David Marchick, an attorney, former government official and business leader, serves as interim president of American University (AU). Marchick previously served as dean of AU’s Kogod School of Business.

Under Marchick's leadership, Kogod has a prioritized sustainability and entrepreneurship, leading to a national award for the best sustainability curriculum in the United States. Kogod’s overall rankings have risen to the top 50 in the United States by US News, Bloomberg and QS; to #3 in sustainability; and to #7 for entrepreneurship for schools under 10,000 students. Kogod’s US News rankings have risen 72 slots over four years to 46, more than any other school in the country. Marchick also has focused on preparing students for the AI economy and infusing AI into the curriculum. Times Higher Education's Poets&Quants designated Kogod’s AI program as the best in the country and recognized Kogod’s work as “the most consequential AI transformation in business education.”  Bloomberg called the Kogod School the “First AI First Business School.”

Prior to joining Kogod, Marchick served as Chief Operating Officer of the United States Development Finance Corporation during the first year of the Biden Administration. As the Biden Administration’s senior appointee at the agency, he managed agency priorities, oversaw business operations, and led the agency’s work to support manufacturing of more than 2 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa and South Asia.

Before joining the Biden Administration, Marchick served for 16 months as Director of the Center for Presidential Transition at the non-profit Partnership for Public Service. In that role, he helped the Biden Transition team architect their transition plan and worked as a liaison between the Biden and Trump teams to facilitate a peaceful transition of power.

Marchick spent 12 years at the Carlyle Group as Managing Director and as a Member of Carlyle’s Management Committee. He led Carlyle’s global regulatory and government affairs, communications and branding, events, research and sustainability functions, and had broad responsibility for engaging with Carlyle’s investors. He launched Carlyle’s sustainability initiatives and helped drive both the firm’s and the industry’s diversity efforts. Marchick was part of the core team to take Carlyle public and helped manage Carlyle’s public reporting and quarterly earnings reports. At Carlyle, he built strong relationships with organized labor, earning him the United Steelworkers “Solidarity and Appreciation Award” in 2013.

Prior to joining Carlyle, Marchick was a partner at and Vice Chair of the International Group at Covington, where his practice focused on international trade, CFIUS, transportation, and legislative matters.

Marchick served in the Clinton Administration for seven years, holding positions at the White House, Department of State, Department of Commerce and Office of the United States Trade Representative. In these roles, he worked on international trade and investment issues, including NAFTA, creation of the WTO and US-China negotiations. He has traveled to China more than 75 times.

Marchick has served on numerous corporate and non-profit boards, including governance roles at the Holocaust Memorial Museum (appointed by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden); as co-chair of the National Council of the National Park Foundation; for the Center for Global Development; and as a trustee at Bates College, where his son graduated; and a half dozen corporate boards. He previously served on the board of the UC San Diego (UCSD) Foundation, the board affiliated with UCSD.

Marchick recently received UCSD’s highest alumni award along with the President of Dartmouth College and two founder/CEOs. Marchick served on the coordinating cabinet for UCSD’s $3 billion campaign and the Holocaust Memorial Museum’s $1.1 billion campaign. He previously was an Adjunct Professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth University, Georgetown Law and George Washington University.

Marchick hosted the podcast Transition Lab and is the co-author of two books, The Peaceful Transition of Power: An Oral History of Presidential Transitions and U.S. National Security and Foreign Direct Investment.

Marchick holds a law degree from the George Washington University, a master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA from the University of California at San Diego.

Kristen Soltis Anderson is Founding Partner of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm. She is a pollster, speaker, and author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). She regularly advises leaders on polling trends and messaging strategy. She is an on-air political contributor at CNN. She also leads focus groups for The New York Times’ opinion section’s “America in Focus” series and is a contributing Opinion writer for the paper. Kristen has served as a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service. Originally from Orlando, Florida, Kristen now resides in Washington, DC.

Anna Palmer has covered congressional leadership, the lobbying industry, presidential campaigns and the politics of governing for more than 15 years. She has been writing partners with Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman and co-founder John Bresnahan for 10 years. In 2019, Anna and Jake authored “The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the future of Trump’s America,” which was the inside story of Congress in the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. The book was an instant New York Times and national bestseller. Trevor Noah of The Daily Show said “The Hill to Die On” turned “Congress into a Game of Thrones book.” From 2016 to 2020, she was the co-author, along with Jake, of the top-rated POLITICO Playbook franchise, where they chronicled President Donald Trump’s first term, and his relationship with top Congressional leaders. Under their leadership, the platform more than doubled in revenue and tripled its readership. They also created a widely acclaimed daily podcast, afternoon newsletter and event series where they interviewed top political and business leaders across the country about pressing issues of the day. She has spoken and moderated conversations at the World Economic Forum, the Milken Institute Global Forum, UN General Assembly, Aspen Ideas Festival, Texas Tribune Festival and SXSW.

Molly O’Rourke is an Executive in Residence with a joint appointment at the School of Communication and the School of Public Affairs. She also serves as Director of the Master of Arts (MA) program in Political Communication and as a Senior Advisor to the Sine Institute of Policy & Politics. She has more than two decades of experience in the field of public opinion research, most recently as a partner at Hart Research in Washington, DC. She has directed multiphase qualitative and quantitative research for a variety of advocacy organizations, political candidates and parties, and media outlets, including presidential campaigns and NBC News. Earlier in her career, Molly worked in the U.S. Senate, for EMILYs List, the women’s political action network, and as an analyst at the Center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute.

