SongAnh Ann Nguyen
I am a first generation only child of Vietnamese refugees who settled in Hyde Park, a Boston-proper neighborhood.  I graduated from Boston Latin School and completed honors studies in pre-med, international relations, and social thought & political economy (STPEC) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Five College Consortium.  During my junior year I participated in the Gender Studies Conference at the University of Havana (Cuba) and the International Student Symposium on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation at Erasmus University (The Netherlands) in association with the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution (IIMCR).  I lived in Kunming, China for a few months post-university due to family obligations.  I have traveled up and down the American coasts and into Mexico, Canada, France, Spain, and the UK in search of radical literature, cultural and scientific institutions, and social experiences with locals and fellow travelers.  My educational background, family history, and travels have cultivated a strong capacity for critical thought around social value/belief systems and its intersection with responsible human behaviors for the mutual benefit of all and with the physical infrastructure necessary to facilitate the potential of human harmony.  As a fervent student and practitioner of alternative social arrangements, I am excited to share my experience of the Auroville experiment more than 40 years after its inception. 

Alison Jean Cole
I grew up in a dusty old mansion-turned cooperative called Baerstead in Ashby, MA. I attended public schools and graduated from Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland with a degree in Marine & Freshwater Biology.  In between the superlatives, I spent a lot of time curious about the 'way of things'. My travels led me into ecovillages in Scotland, Iceland and the USA. There was a common thread or 'way of things' exemplified by these places that struck me as undeniably important to human existence. In conflict with the rising costs of institutional education, a like-minded friend and I resolved to use the ecovillage model as our locus for multi-beneficial continuing education.