Annual Richard L. Evans Memorial Lectures

Simon Greer is a veteran social change strategist, non-profit founder, and Senior Fellow with the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. Across 30 years of organizing—from labor campaigns in South Carolina to co-founding a PAC for Barack Obama's presidential run—Greer has worked directly at the fault lines of American politics. He created Bridging the Gap and the Nantucket Project’s "Courageous Conversations" to help educators, students, and civic leaders engage across deep ideological divides. An Emmy-winning producer for The North Carolina Listening Project (2025), Greer focuses on active listening and shared values to resolve entrenched conflicts.