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Pulitzer Center executive editor Indira Lakshmanan and Pulitzer Center grantees Marissa Evans and Julián Aguilar, both staff at The Texas Tribune, lead conversations around politics, maternal health and immigraiton at the 2018 Texas Tribune Festival.
On Saturday, September 29, Evans moderates the Dangerous Deliveries panel which will focus on the issue of maternal mortality. Panelists include Carla Ortique, Vice Chairwoman of the Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Task Force at the Texas Department of State Health Services; Sable Swallow, Mother and Survivor of Postpartum Preeclampsia and Stroke; and Shawn Thierry, State Representative, D-Houston. Evans also moderates the Transforming Public Health panel which will focus on healthcare for future generations. The panel features Garnet Coleman, State Representative, D-Houston; Karen DeSalvo, former acting Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Stephanie Muth, Texas Medicaid director; Four Price, State Representative, R-Amarillo; and Avik Roy, opinion editor at Forbes and founder of The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.
Evans has reported on health and human services policy issues for the Tribune since October 2016. Her Pulitzer Center-supported reporting project focused on midwives and solutions for maternal health in Poland, and what Texas can learn from these solutions.
Also on Saturday, September 29, Aguilar moderates the Trade Winds panel to discuss what trade tariffs and NAFTA could mean for the economic future of Texas. The panelists include Rafael Anchia, State Representative, D-Dallas; Antonio Garza, former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico; and Jack Martin, global chairman and CEO of Hill+Knowlton Strategies. Aguilar also moderates the Family Values panel, which will focus on separated immigrant families at the border. Panelists includes Daniel Garza, president of The LIBRE Initiative; Celina Moreno, Interim Southwest Regional Counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF); Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum; and Filemon Vela, U.S. Representative, D-Brownsville.
Aguilar's reports on politics, immigration and border security issues for The Texas Tribune from the Texas-Mexico border. His Pulitzer Center-supported reporting project focused land and property rights on the Texas-Mexico Border.
Earlier during the Festival, on Friday, September 28, Lakshmanan moderates the Affairs of State panel focused on foreign policy, diplomacy, and US relations. Panelists include Ryan Crocker, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq; Bill Richardson, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Governor of New Mexico; and Wendy Sherman, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
These panels are a part of the Tribune's three-day festival, where topics range from Texas political issues to national and global matters. The Texas Tribune Festival is the eight annual festival and features more than 250 groundbreaking thinkers, lawmakers, community leaders and industry experts from across Texas and beyond.
In order to accommodate the overwhelming public interest in the Festival, which attracted nearly 5,000 attendees in 2017, the event is relocating to the heart of downtown Austin. The Texas Tribune Festival and the city share the same values: healthy civil discourse, innovation, tolerance, justice, curiosity and empowerment. The festival offers inspiring ideas, big-thinking civil debates, dynamic networking opportunities, student programming, podcast recordings and more.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit media organization in Texas that aims to promote civic engagement and discourse on public policy, politics, government and other matters of statewide interest.
The Pulitzer Center has supported several projects by The Texas Tribune and its staff members examining property rights issues in the region and pursuing ongoing coverage of the humanitarian crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border. More than a dozen Tribune reporters are deployed on the humanitarian crisis story, from South Texas to El Paso to Mexico to Washington, D.C. and beyond.