Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, Allegheny Health Network’s first chief clinical diversity, equity and inclusion officer, wrote in a widely shared 2023 op-ed: “It is perilous to be Black and pregnant in America. We need to do better.” The nationally respected expert in maternal and infant health equity is not afraid to speak out against health injus…

Jen Flanagan is founder and executive director of Community Kitchen Pittsburgh, an employment-based social enterprise that empowers people through food service training and life skills mentoring. With an impressive 93% placement rate in professional kitchens for those who complete their training programs, she and her team are giving brighter future…

Leah Penniman, “Farming While Black” author, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and Heinz Award for the Economy honoree has a deep commitment to sharing regenerative farming best practices and land stewardship with Black, Indigenous and people of color. Addressing racism and injustice in the food system is a central focus of her work. “When I was a young…

Dr. George Thurston, internationally respected scientist, professor and pioneer in the study and communication of the effects of air pollution’s impact on human health joins the “We Can Be” family. ”Science is a way to bridge a lot of our societal division and distrust,” he tells Chris DeCardy, Heinz Endowments president and “We Can Be” host. “Peop…

Kilolo Luckett, nationally renowned art curator & founding executive director of ALMA | LEWIS, believes in the transformative power of art for both artist & audience. “When we genuinely connect with art, we can dream whole other worlds of possibility,” she tells Heinz Endowments President Chris DeCardy, who takes the wheel as our podcast’s host on …

Ohio River Valley Institute Executive Director Joanne Kilgour joins host Philip Johnson, the Endowments’ senior program director for Environment & Health, in breaking down the hype around hydrogen hubs and carbon capture. Hydrogen hubs have as their centerpiece massive pipeline networks that funnel carbon captured from power plants and factories to…

Dr. Daniel Perkins, professor, founder and principal scientist of the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State University, leads the largest-ever longitudinal study of post-911 transitioning veterans, “The Veteran Metrics Initiative.” Danny joins host Megan Andros, the Endowments’ senior program officer for veterans, in diving into…

Raqueeb Bey, the founder and executive director of Black Urban Gardeners and Farmers of Pittsburgh, joins this episode’s host, Endowments Vice President of Sustainability Andrew McElwaine, to discuss food deserts, the healing effects of holistic gardening and the organization’s surprise boost from alt-rock stars Rage Against the Machine. Raqueeb fo…

Jeffrey Brown, PBS NewsHour chief correspondent for arts, culture and society, joins “We Can Be” host Janet Sarbaugh, The Heinz Endowments’ vice president of Creativity, as they tackle one of the creative realm’s big questions: Are the arts essential? “Art matters because it shows us a bit of the world we might not otherwise see,” Jeffrey says. “It…

“I’ve had letters from young Black girls saying ‘I now know this is possible,’” Carlow University’s groundbreaking president Dr. Kathy Humphrey, tells “We Can Be” host Michelle Figlar, The Heinz Endowments’ vice president of Learning. As the first Black president in Carlow’s nearly 100-year history, Dr. Humphrey brings a life-long love of teaching …

The importance of gratitude, what makes a community great, & his hope for what the future holds for the social change realm are among subjects Grant Oliphant covers as his tenure as president of The Heinz Endowments – & as host of “We Can Be” – comes to an end. While the “We Can Be” podcast will continue with new episodes and hosts in the coming mo…

“The circle of concern has to be wide enough for all of us to fit inside,” Jenn Hoos Rothberg tells host Grant Oliphant on this episode of “We Can Be.” Jenn is executive director of the Einhorn Collaborative, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to addressing America’s crisis of connection by increasing opportunities for empathy and civility. Her work …

Michael Mann, one of the world’s preeminent experts on climate change, said in a Boston Globe editorial published shortly after the devastating storm made landfall in Sept. '21: “Hurricane Ida was a shot across the Earth’s bow." Michael is distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University, with joint appointments in the Earth …

Energy industry researcher and “The State of My State” author Sean O’Leary zeroes in on the role of coal, natural gas and petrochemicals in the economies of Appalachia. He does it with with a deep respect for the region where he grew up, and an understanding that with the beauty and grandeur of that region also comes unfulfilled promises of hydraul…

Kristina Marusic is an investigative reporter covering environmental health & justice issues for Environmental Health News, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization dedicated to driving science into public discussion and policy. In early 2021, Environmental Health News published Kristina’s “Fractured: The body burden of living near fracking,” a fou…

Thomas Brennan is Founder and Exec. Director of The War Horse, a nonprofit newsroom that has gained international respect for reporting on the often-unspoken human impacts of military service. A former Marine Corps sergeant who served as an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan, Thomas joins host Grant Oliphant for a timely conversation about his jou…

