. Between 1995 and 2000 he worked as regional development adviser for Save the Children-UK Regional Office for Southeast Asia and Pacific in the fields of child rights, child labour, human resource development, participatory planning, monitoring and evaluation and policy advocacy.
Karunan is a founding and board member of the Focal on the Global South — a policy research program of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute in Bangkok. He has been an advisory board member of Child Workers in Asia — a regional network on child labor — and a resource person/adviser for the Asia Forum on Human Rights and other human rights and development NGOs in Asia and the Pacific. Presently he is a member of the advisory boards of the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), the Child Rights Education for Development Professionals (CRED-PRO), Victoria, Canada, and the Children's Studies Program and Center of Brooklyn College.
Gertrud Lenzer
Professor, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
Director, Brooklyn College Children's Studies Program and Center
Gertrud Lenzer is the founder and director of Children's Studies as well as a professor of sociology at both Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. In 1991, she led Brooklyn College's efforts to become the first academic institution to develop an interdisciplinary liberal arts Children's Studies Program. Under her leadership, a minor in children's studies was established in1994 for all liberal arts majors. In 2001, a 30-credit interdisciplinary children’s studies concentration for majors in early childhood education teacher and childhood education teacher programs was introduced in cooperation with the Brooklyn College School of Education. An interdisciplinary bachelor of arts degree in children's studies was most recently launched in fall 2009.
Professor Lenzer also founded The Sociology of Children as a new field and Section of the American Sociological Association in 1991 and was designated its founding chair. She received the national 1997 Lewis Hine Award in Honor of Outstanding Service on Behalf of Children and Youth of the National Child Labor Committee, founded by an Act of Congress in 1904. Professor Lenzer has received a number of distinguished fellowships during her career, among them the American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities with residency at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, a fellowship at the National Humanities Center, and a Research Fellowship at the Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Italy. In addition she was selected as the first American scholar and the first woman to deliver the 12th Auguste Comte Memorial Lecture at the London School of Economics. Most recently, she has worked closely with legislators to spearhead legislation for an independent Office of the Child Advocate for New York.