For several years, she co-wrote a monthly column about trends in public opinion and political behavior titled “Behind the Numbers” for The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper. Molly previously chaired and currently serves on the Institutional Review Board (IRB) which oversees all human subject research at AU. She has served and continues to serve on several boards, including the Brown Alumni Association Board of Governors and a D.C. based theater company.

Kwame Alexander is an Emmy® Award-winning producer, and #1 New York Times bestselling author of 46 books, including Why Fathers Cry at Night, How Sweet The Sound, The Door of No Return (2025 Audie Award Winner), The Undefeated, the National Book Award nominee, Newbery Honor, and Caldecott Medal-winning picture book illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and The Crossover, his Newbery-Medal winning novel-turned Disney+ TV series, his most recent book, J  vs K, an illustrated novel he penned with Jerry Craft, and the motivational primer for graduates, creatives, and professionals, entitled Say Yes. He is also the executive producer of Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band and Acoustic Rooster: Jazzy Jams, a PBS KIDS special and series of shorts produced by GBH Kids based on his beloved children’s book of the same name.  The recipient of a 2025 NAACP Image Award, Kwame is also the founder of AuthorStudy.com, and the Michael I. Rudell Artistic Director of Literary Arts for Chautauqua Literary Arts. He regularly shares his passion for literacy, books and the craft of writing around the world, including Ghana, West Africa, where he opened the Barbara E. Alexander Memorial Library and Health Clinic. His new 501(c)(3) non-profit, One Word at a Time, strives to advance the literacy skills of children in intermediate and middle grades by helping them rediscover and expand a deep love of reading and writing.

Anita B. McBride is executive-in-residence at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University’s School of Public Affairs, where she leads the First Ladies Initiative. She also serves as an advisor to the university's Sine Institute for Policy and Politics.

McBride is an internationally recognized expert on the legacies of American first ladies and operations of the White House. She is a founding member of the First Ladies Association for Research and Education (FLARE), a national organization affiliated with American University's School of Public Affairs that promotes research and education about the lives, contributions, and lasting legacies of U.S. first ladies. She co-authored Remember the First Ladies: The Legacies of America's History-Making Women, as well a first-of-its-kind textbook, U.S. First Ladies: Making History and Leaving Legacies, which fills a critical gap in academic literature on the study of first ladies and their accomplishments. She also co-authored a children's book, First Ladies Make History, published by the White House Historical Association.

She is co-chair of In Pursuit, a national civic education initiative of More Perfect in partnership with Substack, launched to mark America's 250th anniversary. This project, with support from AU’s First Ladies Initiative, features essays by presidents, first ladies, justices, historians, and military and civic leaders that reflect on lessons of U.S. leadership and connect our history to the pursuit of a more perfect union.

McBride's expertise on the White House and the influence of first ladies was acquired through her two decades of experience serving in senior roles under Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush in the White House and U.S. Department of State. She also served as Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush and directed the first lady's work on a wide range of global and domestic initiatives and is one of the longest-tenured women in White House history.

McBride has also focused on elevating the influence and impact of first ladies around the world and co-founded the RAND African First Ladies Initiative and Fellowship program, now the Global First Ladies Alliance.

McBride is a highly sought-after speaker and media expert on first ladies, presidential transitions, and White House operations and has appeared on all major network and cable news outlets and in national print media. She also served as a consultant to HBO's Emmy-award winning series, Veep.

McBride is active in a number of organizations, including the White House Historical Association where she chairs the biennial Presidential Sites Summit – a convening of more than 200 presidential historic sites from across the nation to promote civic education and the understanding and appreciation of presidential history. She is a member of the International Republican Institute's Women's Democracy Network and vice chair of the National Italian American Foundation. She is also a member of the Government Affairs committee of the United States Semiquincentennial Commission (America 250), the congressional entity established to help plan the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. McBride serves as a member of the Committee of Scholars of the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum and on the National Advisory Board for the National First Ladies Library.

tewart McLaurin serves as president of the White House Historical Association. The Association was founded in 1961 by First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to share and preserve the rich history of the White House. In his twelve years as president, Stewart has expanded the Association’s cultural and educational programming through award-winning books, popular video series, and virtual and in-person events to ensure White House history is preserved for future generations.

Stewart is the host of The White House 1600 Sessions, the Association’s official audio and video podcast devoted to exploring the history and untold stories of America’s most iconic residence and highest office. He is a member of the USA Today Board of Contributors and writes a monthly column about the history of the White House and our nation’s presidents and first ladies.

Stewart is the author of four books including the 2021 anthology James Hoban: Designer and Builder of the White House, which presents the life and work of the little known Irish-American architect handpicked by George Washington to design the President’s House, and which he recently adapted into a children's book, The White House: Designed by James Hoban, Built by Many Hands. In September 2025, the Association published Stewart’s The People’s House Miscellany: A Treasury of White House History, Fun Facts, and Things to Know.

Tina Tchen is the Executive Vice President of Programs for the Obama Foundation. She oversees the Foundation's programming in Chicago and around the world to strengthen and build an active democratic culture. This includes the Foundation's Global Leadership programs, the Girls Opportunity Alliance, the My Brother's Keeper Alliance, the programs that will take place at the Obama Presidential Center, and the Foundation's annual Democracy Forum.

Ms. Tchen is an attorney, activist, and lifelong advocate for women and girls. She served in the Obama White House through both terms, and was an Assistant to President Barack Obama, Chief of Staff to First Lady Michelle Obama, and Executive Director of the White House Council on Women Girls.

Prior to the White House, Tchen practiced law for 23 years at Skadden. At the firm, she was a corporate litigation partner, chaired the pro bono committee, and was a long time leader of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation.