John J. Bukowczyk (B.A., 1973, Northwestern University; A.M. 1973, Ph.D., 1980, Harvard University) is Professor of History and Director of the Canadian Studies Program at Wayne State University in Detroit and also a past president of the Polish American Historical Association. Bukowczyk, who is the author of And My Children Did Not Know Me: A History of the Polish-Americans and editor of Polish Americans and Their History: Community, Culture, and Politics, has published and lectured widely on Polish-American topics.

He also is the general editor of the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series and editor of the Journal of American Ethnic History, published by the Immigration and Ethnic History Society.

Norman Davies intended to study for a PhD in the Soviet Union but, denied an entry visa he went to Jagiellonian University in Krakow instead and became the preeminent historian of Polish history. His books include his doctoral dissertation, White Eagle, Red Star: the Polish-Soviet War 1919-1920; God’s Playground, A History of Poland: In Two Volumes; Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland; Rising 44: The Battle for Warsaw; Europe East and West: A Collection of Essays on European History; Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory; Europe: A History and The Isles: A History.

Bill Johnston is Director of the Polish Studies Center at Indiana University and associate professor of comparative literature and second language studies. He is one of the leading translators of Polish literature in North America. He has held fellowships with both the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in 2004 was awarded the Diploma of the Polish Foreign Ministry for promoting Polish culture abroad.

He translates both prose and poetry. Amongst his numerous translations are Juliusz Słowacki's Balladina, Witold Gombrowicz's Bacacay, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński's White Magic and Other Poems, and Stefan Żeromski's The Faithful River. Professor Johnston will speak on the challenges of translating culture and discuss issues of identity.

In April, 2008, Professor Johnston received the first FOUND IN TRANSLATION AWARD for his translation of New Poems by Tadeusz Rozewicz (Archipelago Books, March 2007), a collection of Rozewicz’s three latest volumes in their entirety: Recycling, The Professor’s Penknife, and The Gray Zone. The award was established by the Polish Book Institute in Krakow, the Polish Cultural Institute in London, the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, and the W.A.B. Publishers in Warsaw, an annual award for the best translation of a work of Polish literature in the preceding year.

Born in London of Polish parents, Wanda Koscia is a Producer/Director specialising in history and current affairs for the BBC. For over two decades she worked extensively across the former Soviet bloc on a number of major television series, including: The Struggles for Poland (1985), The Other Europe (1988), The Hand of Stalin. Leningrad (1989), The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1990), Death of Yugoslavia (1995), Tourists of the Revolution (1998). Other credits include Intelligence to Please part of Discovery series Why Intelligence Fails (2004) and several years on the BBC flagship history programme, Timewatch. Also at the BBC she made over three hours of documentary films to accompany Dunkirk, a major factual drama. Her interviews were then made into an award winning documentary: The Soldiers Story. In 2005 she made a film about the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 (featuring an interview with her own mother who was a participant aged 16). The Battle of Warsaw was shown on Discovery Europe and the BBC. In the mid 1980s, Wanda spent a year at Radio Free Europe working in the Research Department’s Underground Publications Unit. During the 1980s she was active in the Solidarity support group on London.

Lynn Lubamersky studied history at the University of California at Berkeley, and at Indiana University, where she received her Ph.D. in 1998. She is an associate professor in the history department of Boise State University. She teaches courses in women's studies, the history of the family, and the history of early modern Europe.

She has published several articles on noblewomen's access to political power in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the eighteenth century. Her most recent article, "Inheritance, Custom, and Economic Power among Polish Noblewomen: The Case of Barbara Radziwiłłowa," was published in a noted journal of Central European Studies published in Germany, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung 52 (2003): no. 4: 509-525. Lynn was also gratified to have her work published in Russian, "The Patronage System and Women's Political Activity in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 18th Century," in Zhenshchiny na krayu Evropy. (Women at the Edge of Europe...) Elena Gapova, ed. Minsk, Belarus: EHU, 2003: 33-44.

In November 2005 she presented her research on "Commemorations in Vilnius/Vilna/Wilno" at the national convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. In February 2006 she traveled to Toronto, Canada to present "Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa: A Feminist Analysis" at the International conference on Polish Literary and Cultural Studies. Her long-term research project is on a history of the multi-cultural town of Kedainiai, Lithuania from its establishment in the medieval period to the present.

John Micgiel, an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, is an associate director of the Harriman Institute. He is also the director of the East Central European Center and executive director of the Institute for the Study of Europe. Professor Micgiel's teaching and research interests include modern history of East Central Europe (ECE), contemporary politics in ECE, and Western Europe. He has authored Coercion and the Establishment of Communist Rule in Poland, 1944–1947 (forthcoming); In the Shadow of the Second Republic; Polish Foreign Policy Reconsidered: Challenges of Independence; and Frenzy and Ferocity: The Stalinist Judicial System in Poland, 1944–1947, and the Search for Redress (The Carl Beck Papers). He has been the editor for Wilsonian East Central Europe, Perspectives on Political and Economic Transitions after Communism, State and Nation Building in East Central Europe: Contemporary Perspectives, and coeditor for Poles and Jews: Myth and Reality in the Historical Context.

