Min. Raul Jungmann
Raul Jungmann is currently Minister of Agrarian Development and one of the main coordinators of Brazil's federal land reform project. Recently Min. Jungmann was Secretary of Planning of Pernambuco, and Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizenship Rights. In 1995 he was appointed Minister of the Environment and Natural Resources, later taking over the Ministry of Agrarian Development as it was created by president Cardoso in 1996. Mr. Jungmann is an expert in the economic and political history of the land question in Brazil and abroad, and is one of the leading advocates of land reform in the country.

Sen. Marina Silva
Senator Marina Silva is one of only six women among 81 Brazilian senators. She is also among the youngest senators in the history of Brazil, at age 39. Born in a riverside rubber-tapping village in the Northwestern Amazonian state of Acre, Senator Silva was a teacher of history in the public school system. She and labor leader Chico Mendes founded the local chapter of the CUT labor federation in 1984. As a member of the Workers' Party, Senator Silva was elected city councilwoman and state representative. Senator Silva is the author of a law that regulates access to and study of Brazil's rich biological resources. Her concern for the environment has put her in close contact with U.S. Vice President Al Gore and environmentalist groups worldwide.
Challenges' background paper. 

Rep. Nancy Pelosi
Congresswoman Pelosi was elected in 1987 to represent the city of San Francisco, California's 8th Congressional District, in the U.S. House of Representatives. She serves on the House Appropriations Committee, is the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations and Export Financing, and the only Californian on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. Rep. Pelosi also serves on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She chairs the Congressional Working Group on China and is Co-Chair of the AIDS Task Force of the House Democratic Caucus. In Congress, Rep. Pelosi has distinguished herself as a spokesperson for international human rights and sustainable development, and an advocate of AIDS prevention and environmental protection.

Jorge Wilheim
Jorge Wilheim is an active architect and urbanist based in São Paulo. A consultant and author of eight books on planning, urban life and development, he is currently a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of São Paulo. In 1996, Mr. Wilheim was deputy secretary of the United Nations Conference on Cities (Habitat 2). He has held several official positions, among them São Paulo City Planning Secretary, State Secretary for the Environment, and president of the Bienal de São Paulo, one of the world's oldest and most important biennial art exhibits.
Challenges' background paper. 

Vilmar E. Faria
Professor Faria is the chief adviser on social policy to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. A Ph.D. in Sociology, Professor Faria has taught at the University of São Paulo and University of Campinas, and held UC Berkeley's Rio Branco Chair in Brazilian Studies last Spring. Professor Faria is an expert in quantitative social analysis and on the crises of contemporary welfare states. He has directed social surveys and published work on social inequality, stratification, and demographic pressures on public pension systems.
Challenges' background paper. 

Sen. Roberto Freire
Roberto Freire is the president of the Socialist Popular Party and was elected senator of the northeastern state of Pernambuco in 1994. Senator Freire has held legislative mandates consecutively since 1975 as a member of the Brazilian Democratic Movement, the only legal partisan opposition to the military government then in power. In 1998, Senator Freire was a candidate to the vice-presidency with Ciro Gomes, who spoke at the Alternatives for the Americas Conference at UC Berkeley shortly after the elections in which they finished third.
Challenges' background paper. 

UC Berkeley Faculty Discussion Leaders

Prof. Manuel Castells
Departments of City and Regional Planning and Sociology

Prof. Pedro Noguera
Graduate School of Education

Prof. Margaret Weir
Departments of Sociology and Poltical Science