Chris Burbank
Chief of Police, Salt Lake City Police Department

Chief Burbank has been with the Salt Lake City Police Department since 1991 and was appointed to the position of Chief of Police in March 2006.

In January 2013, Chief Burbank was selected as one of six Police Chiefs in the nation to meet with President Barack Obama to discuss the Administration's plan and direction concerning gun violence in America.

Chief Burbank has been an outspoken opponent to the cross deputization of police officers as immigration enforcement agents. He has participated in several national conferences regarding the issue, including the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division's 2009 Title VI Conference. In May 2010, Chief Burbank and nine other Police Chiefs met with Attorney General Eric Holder regarding Arizona immigration laws. During the last two years, he addressed the House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary regarding racial profiling and civil rights issues.

In May 2009, Chief Burbank received special recognition from the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah for work in protecting immigrant civil rights. In June 2009, he was recognized by the Latino Community Center for his dedication to community policing in building and maintaining a great foundation with the Latino community. Additionally that year, Chief Burbank received the Vicki Cottrell Community Hero Award from the Utah National Alliance on Mental Illness for assistance to individuals suffering from mental illness.

Chief Burbank serves as the First Vice President of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, an assembly of the 71 largest policing agencies in the United States and Canada. Chief Burbank has a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology from the University of Utah and is a graduate of the FBI's National Executive Institute. 

Farhana Khera
President & Executive Director, Muslim Advocates

Farhana Khera is the first executive director of Muslim Advocates and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML).  Prior to joining Muslim Advocates and NAML in 2005, Ms. Khera was Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights.  In the Senate, she worked for six years directly for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI), the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee.  Ms. Khera focused substantially on the Patriot Act, racial and religious profiling, and other civil liberties issues raised by the government’s anti-terrorism policies after September 11, 2001.  She was the Senator’s lead staff member developing anti-racial profiling legislation and organizing subcommittee hearings on racial profiling.

Prior to her service with the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Khera was an associate with Hogan & Hartson, specializing in commercial and administrative litigation.  She also worked with Ross, Dixon & Masback, serving as the lead associate on several pro bono employment discrimination cases, which resulted in the firm being honored with the Outstanding Achievement Award by the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

Ms. Khera has been honored by the Auburn Theological Seminary with its Lives of Commitment Award, along with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Barbara Friedman.  She has also been recognized by Islamica Magazine as one of “10 Young Muslim Visionaries” for leadership, innovative approaches, and “a level of success that bodes well for America.”  She has been quoted or profiled by The New York Times, Associated Press, Austin American-Statesman, and San Jose Mercury News, as well as various legal, ethnic, and religious media.

Ms. Khera received her B.A. with honors in Political Science and Economics from Wellesley College and her J.D. from Cornell Law School.  At Wellesley, she served as president of the student body and co-founded the first Muslim student organization, al-Muslimat (“The Muslim Women”).  At Cornell, Ms. Khera was a finalist in the law school’s annual Cuccia Cup Moot Court Competition and was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Twitter: @farhanakhera 

Heather Ann Thompson
Professor, Department of History and Department of African American Studies, Temple University

Dr. Heather Ann Thompson is Professor of History at in the departments of African American Studies and History at Temple University (University of Michigan, Fall 2015). Thompson writes about the history and current crises of mass incarceration as well as about race and American policing for numerous popular and scholarly publications. Her work can be found in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Salon, Huffington Post, and Dissent, as well on NPR, Sirius Radio, and various television news programs here and abroad. Several of Thompson's pieces, including "Why Mass Incarceration Matters," have won best article awards, and her piece in The Atlantic, "How Prisons Change the Balance of Power in America," was named a finalist for the Best Media Award given by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Thompson was a Soros Justice Fellow, sits on the board of the Prison Policy Initiative, and recently served as well on a National Academy of Sciences blue-ribbon panel to study incarceration in the United States. Her books include Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its Legacy {Pantheon Books, forthcoming), Whose Detroit: Politics, Labor and Race in a Modern American City and the edited collection Speaking Out: Protest and Activism in the 1960s and 1970s.

Twitter: @hthompsn