Nell Edgington, author of “Reinventing Social Change: Embrace Abundance to Create a Healthier and more Equitable World,” has traveled coast to coast in her quest to guide social-change warriors in realizing their full power and capability. Social change movements have been part of our country’s DNA for hundreds of years, encompassing the abolitioni…

Dr. Barry Kerzin is foremost a kind, giving, smart and all-around inspirational human being. And if that were all he was, it would be more than enough. But Barry is also a Buddhist monk, a personal physician to the Dalai Lama, and the founder of both the Human Values Institute in Japan and the United States-based Altruism in Medicine Institute, whi…

Coalfield Development CEO Brandon Dennison & his team are rebuilding the Appalachian economy one job at a time, with gumption, grit & grace as their guide. The wide valleys, imposing mountains and steep ridges that make up the topography of Appalachia wind across all or parts of 12 states, stretching from New York to portions of Mississippi and Ala…

GivingTuesday co-founder Asha Curran has been key in producing 20 billion social media impressions & raising nearly $2.5 billion dollars to help others in a single year. Digital generosity platform GivingTuesday was created in 2012 to be, in her words, “an antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two days right after Thanksgiving that shamele…

William H. Frey (“Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics are Remaking America”) joins host Grant Oliphant in diving into new census data - and shares what it could mean for the future of our nation. The internationally renowned demographer and senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institute is acutely skilled a…

Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab leader Illah Nourbakhsh, & Raqueeb Bey, exec. dir. of Black Urban Gardeners & Farmers of Pittsburgh join host & Endowments Pres. Grant Oliphant as they dive into the fascinating backstory of the new & innovative Center for Shared Prosperity. One of the great anomalies of modern American society is the disconn…

Toni Griffin, head of the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Just City Lab and co-editor of “Patterned Justice,” joins host Grant Oliphant for this episode of “We Can Be.” Our country has perpetuated structural race and class inequities for more than two centuries. But what if we could design cities – their structures, infrastructures and public s…

Trabian Shorters, international expert on the cognitive structure of “asset framing” and co-founder and CEO of the Miami, Florida-based BMe, joins host Grant Oliphant for this episode of “We Can Be.” Trabian is a former vice president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, retired tech entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author of “Re…

Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism,” began an 85-week run on The New York Times Bestseller List upon its release in 2018. It has since been published in five languages, and as the Black Lives Matter movement swelled in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis polic…

D.S. Kinsel is – in his own words – a “multidisciplinary artist and cultural agitator” who in 2014 co-founded BOOM Concepts, an art collective “dedicated to the advancement of Black and brown artists from marginalized communities across America.” D.S.’s art – and his work in mentoring and promoting other artists – is more vital now than ever. It is…

The very fact that our country is having a conversation about equity now is due in no small part to the groundbreaking work of Angela Glover Blackwell, who founded PolicyLink 20 years ago with a simple but profound aim: to advance racial and economic equity for all. Doing just that has been her life’s work, first as a lawyer who founded Oakland, Ca…

Communities of color breathe in nearly 40 percent more polluted air than white communities, and African-American children are three times as likely to suffer an asthma attack. And that’s just the tip of the environmental racism iceberg. While these are undeniably stark statistics, they are being addressed head on by Jacqueline Patterson, the senior…

The nation’s leading cybersecurity expert, David Hickton, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security joins host Grant Oliphant for this episode of “We Can Be.” David has been a steady force in some of the most front-and-center issues of our time – including cyber security, child and inmate safety,…

Author, scholar & education visionary Dr. Valerie Kinloch joins host Grant Oliphant for this episode of “We Can Be.” Valerie has penned “Harlem on Our Minds: Place, Race, and the Literacies of Urban Youth” and “Crossing Boundaries ― Teaching and Learning with Urban Youth,” and is the editor of the recently published compilation “Race, Justice, and …

Dr. Jonathan Foley, world-renowned environmental scientist, sustainability expert, author, and executive director of Project Drawdown, joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about why – despite seemingly insurmountable political and cultural obstacles - he believes tackling climate change is “absolutely doable.” Regardless of climate science deniers, Jo…

Edgar Villanueva, Lumbee Indian tribe member and author of “Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance,” shares with host Grant Oliphant why “listening in color” may be a key in addressing our nation’s systemic racial and ethnic equity disparities. “Putting judgments and preconceived conclusions aside, and being open…

For the past 24 years, renowned Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist and book review editor Tony Norman has written about the most pressing issues of the day, proving to be an important and eloquent voice of truth. Tony began his journalism career covering pop culture, eventually serving as the Post-Gazette’s Pop Music and Culture Editor. He is a form…

