Index by NAME

T.H. Jukka Valtasaari — Ambassador of Finland to the United States.  A career diplomat, T.H. Mr. Valtasaari entered Finland’s Foreign Service in 1966 and has twice been Finland’s Ambassador to the United States, once in the 1980s and again beginning 2001. He has served in Finland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs with an impressive range of responsibilities, from economics to nuclear arms control. He holds a Master’s and Licentiate of Political Science from the University of Helsinki and was a Fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. [396-276]

Larry Wall — creator of PERL. A leader in the open-systems computing movement, Mr. Wall is a linguist. In addition to creating the programming language PERL, Mr. Wall also authored other popular free programs available for UNIX, including the rn news reader and the ubiquitous patch program. He has worked at Unisys, JPL, NetLabs and Seagate and is currently a Fellow with O'Reilly & Associates, publisher of his book on PERL. [198-156]

B. Alan Wallace — scholar of science, Buddhist teacher and practitioner. With degrees in physics and the philosophy of science from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in religious studies from Stanford University, Dr. Wallace spent 14 years training as a Tibetan Buddhist monk. He was ordained by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Dr. Wallace's several influential books include Genuine Happiness: Meditation as the Path to Fulfillment. He founded and is President of the Santa Barbara Institute for Consciousness Studies and is on the Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board of the Mind & Life Institute. [457-303]

Jim Wallis — evangelical social activist. Working at the intersection of religion and politics, Rev. Wallis is a public theologian who appears regularly on TV and radio, his columns appear in papers across the nation including the “New York Times,” “Washington Post,” “Los Angeles Times” and “Boston Globe.”  Rev. Wallis is a preacher, teacher, founder and editor-in-chief of “Sojourners” magazine, and Convener of “Call to Renewal,” a national federation of churches and faith-based organizations working to overcome poverty by changing public policy. His seven books include bestselling God’s Politics:  Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. He and his family live in inner-city Washington, D.C. [391-273]

Beck Weathers — Mt. Everest survivor. The day after 8 others perished on Mt. Everest in May, 1996, Beck Weathers awakened from a deep hypothermic coma. Aided by a series of quiet heroes, and as the world watched in astonishment, Mr. Weathers returned to life. He tells of two monumental struggles -- one on Everest, the other rebuilding his marriage, family and sense of self -- in this conversation and in Left for Dead: My Journey Home from Everest. In addition to speaking nationally, he practices medicine in Dallas, where he lives with his family. [190-147]

Andrew Weil, M.D.(2) — Integrative Physician. Healthy Aging:  A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being is Dr. Weil’s 11th book, others having addressed subjects from The Healthy Kitchen (with Rosie Daley) to natural medicine, spontaneous healing and a revolutionary approach to the drug problem. Dr. Weil is clinical professor of medicine and director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona. He writes “Self Healing,” a monthly newsletter, makes his ideas available at DrWeil.com and supplements his ideas about aging at www.healthyaging.com. He graduated from Harvard Medical School. [417-288]

Tim Weiner — award winning reporter and author. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, winner of the coveted National Book Award, is Mr. Weiner’s third book. Afghanistan is among the nations he has traveled investigating CIA covert operations. He has focused on the United States’ intelligence establishment for more than 20 years, earning a Pulitzer Prize for his work on secret national security programs. A reporter for The New York Times, Mr. Weiner’s forthcoming books report on the FBI and the United States’ Department of Defense.  [522a-331]

Sheila Wellington — President, Catalyst. Ms. Wellington became president of Catalyst in 1993. Founded in the early 60s, Catalyst is the premiere nonprofit research and advisory organization working to advance women in business, providing with knowledge and tools to help women and companies maximize their potential. Ms. Wellington was the first woman Secretary of Yale University and now, with Catalyst, is the author of Be Your Own Mentor. [218-176]

Herman B Wells — 1902-2000. Legendary former president and active chancellor of Indiana University until his death, Dr.Wells joined Paula Gordon for three days of conversations in his 90th year. This program focuses on Living Well. Known as a champion of academic freedom and intellectual honesty, Dr. Wells helped found both the United Nations and TIAA/CREF and grew Indiana University into a global institution. He led efforts to rebuild Germany and Greece after World War Two and influenced hundreds of thousands of people around the world during his long and illustrious life. Dr. Wells was an authentic American hero, best remembered for his personal kindnesses, his genuine humility, and his unfailing sense of humor. [171-127]

Cornel West — philosopher and cultural observer. A Univeristy Professor at Harvard, Dr. West is author of more that 20 books, including the bestseller, Race Matters. He won an American Book Award in 1993 for his two-volume work Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturism. His latest book, co-edited with colleague Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is The African American Century. [203-161]

