Ashlee Marie Preston, civil rights activist, writer, speaker, and host of the excellent podcast SHOOK with Ashlee Marie Preston. Ashlee Marie is the first transgender woman editor-in-chief of a national publication, the first openly trans person to run for the California State Legislature, and among many other accolades she’s received in recent years, Ashlee Marie was named as one of The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans of 2017. Ashlee Marie has many talents, but she is, above all, a communicator. She conceived her podcast as a “platform that is intentional about unpacking the accurate narrative of not just LGBTQ people or trans people, but being intentional about creating the world in which you wish to live in.” Listen to her activism and how you can be an ally.

Native American award-winning film director and producer, actor, singer/songwriter, author, and founder and CEO of multiple media organizations, humanitarian Joanelle Romero. Joanelle was born in both the artistic and activist worlds and has spent her life bringing those two realms together. Listen to Joanelle share stories about her many years' being an artist and humanitarian, and from where she draws all the necessary strength in a climate where the Native American—and especially the Native woman—is absent from virtually all popular media. As she explains, “I have the strength of my ancestors and I really, really know I am divinely guided with them. And it is a spiritual thing. I do have moments when I want to go, ‘Oh, just forget it,’ but what’s that about? I’ve been given this gift. And to me, it’s a gift.”

Rochelle Steiner is a curator, writer, public art producer, and Professor of Critical Studies at USC’s Roski School of Art and Design. She has curated over 60 major exhibitions and large-scale public art projects in the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Listen to Rochelle share the discoveries she has made through her career of bringing art into public spaces and the implications of art and design in the urban realm “in all of its radical complexity.” Among many things, we learn about her work as the Director of the Public Art Fund in New York City (where she produced Olafur Eliasson’s The New York City Waterfalls), her work as co-founder of USC’s interdisciplinary Emergent Cities research group, and the profound social relevance of her most recent exhibition, Access + Ability, now on view at the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Urban journalist and advocate Alissa Walker abandoned her car ten years ago in favor of a pedestrian lifestyle, a move which led to an expansive career as an urbanist and urban advocate that coincides with watershed moments in online journalism and the urban renaissance. What sets Alissa apart, though, is her dedication to online discourse and general optimism about how we can solve our urban issues set her apart. In a time where tribalism reigns, Alissa welcomes the immediacy of online engagement with people of differing opinions “because it only makes me want to find even better solutions to problems.” Listen to Alissa talk about her journalistic practice dedicated to “looking at LA problems and trying to figure out how we can solve problems in a way that help the most people, whether it’s homelessness or transportation or housing or trying to get a ferry running in Santa Monica Bay” and how she “welcome[s] people to challenge my ideas, to tell me that I’m wrong, because it only makes me want to find even better solutions to problems.” For links to some of the things we talked about, check out the showpage.

Frogtown-based LA-Más is a design and policy advocacy nonprofit whose mission is to “help lower-income and underserved communities shape their future through policy and architecture.” Timme and Leung’s shared vision for urban growth that is “equitable and self-directed—where the best local solutions are brought to a city-wide scale” motivates and informs this mission. LA-Más is changing the way we understand and experience Los Angeles communities. Listen to this great conversation to learn how Elizabeth Timme and Helen Leung achieve this. Spoiler alert: they collaborate and, as Elizabeth says, they seek out radical solutions within the possible approaches.

Professor Lisa Schweitzer opens this season of LA#Herself and explains how flourishing is "the heart of what urban planning has to be about," and how she works to make good neighborhoods, "physical shape aside, that give spaces for people to develop and grow such that flourishing spreads." Listen to how Lisa's belief in flourishing has shaped her researcher's and teacher's agenda, how that’s tracked with her dedication to the topic of justice, be it about cities, gender, or ethnicity, and what she thinks we can all do to help.

Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan are self-proclaimed “authors, bloggers, and fashion assassins.” Creators of so many people’s favorite celebrity fashion blog, Go Fug Yourself, and authors of bestsellers like the fortune-telling The Royal We (about an American who falls in love with and marries a British prince), Heather and Jessica share with us their collaborative process, their intentions to make the blog communal and someplace people want to come. “You always want the site, as your baby, to be something you’re proud to share with people.” For links to some of the things we talk about: http://bedrosian.usc.edu/lahashtags/

Public historian Nathan Masters is host, producer, and managing editor of LOST LA, a co-production of KCETLink and USC Libraries LA as Subject research alliance. The show, which just started its second season, “recenter[s] the telling of Los Angeles history” away from the Anglo-American perspective. “The point that we make is that LA has always been diverse.” For links to some of the things we talk about: http://bedrosian.usc.edu/lahashtags/

Donna Spruijt-Metz, MFA, PhD, is the director of the USC mHealth Collaboratory at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. Donna researches ways of using smartphones and other Internet of Things platforms to take individuals' temporally dense, context-specific data, such as mood and eating behaviors, from individuals and devise just-in-time interventions to address obesity. “This is NOT to replace medicine or public health, and I’m not so sure if they’re making it easier. We’re here to make it better.” For more information and to find links to some of the things we talk about check out the showpage, https://bedrosian.usc.edu/lahashtags/health-fitness-data/

Thor Steingraber is the executive director of Cal State Northridge's Valley Performing Arts Center, or "The Soraya," thanks to Younes and Soraya Nazarian's decision to give $17 million in support of the center's programming. Donations such as these, as Thor notes early in our conversation, are "transformative." They offer both financial security to the constantly-economically-vulnerable performing arts and opportunities to serve new audiences. But the Nazarian's gift isn't the only transformation we discuss. Listen to a discussion about individual changes, technological-cultural developments, demographic shifts, and even marketing differences.