Homefront: The War on Drugs

Guest Panelists:

Carolina Belalcázar is in the Department of Administrative and Policy Studies in Education at the University of Pittsburgh. A doctoral candidate in Education, she has a Graduate Certificate in Latin American Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. A native of Colombia, Belalcazar's research has addressed rationales of school drug policies in secondary schools in Bogotá and, most recently, the role of education in alternative development programs in Colombia.

Daniel M. Kovalik is Assistant General Counsel for the United Steelworkers of America. A graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, he specializes in labor and human rights claims against multinational corporations. Kovalik has served as an election observer in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He also is an organizer of the Colombia Support Network and is involved in two human rights cases on behalf of Colombian victims.

Khalid Raheem's work on behalf of social justice and against youth violence is widely known. He is the President and CEO of the National Council for Urban Peace and Justice. A lifelong community activist, Raheem was a founder of the Gang Peace Council of Western Pennsylvania. Previously, he served as Residential Treatment Counselor at the House of the Crossroads and Prevention-Intervention Specialist at both YMCA-Homewood and the Addison Terrace Learning Center.

Jonathan P. Caulkins is Professor of Operations Research and Public Policy in the Heinz School of Carnegie Mellon University. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Caulkins' research focuses on how public policies affect problems pertaining to drugs, crime, and violence. A winner of the prestigious David R. Kershaw Award, Caulkins has testified before Congress and a variety of state legislatures on the effectiveness of drug control programs.