Cornel West(2) — public intellectual. Widely acclaimed for his public role in addressing vital subjects, Dr. West is University Professor of Religion at Princeton University. He adds the magisterial Democracy Matters:  Winning the Fight Against Imperialism to his classic Race Matters, two titles from his long list of books, articles, general audience and scholarly publications.  Recipient of the American Book Award and more than 20 honorary degrees, he has help positions at Union Theological Seminary, Yale University, Harvard University and the University of Paris. He is part of 4BMWMB -- Four Black Men Who Mean Business -- whose CDs reach out to young people in the HipHop generation in their own vernacular. [294-252]

Hildegard Westerkamp — a composer who uses ãenvironmental sounds.ä She works with sounds produced by nature and by human technology. Her CD Transformations is available from ãempreintes DIGITALes,ä Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is the former editor of The Soundscape Newsletter for the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology. She is also associated with Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she lives and works. [55-7]

Curtis White — critic, essayist, novelist. The Middle Mind:  Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves is a full length inquiry growing out of an essay which appeared in Harper’s, where Curtis White is a regular contributor. Dr. White has published three novels and is an English professor at Illinois State University, in Normal, Illinois. He is also the current president of the Center for Book Culture/Dalkey Archive Press. [275-233]

Meredith S. Wiley & Robin Karr-Morse — child welfare advocates. Karr-Morse and Wiley have evidence that individual and societal violence are rooted in the abuse and neglect children experience in their first 33 months of life. Karr-Morse and Wiley worked together to restructure, design, and manage the State of Oregon's services to families and children. Karr-Morse was the first executive director of the Oregon Children's Trust Fund, targeting child abuse state-wide. [96-49]

Garry Wills — scholar, historian, classicist and author. Professor Wills’ many bestselling books include What Jesus Meant, What Paul Meant and What the Gospels Meant. His Lincoln at Gettysburg won the Pulitzer Prize, his two dozen other books are also widely read and admired. As one of nation’s leading public intellectuals, he appears often in leading periodicals. Professor Wills took his doctorate in the classics after studying for the priesthood, a tradition with which he continues to identify and to critique. Many years a teacher of ancient and New Testament Greek at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Wills is now professor of history emeritus at Northwestern University. [514-328]

Edward O. Wilson — world-renowned scientist. Author of two Pulitzer Prize winning books, Dr. Wilson had spent a lifetime teaching at Harvard, where he earned his Ph.D. and which awarded him both of its college-wide teaching awards. Currently Professor and Honorary Curator of Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, his honors and awards include the National Medal of Science, top honors from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Worldwide Fund for Nature, the National Audubon Society, and Japan's International Prize for Biology. He is on the Board of The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and the American Museum of Natural History. Consilience, the Unity of Knowledge is his latest book. [130-84]

Simon Winchester — journalist. For decades, Mr. Winchester has been a globe-trotting correspondent for The Guardian. Now with more than a dozen books to his credit, he is increasingly well known for his best sellers The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa:  The Day the World Exploded. Before becoming a full-time journalist, Mr. Winchester earned a degree in geology from Oxford University and worked in Africa and on offshore oil rigs. [301-259]

Jim Wooten — editorial page editor. One of America's most highly respected editorial writers, Mr. Wooten is an award-winning veteran reporter who has been editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal since 1992. He writes often about politics and government and won a national editorial writing award for commentary about the state retirement system. He examines the role of newspapers in creating and sustaining communities. [201-159]

Richard Wrangham— . . . is Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. His book Demonic Males popularized ideas he has developed in scholarly research focused on the influence of ecology on the evolution of primate social behavior. He has studied chimpanzees in Gombe (with Jane Goodall) and Kibale, vervet monkeys and gelada baboons. With a Ph.D. in Zoology from Cambridge University, England, he makes his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [133-89]

Lotfi A. Zadeh — father of Fuzzy Logic. Since 1965, Dr. Zadeh has focused on the theory of fuzzy sets and its applications. Before then, his work centered on system theory and decision analysis. Dr. Zadeh is Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California - Berkeley, where he has been since 1959. Earlier he was on the Columbia University faculty, at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NY, visiting professor at MIT, Stanford, and other distinguished research facilities. With a stunning array of awards and recognitions, Dr. Zadeh now is the Director of the Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing (BISC). [22-148]

Gary Zukav — New Age Philosopher extraordinaire. Offers radical perspective on the role of each person's life, why we're here and our potential to grow into an entirely new realm of being. His Seat of the Soul and The Dancing Wu Li Masters are "New Age" classics. [63-15]

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