The 2025-2026 BHWF season is open! Please visit the join page to purchase your membership.
The 2024-2025 BHWF season has ended. Please check back later this summer to purchase your membership for the 2025-2026 season!
2025-2026 Season
Please find our list of BHWF Monthly Forum Speakers for the 2025-2026 season.
If you have a recommendation for a speaker at a future forum, please click the button below and share their story with us!
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2025 @ 7:00PM
Andrea Capachietta
Humanitarian Aid Consultant & University Lecturer
Dr. Andrea Capachietti is a humanitarian aid consultant and university lecturer on global health and refugee resettlement issues, focusing on women’s rights and child protection. Her area of concentration is in public policy and health inequalities during armed conflicts.
Her work as a lecturer and consultant to non-governmental organizations requires the constant monitoring of important geopolitical, global health, and policy issues. In the field, Dr. Capachietti has performed needs assessments for medical facilities requesting humanitarian aid and relief assistance, which has taken her to countries in conflict. She has also assisted with medical evacuations and tracing programs for family reunification. She continues to provide training and support to improve the health and well-being of vulnerable and underserved populations.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2025 @ 7:00PM
Lyndia Downie
President & Executive Director of the Pine Street Inn
Lyndia Downie has served as Pine Street Inn’s President & Executive Director since 2000 and on Pine Street’s staff for 40 years, working in roles throughout the organization. As a result of her leadership and vision, Pine Street is now the largest provider of permanent supportive housing for individuals moving out of homelessness in New England, with 960 units of housing and a major housing expansion underway. Her collaboration with other key agencies, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of Boston has brought the population of unsheltered individuals to just over three percent of the overall homeless population. To place that in context, in San Francisco, a city of similar size and high housing costs, the unsheltered homeless rate is over 50 percent.
With her keen understanding of the complex causes of homelessness and proven methods to combat it, Lyndia continues to successfully involve and build partnerships with social service agencies, state legislators, and business leaders in the fight to end homelessness.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2025 @ 7:00PM
Juliette Kayyem
National leader in homeland security and crisis management
In academia, the private sector, government and media, Juliette Kayyem is a national leader in homeland security and crisis management. She is currently the Robert and Renee Belfer Senior Lecturer and faculty chair of the Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Professor Kayyem also serves as a national security analyst for CNN where she has been described as CNN’s “go to” for disasters. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic, she has a weekly security segment on NPR’s Boston station WGBH. Her most recent book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters, was described in a New Yorker profile as an “engagingly urgent blueprint for rethinking our approach to disaster preparedness and response.”
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2025
Holiday Party
TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 2026 @ 7:00PM
Sharon Chirban
Clinical psychologist, executive coach, the founder and owner of amplify wellness & performance
Dr. Sharon Chirban is a renowned clinical and sport psychologist with over 20 years of experience. As the founder of Amplify Wellness & Performance, LLC, she specializes in enhancing individual and organizational performance. Dr. Chirban has worked with diverse clients, from start-ups to elite athletes, focusing on burn-out prevention, injury recovery, and peak performance. Her expertise spans clinical psychology, sports medicine, and executive coaching, with notable roles at Boston Ballet, Children’s Hospital Boston, and Boston University. Dr. Chirban holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, is certified by the Association for Applied Sport Psychology, and is listed on the Olympic Registry of Sport Psychologists.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2026 @ 7:00PM
Meredith Goldstein
Love in the Modern Age: Insights from an Advice Columnist
Meredith Goldstein is an associate editor, advice columnist, and features writer for The Boston Globe. Her column, Love Letters, is a daily dispatch of wisdom for the lovelorn that has been running since 2009. She also hosts the Love Letters storytelling podcast. Her books include the young adult novels “Chemistry Lessons” and “Things That Grow,” and the memoir “Can’t Help Myself: Lessons and Confessions From a Modern Advice Columnist.” Meredith lives in Boston with many romance novels and a cotton candy machine.
TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2026 @ 7:00PM
Sybil Gallagher
Painter, Founder and Lead Designer at SirTank Design, and Co-Founder of Cheeks Shades.
Sybil Gallagher is a painter from Boston, Massachusetts. Her work is abstract by nature and typically lands with a social, political, or historical statement interwoven. Sybil is the co-founder of Calling All Crows, a non-profit organization that engages music fans and artists in feminist movements. She is the founder and lead designer at SirTank Design and co-founder of Cheeks Shades.
TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2026 @ 7:00PM
Emily Franklin
Bestselling author
Emily Franklin is the bestselling author of more than twenty books including a poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and The Journal of the American Medical Association, among many other places, as well as featured and read aloud on National Public Radio, named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries, and longlisted for the London Sunday Times Short Story Award. Her novel The Lioness of Boston, based on the life of trailblazer Isabella Stewart Gardner, is in its ninth printing and was recently featured as a clue on Jeopardy!. She grew up half in Boston and half in the UK. Her next novel Love & Other Monsters will be published in April 2026.
TUESDAY, MAY 12, 2026
Charles Street Couture
The Hampshire House, 84 Beacon Street, Boston MA 02108
