Peter Staley has been a long-term AIDS and gay rights activist, first as a member of ACT UP New York, then as the founding director of TAG, the Treatment Action Group. He served on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) for 13 years.

Kate Orff is the Founder of SCAPE. She focuses on retooling the practice of landscape architecture relative to the uncertainty of climate change and fostering social life which she has explored through publications, activism, research, and projects.