Mikael Chukwuma Owunna has described himself as a “queer Nigerian-Swedish American photographer, Fulbright Scholar and engineer” who “imagines new universes and realities for marginalized communities around the globe.” “Infinite Essence,” Mikael’s exhibition of large-scale photographs presenting glittering Black bodies as gorgeously ethereal univer…

Nationally renowned vaccine expert Dr. Todd Wolynn, co-founder of the vaccine-advocacy group Shots Heard Round the World, joins host Grant Oliphant to discuss what the journey to a COVID-19 vaccine could look like, the politicization of mask wearing, and the key role communication skills play in modern-day medicine. The world’s hopes of beating COV…

Emmy-winning composer, director & photographer Emmai Alaquiva joins host Grant Oliphant to discuss the role of art in fighting “the radical particles that have been dropped in our laps” by the COVD-19 crisis, & protests brought on by the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, who were later fired. Emmai is CEO of the m…

Global Leadership Award winner Leah Lizarondo, founder & CEO of 412 Food Rescue, talks with host Grant Oliphant about what COVID-19 reveals about food insecurity, the “Mister Rogers mentality” that drives the largest volunteer-led food transport network in the nation, and how movie star Michael Keaton has helped spur record volunteer involvement du…

Dr. John Graham, a senior scientist with the Clean Air Task Force, talks with host Grant Oliphant about the effects COVID-19 is having on the air we breathe, why this is an “exceptional moment” for air quality, and what the current “war on expertise” could mean for our future. A San Francisco Bay Area resident, John grew up in the rural dairy farm …

Patrick Dowd, executive director of Allies for Children, joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the myriad of ways COVID-19 is affecting our young people, including hunger, access to technology, the health and well-being of their parents, child care – and the action needed to prepare for what’s next. A bold voice for policy and practice changes th…

Monica Ruiz, executive director of Latino advocacy entity Casa San Jose, joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the unique ways COVID-19 is affecting immigrant and refugee communities, why the census is key to changing the narrative around Latinos, and the teachable moments that the current crisis offers us. Born in Cleveland Ohio and with family …

Brookings Institution scholar and author Dr. Andre Perry joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the moral lessons we can learn from the COVID-19 crisis, why black and brown people are dying from the virus at a vastly disproportionate rate, and why hearing from his son’s teacher gives him hope. Andre is an internationally acclaimed voice on race an…

Artist/activist Jasiri X, co-founder/CEO of 1Hood Media, joins host Grant Oliphant to talk about the role of art in times of crisis, why COVID-19 lays bare a historic distrust of the medical system by people of color, & the reality that many who are deemed “essential workers” do not make a living wage. Jasiri X is leading 1Hood Media — a collective…

DeRay Mckesson and his instantly recognizable blue down vest have become synonymous with advocacy for victims of police violence and an end to mass incarceration. A civil rights activist, community organizer and former middle school teacher, DeRay came to national prominence as a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement when he documented –…

Dr. Andre Perry of The Brookings Institution has made exploration of race and structural inequality – especially as it affects education and economic inclusion – his life’s work. A Pittsburgh native born into a challenging family environment, Andre learned early the importance of community, school and neighborly kindness in guiding youth like him t…

Rue Mapp founded Outdoor Afro, a “social media community that introduces African Americans to the Great Outdoors” because she remembers the exhilaration she felt as a child in the run from the car to the creek when her parents pulled into the driveway of the family’s ranch in the Northern California woodlands. “I want everyone to have that opportun…

In 2018, Americans gave $427 billion to charities of their choice. Phil Buchanan, founding chief executive of The Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of “Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count,” is working to make certain people have the best possible information to ensure those hard-earned dollars do the m…

“The Things They Carried” brought National Book Award-winning author Tim O’Brien fame, and the unparalleled poetic beauty and honesty of his novels, short stories and memoirs have cemented his status as one of our most revered contemporary writers. Born and raised in southern Minnesota, Tim was a high school student body president who opposed the V…

As the national rhetoric about refugees skews toward outright xenophobia, Hello Neighbor Founder and CEO Sloane Davidson is “creating an army of support” that is changing their lives and strengthening the fabric of neighborhoods. At a 2016 family Thanksgiving dinner with five Syrian refugees who had recently resettled in Pittsburgh, Sloane realized…

In 2010, journalist and Postindustrial media co-founder Carmen Gentile was embedded with the 32 Calvary regiment in eastern Afghanistan when he was struck in the right side of the face by a rocket-propelled grenade. Carmen details the moment he was blinded in his right eye – and the ensuing years of heartbreak and healing, including his return to A…

Emmy-winning composer, in-demand director and respected mentor Emmai Alaquiva is candid about what rescued him during his early hard times: “The arts saved my life.” CEO of the media production entity Ya Momz House (a tribute to his own mother) and a centrifugal force of light and positivity, Emmai shares his story of homelessness; his early ‘90s h…