Lylah M. Alphonse is the managing editor for news at U.S. News & World Report, where she oversees the newsroom and coordinates coverage of national issues ranging from politics and policy to higher education and health care. She previously worked as a senior editor and writer at Yahoo.com, where she created and curated the “Women in Politics” section of Yahoo News, was part of its 2012 election editorial team, and wrote about health, career, parenting trends, politics, and pop culture for the Yahoo homepage and its women’s issues portal, Shine. Before joining Yahoo, she spent 16 years as an editor and writer at The Boston Globe, working in the National News, Livng/Arts and Sunday Magazine departments and writing the parenting column for Boston.com, book reviews, and news features. Follow her on Twitter (@WriteEditRepeat) or email her at Lalphonse@usnews.com.

Karl Dean was the sixth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. He served two consecutive terms from 2007 until 2015. As Mayor of Nashville, he identified the following focus areas as major priorities for his administration: education, where Mayor Dean created programs centered on community responsibility; public safety, where police-community partnerships lowered Nashville’s crime rate by 8% in the first year of implementation; and economic development, with a particular emphasis on inner city investment and entrepreneurship. During his years in office, Mayor Dean worked diligently to improve Nashville’s quality of life by promoting health, sustainability, and community development and volunteerism.

Mayor Dean first held public office when he was elected as Nashville’s Public Defender in 1990, a post he was re-elected to in 1994 and 1998. Subsequently, Mayor Dean served as Metro Law Director from 1999 until 2007, during which time he also completed the program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Mayor Dean has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University and as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Belmont University.

Mayor Dean currently serves as the first Mayor in Residence at the Boston University Initiative on Cities. In this role, Mayor Dean engages with the University community and the City of Boston to advance the study of urban issues, including hosting open symposiums on issues ranging from the urban arts and culture to immigration policy. Mayor Dean has also joined Boston University’s faculty as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science and teaches a course on The Contemporary American City.

The Honorable Annise Parker spent many years in service to the people of Houston, America’s 4th largest city. She served six years as a City Council member, six years as City Controller, and six years as Mayor. She is one of only two women to be elected mayor, and is the only person in Houston history to hold the offices of council member, controller and mayor. She was the first openly GLBT mayor of a major American city.

Fast Company magazine selected Houston as City of the Year for 2011. In 2010 Time magazine named Mayor Parker one the 100 most influential people in the world. She was named the top US mayor and seventh best mayor in the world in 2014 by the City Mayors Foundation. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards during her career, including Scenic Houston’s 2010 Scenic Visionary Award, the 2010 Guardian of the Human Spirit Award from the Holocaust Museum Houston, the 2011 Guardian of the Bay Award from the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Local Arts Leadership 2015 honoree by Americans For the Arts.

In addition to her duties as mayor, Parker was a member of President Obama’s Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience, chaired the U.S. Conference of Mayors Criminal and Social Justice Committee, and served on the boards of the Texas Environmental Research Consortium and Houston Galveston Area Council.

She serves on the board of FirstNet, created by Congress to implement a nationwide broadband network for first responders and is a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary’s Advisory Council. She is an advisory board member of Holocaust Museum Houston, Center for Houston’s Future and Montrose Center.

Mayor Parker is a second generation native Houstonian. She graduated from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree. In the private sector, Parker spent 20 years working in the oil and gas industry, including 18 years with Mosbacher Energy Company. She also co-owned Inklings, a lesbian/feminist bookstore for 10 years.

Parker and her wife Kathy Hubbard have been together for more than 25 years and are advocates for adoption, with three daughters and a son.

Scott Smith, a private sector CEO, accountant and attorney, was elected as mayor of the City of Mesa in 2008. He used his business experience to reorganize the city and reduce the city’s budget by nearly 20 percent. Smith spearheaded efforts to attract new and small businesses to the area, create economic activity with spring training facility investments and a thriving East Valley airport and leverage grassroots, community support for parks and other city enhancements. Additionally, he was successful in recruiting five liberal arts colleges to Mesa, complementing the recent light rail expansion into the downtown area. Smith left office in spring 2014 to run for state elected office. Most recently, Smith served as a Resident Fellow in the Institute of Politics at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. Smith is currently the interim CEO of Valley Metro, a regional public transportation agency that provides multi-modal transit options to residents of greater Phoenix.