Suzanne Scott
Chancellor of Aeolian University
Suzanne Scott is thrilled with her recent appointment as Chancellor of Aeolian University, being an avid traveler and intellectual explorer herself. Her academic pursuits have taken her around the world, including New York University, L'Université des Arts Magiques and the University of Southern California, where she is currently working on her doctoral dissertation, a study of Harry Potter fandom and new media narratives. She has presented her work at conferences from Budapest to Atlantis to Santa Barbara (including Nimbus, The Witching Hour, Lumos and Phoenix Rising in the realm of Harry Potter), and served as the Chair of Programming for Phoenix Rising. An occasional contributor to the online magazine Reverse Shot, not to mention the weekly rag Wizards in Hollywood, Suzanne recently completed a chapter on the potential effects of podcasts and webisodes on Battlestar Galactica fan production for the upcoming collection "Cylons In America."
Michael Bolton
Undersecretary to the Chancellor
Michael C. Bolton is a defender of Muggle and half-blood rights. A champion of wizard and Muggle diversity, he has used his educational background in film and literature to study gender, race, sexuality, and class issues in pop culture. His university work earned him an M.A. from the University of Southern California in film studies. In the Muggle world, he has previously worked as the House Manager for the Center for the Performing Arts at Penn State University, and currently works in "television" post-production. Michael was a co-presenter at The Witching Hour on three panels that examined Foucaultian discipline at Hogwarts, fan identification with the marginalized houses, and the (dubious) ethics of Umbridge and Fudge.He Apparates to Broadway each year to keep up with the work of the flourishing wizard theatre scene alongside the established Muggle theatres. As head of Lumién House at Phoenix Rising, he led his students to victory in the competition for the coveted Pirate Gold.
Joanna Goldstein
Head of Matanuska House
Joanna Goldstein is the Director of Merchandising-Newsstand, Calendars & Games for Borders, Inc., though what the average Muggle does not know is that she runs the company’s enormously profitable Magic Books, Potions and Gimcracks division as well. She joined Borders, Inc. in July 2006 and is responsible for newsstand, calendars, and games (and flying brooms, potions and magical texts) in 900 U.S. Borders and Borders Specialty Retail stores across the United States. Her most recent accomplishment is the addition of the Weasley line of jokes, pranks and dead-useful magical devices to the stores’ inventories, and she also does a thriving in trade in ABCs, the magical Amazing Book CustomersTM that will modify any romance novel depending on its reader’s preferences (hilarious when used on textbooks!). Before joining Borders, Joanna worked for Source Interlink Companies, where she served most recently as senior director of retail services and managed a department responsible for representing more than 4,000 magazines to 10 national retail chains.
Skyler Hijazi
Head of Kohilo House
Skyler Hijazi, one of the great wizarding scholars of his time, leads something of a double life. His scholarship on the social mores and cultures of Muggle society is unparalleled in the wizarding world, due in part to his infamous infiltration into Muggle society. For roughly half of each year, Skyler lives as a Muggle academic – and, in a twist worthy of the trickster Maui – actually focuses his Muggle scholarship on Muggles’ interpretation of the wizarding world. Skyler has achieved a master’s degree in Women’s Studies from the University of Arizona, a prominent Muggle institution in the American southwest. His thesis, Bodily Spectacles, Queer Re-Visions: The Narrative Lives of Harry Potter Slash Online, explores the issues of collective memory, queer reading, trauma, and embodiment that become salient in fan-produced texts in the Harry Potter fan community.
Brian Ross, one half of the wizard rock band Draco and the Malfoys and host of the morning talk show “Sun’s Up, Wizards!” broadcast on the Wizarding Wireless Network, is generally acknowledged by fans and critics alike to be one of the “rockingest talents of his generation.” He’s quite famous for his incisive and accurate reports of the Muggle music industry, though most wizards consider the reports “as fictional as last Friday’s basselope sighting.” Fangirls the world over, though, scream his name at libraries, educational institutions, bookstores and clubs around the United States and Canada – and sing along with “My Dad Is Rich.” The band has been featured on MTV, MuchMusic, the Wizarding Wireless Network, abcnews.com, National Public Radio and dozens of local television and radio broadcasts. They have played in over 100 cities in over 30 states, as well as multiple trips to Canada, Atlantis and their favorite, Babylon’s Hanging Gardens Grunge Club.
Sue Upton
Head of Pampero House
Sue Upton is a co-host of both PotterCast – the official podcast of The Leaky Cauldron, the Muggle news agency reporting on the wizarding world – and Non-Magical People Today – the official radio show of The Ekeltricity Outlet, the wizarding news agency reporting on the Muggle world. Having worked in broadcast news for over twenty years, Sue is also a Senior Editor of both agencies, and one of the wizarding world’s most respected journalists and ambassadors to the Muggle world. One day she hopes to complete her Ph.D. and help future Daily Prophet reporters on their way, but in the meantime Sue spends her free time doing volunteer work and helping at her child's school. Sue's hobbies include archaeology, experimental magic, watching Muggle films, and spending time at the beach with her pet badger, Puff.