Dr. Edward Mozejko – Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor Emeritus of the University of Alberta (Edmonton AB) and Jagiellonian University (Cracow), is author of over two hundred publications which are comprised of books, articles and reviews. His research is primarily concentrated on the twentieth century Slavic literatures (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian), comparative study of literature (modernism in particular) and literary theory. His book Socialist Realism. Theory. Evolution. Decline was published in Bonn, Copenhagen, Oslo (1977), and the Polish translation in Cracow (2001). Other noteworthy studies include books and articles on Y.Yovkov, V.P. Aksenov. Cz. Mizosz, T. Konwicki and Russian literary constructivism. Editor (1991-2002) of the interdisciplinary quarterly Canadian Slavonic Papers. Doctor honoris causa of Kliment Okhridski Sofia University (Bulgaria).

Andrzej Rabczenko, Minister-Counselor at the Polish Embassy in Washington responsible for scientific, educational and technological affairs, has worked for the Polish government establishing links between American and Polish educational and scientific institutions, organizing a successful initiative to gain recognition for Polish medical schools by the US Ministry of Education, fascilitating a network of Polish studies in the US, and promoting collaboration and investments from American businesses. Professor Rabczenko, who was instrumental in establishing the Department of Biophysics at the University of Warsaw, has authored over 20 original publications and in 1982, created DHN Ltd. The Trade Center for Polish Science, the first limited liability company in Poland. A leading force in introducing market economy in Poland, DHN introduced hundreds of new products and created almost a hundred new, innovative companies.

Jacek Rostowski, Minister of Finance in the government of the Republic of Poland.

We regret to announce that we have just received word that due to unavoidable changes in Minister Rostowski’s schedule, he will be unable to join us this year. He sent his best wishes for a successful conference.

Eli Rubenstein is National Director of the March of the Living, an annual educational program that gathers thousands of Jewish youth from around the world in Poland and Israel to mark two of the most significant dates in the modern Jewish calendar, and the Director of Education for the March of Remembrance and Hope, an educational initiative for college and university students of diverse faiths and ethnic backgrounds to teach the consequences of hatred and prejudice through the study of the Holocaust. He is also the editor of a collection of poetry, prose, and art on the Holocaust. "For You Who Died I Must Live On," was awarded a Canadian Jewish Book Award.

Eli has been involved in Polish-Jewish dialogue with the Canadian Foundation for Polish Studies In Montreal since 1995.

Wanda Urbanska, producer/host of the nationally syndicated public television series, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, now in its fourth broadcast season, promotes environmental stewardship, thoughtful consumption, community involvement and financial responsibility. The daughter of a Polish Nazi-era refugee father, she is a graduate of Harvard University, who went on to a successful writing career in Los Angeles. She is the author of six books, and her work has appeared in such publications as The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Chicago Tribune, Vogue and Glamour. She hosted the PBS primetime special, Escape from Affluenza, and has appeared on such programs as the Today Show, CBS This Morning and Oprah, and was heard on NPR’s All Things Considered. She has been featured in The New York Times and The London Daily Telegraph, among others. A popular episode of her series is "The Poland Special," which followed her 2004 visit to Poland to trace her family history. In 2006, she was awarded the Amicus Poloniae award at the International Polonaise Ball from Janusz Reiter, the Polish Ambassador to the US, for her efforts to promote development and cooperation between Poland and America.

Professor Piotr Wróbel holds the Konstanty Reynert Chair of Polish Studies at the University of Toronto. Prior to his appointment in 1994, he taught at the University of Warsaw, at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan State University at East Lansing and at the University of California at Davis. He graduated from the University of Warsaw in 1977 and he obtained his Ph. D. there in 1984.

He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute of European History in Mainz, at Humboldt University in Berlin, at the Institute of Polish-Jewish Studies at Oxford, and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. During 1987-1991, he was a research fellow at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw and, during 1987-1988, he served as research director of a clandestine Eastern Archive, which collected materials on the Polish people deported to the Soviet Union after 1939. He authored or co-authored about 50 scholarly articles and nine books, including The Historical Dictionary of Poland, 1945-1996 published by the Greenwood Press in 1998 and Nation and History. Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the Second World War, co-edited with Peter Brock and John Stanley and published by the University of Toronto Press in 2006.

He serves on the Advisory Board of Polin: A Journal of Polish-Jewish Studies, on the Board of Directors of the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation of Canada and on the Governing Council of the American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies.