Liz Sevcenko (she/her) is the founding director of the Humanities Action Lab.  She started HAL at The New School in New York City and now co-directs it from Rutgers University-Newark with Regina Campbell, focusing on HAL’s Climates of Inequality project, fund raising, and communications  HAL grew out of the Guantánamo Public Memory Project, an international collaboration of universities and organizations that Sevcenko launched from Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, to build a global conversation about the past, present, and future of the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay. Sevcenko was the founding director of the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, a network of historic sites that foster public dialogue on pressing contemporary issues. Prior to starting the Coalition, Sevcenko served as Vice President for Programs at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, developing exhibits and educational activities that connect the stories of the neighborhood’s immigrants past and present. In 2017 she was awarded a Rome Prize in historic preservation from the American Academy in Rome to complete her book, Public History for a Post-Truth Era:  Fighting Denial Through Memory Movements. She received her M.A. in history from New York University.

Regina Campbell has been working full time with HAL since fall 2021 and became co-Director of HAL in 2023, focusing on HAL’s States of Incarceration project, organizational management, and peer learning. She continues to oversee oral history and engagement for the Rikers Public Memory Project (RPMP), of which HAL is a founding partner. For RPMP, Regina has organized the collection of over 100 oral histories of people who were incarcerated at the Rikers Island Jails, ensuring that the stories of those who have suffered because of Rikers are preserved. Regina brings an incredible wealth of private, non-profit, and government experience in organizational development and planning, implementing, and monitoring programs. She dedicated four years to service leadership in Belize, developing educational systems for youth and creating economic opportunities for women. Upon her return to the U.S., Regina worked to break the cycle of illiteracy, poverty, and low expectations by helping families in low-income communities address the barriers to lasting success. She also has worked extensively with students with a variety of learning abilities. In 2022, Regina was selected to be a leader in the Culture of Health Leadership Institute for Racial Healing, which uses the Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) framework to strengthen the ecosystem of practitioners who are advancing racial and health equity in their work. Regina has an MBA in Organizational Management from Georgia State University Robinson College of Business, Atlanta.

Leora Fuller (she/her) is a trans artist, organizer, and facilitator currently teaching at Rutgers University-Newark and working as the Learning and Coalition Facilitator for the Humanities Action Lab (HAL). As a member of HAL, she helped organize and facilitated the 2019 & 2022 Climates of Inequality Gatherings, developed the Translocal Learning Studio, currently teaches the course “Mutual Aid Storytelling & Sharing: A Translocal Learning Space,” and is developing a Newark community fun Free School. She has taught at New York University, led creative workshops at the New School and CUNY Grad Center, and curated several immersive exhibits as co-founder of the Below the Grid Lab including “Haunted Files: The Eugenics Record Office.” Her passion is supporting students and working people telling their own stories in ways that evoke the past and present to imagine and enact radical futures.

Wilmarie Medina-Cortes (she/they) is the Exhibitions and Program Manager for the Humanities Action Lab. In this role, she oversees Climates of Inequality and the COVID Crisis: Building Leadership at Minority Serving Institutions, a Mellon-funded national initiative to build infrastructure for minority-serving colleges and universities (MSIs) to foster public humanities climate leaders in a world changed by COVID-19. She also supports the local staging of Climates of Inequality and States of Incarceration, working with HAL’s university and community partners. Wilmarie received her M.A. in Museum and Exhibition Studies from the University of Illinois in Chicago. Her capstone project Community Archives of Resistance: Diasporic Experiences of Puerto Ricans in Chicago as represented in El Archivo explores a community archive at the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance, connecting photographs to the history of diasporic Puerto Ricans in Chicago from 1920 to 1990.