Eva Giglio is President and CEO of the Chicago Public Library Foundation, bringing nearly two decades of experience across the public, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors. A former educator, she began her career teaching at Kenwood Academy before serving as Deputy Chief of Staff at Chicago Public Schools. She later led CME Group Foundation, managing grants supporting education and community empowerment, and continues to serve in several civic leadership roles across Chicago.

Dr. Emily Knox is interim dean and professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on information access, intellectual freedom, censorship, and information ethics and policy. She is the author of Book Banning in 21st Century America and the award-winning Foundations of Intellectual Freedom, and has served on the boards of the National Coalition Against Censorship and Freedom to Read Foundation.

Skip Dye is Senior Vice President of Institutional Markets and Digital Strategy and Senior Vice President of Sales Operations at Penguin Random House. A longtime advocate for libraries and intellectual freedom, he founded and chairs PRH’s Intellectual Freedom Taskforce, which has supported legal challenges to book bans. Dye has held leadership roles with the American Library Association and serves on its board, and has received national recognition for his advocacy.

Kiese Laymon is a writer from Jackson, Mississippi, whose work explores race and family, body and shame, poverty and place with humor and clear-eyed observation. A 2022 MacArthur Fellow, he is the author of the bestselling Heavy: An American Memoir, winner of the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, as well as Long Division and other works. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of Creative Writing and English at Rice University.