Nobel Peace Prize laureate, journalist, and free speech advocate Maria Ressa will give the keynote speech at this year’s Social Justice Awards ceremony on May 20.
The awards recognize Dartmouth community members’ commitment to education, community building, public health, civil rights, and economic, environmental, and social justice worldwide.
The ceremony, which will take place at 3:30 p.m. in the Hanover Inn Grand Ballroom, is free and open to the public and will feature Ressa’s talk, The Urgency of Now—A Time for Truth and Action, the awards presentation, and videos from nominators.
Registration is open for the event, which will also be livestreamed.
A journalist for nearly 40 years and CEO of the online news organization Rappler.com, Ressa is known for her courageous reporting on human rights abuses in the Philippines under the authoritarian leadership of then-President Rodrigo Duterte and her fight against the spread of disinformation. She was chosen, along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021 for “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace,” the awarding committee wrote.
Earlier in May, the Hopkins Center for the Arts will show the 2020 Sundance Film Festival documentary A Thousand Cuts, which profiles Ressa’s reporting during the Duterte presidency and highlights how social media can be weaponized to deceive readers and entrench political power. The free, unticketed screening is set for 7:30 p.m. on May 7 in Loew Auditorium, and will include a short introduction about the Social Justice Awards program, now in its 24th year.
Ressa was born in Manila, the Philippines, and at age 9 moved with her family to the United States. She did her undergraduate studies at Princeton University and then returned to the Philippines, where she completed a master’s degree at the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Ressa began reporting for CNN in 1987, and served as bureau chief in Manila for nearly a decade. In 1995, she moved to Indonesia to open and run the news agency’s Jakarta bureau, where she became the lead investigative reporter focusing on terrorism. After a decade, she returned to Manila to lead ABS-CBN, the largest news organization in the country. In 2012, she co-founded Rappler, which quickly became one of the Philippines’ top digital news sites.
In 2019, the Philippine government filed 10 arrest warrants against Ressa, followed by her arrests on multiple charges that were widely considered politically motivated efforts to squelch her criticism of Duterte. She was later acquitted.
In 2020, she was convicted of cyber-libel for a Rappler article written by another writer, a move condemned by media organizations and human rights groups. Ressa has appealed and last month, the Philippines’ Office of the Solicitor General recommended the Supreme Court acquit Ressa and her former colleague of the cyber-libel charges.
Ressa has served as co-chair of the International Fund for Public Interest Media—part of the founding group of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, and in 2022 was among 10 experts named by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to his inaugural Internet Governance Forum Leadership Panel.
Her many awards include being named Time Magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year and listed among its 100 Most Influential People of 2019, and 100 most influential women of the century.
Currently, she advises organizations and corporations on corporate governance, values, and strategy. Her books include The Fight Back; How to Stand Up to a Dictator; From Bin Laden To Facebook; and Seeds of Terror.
“Maria Ressa is a champion of free speech and open government and a brave example of standing up for the truth. We are delighted to welcome her and celebrate the Social Justice Award winners who are also making an important impact on their communities,” says Tennille Haynes, associate vice president for inclusion and strategic engagement.
During her time on campus, Ressa will also meet with scholars from the War & Peace Fellows, Great Issues Scholars, and Global Health Fellows programs at the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding, share a meal with this year’s Social Justice Award winners, and meet with the Community Reading Group, which is reading How to Stand Up to a Dictator.
These are the recipients of the 2026 Social Justice Awards—individuals and organizations that have made exceptional efforts to promote awareness, understanding, community, or inclusion through consistent action for the common good:
The Emerging Leadership Award
Recognizing employees or recent graduates who have served fewer than 10 years in their chosen field.
Sarah Kelly
Lecturer and Research Associate in Geography
Research Scientist and Co-Founder of the Energy Justice Clinic at the Irving Institute for Energy and Society
Kelly is a human-environment geographer with a specialization in participatory methods. In addition to her work at Dartmouth, she is also an associate researcher with the Andes Lab Sur at the Universidad Austral de Chile. Working with marginalized communities in New England and southern Chile, among other places, Kelly adopts methods including participatory mapping, community science, interviews, transect floats, and art-science collaborations to support justice. She is concerned locally with not leaving marginal communities behind in the energy transition, while globally she supports transnational solidarity and waterway protection in energy geopolitics.
The Ongoing Commitment Award
Honoring a Dartmouth community individual who has served between 10 and 20 years in their chosen field of work.
Jodi Guinn ’09
Associate Director and Senior Clinical Instructor, Harvard Education Law Clinic
Through her work at the clinic, Guinn represents low-income families in Massachusetts in special education cases. Her work focuses on advocacy for students who have experienced trauma. Guinn previously was an attorney at South Coastal Counties Legal Services, a legal aid agency in Massachusetts, where she took on special education and school discipline cases for low-income students. Guinn also worked at Massachusetts Advocates for Children, where she focused on advocating for students ages 18 to 22 as they prepared to transition to employment, independent living, and postsecondary education.
Carmen Lopez ’97
Executive Director, College Horizons
Member, Native American Visiting Committee
Lopez is a citizen of the Navajo Nation from Black Mesa, Arizona, who also grew up in Farmington, New Mexico. She is the longtime director of College Horizons, a New Mexico-based nonprofit that supports the college and graduate school goals of Native American students. Lopez is also a member of Dartmouth’s Native American Visiting Committee, a group of Native and non-Native alumni appointed by the president to advise on Native American affairs, academic programs, and student life. Before joining College Horizons, she served as executive director of the Harvard University Native American Program and had previously taught high school. Lopez was educated at both a Navajo preparatory school and Cushing Academy, in Massachusetts, and holds a bachelor’s degree in history modified with Native American Studies. Supported by a Rockefeller Brothers Fellowship, she earned a master’s in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
The Student Organization Award
Honoring students or alumni groups for their commitment to promoting social justice in our community and beyond.
Tuck Community Consulting
Tuck Community Consulting provides free consulting services to local nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. Student-managed and staffed, TCC provides Tuck students an opportunity to use their skills and give back to the community. Its goal is to improve Tuck outreach in local communities, increase student understanding of nonprofit and small business issues, and broaden awareness of opportunities to volunteer while using business skills. Previous clients have included organizations in the arts, clean energy, consumer, environmental, health care, housing, microfinance, and social service sectors.
The cochairs of Tuck Community Consulting are José Caraveo, Tuck ’26; Maddy Hinesley, Tuck ’26; and Ethan Mulvey, Tuck ’26.
Holly Fell Sateia Award
Recognizing faculty and staff who demonstrate an enduring interest in and ability to build and enhance diversity through sustained effort, enriching the lives of surrounding community members. This enrichment helps foster a safe environment where a community can learn, collaborate, and innovate.
Bala Chaudhary
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
Chaudhary earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and her master’s and PhD from Northern Arizona University. Before joining Dartmouth, she held faculty appointments at DePaul University and Loyola University Chicago. Her research focuses on fungal ecology and the long-distance dispersal of microbes. She is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award and has advised on continent-scale biology for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. She is an advocate for antiracism in science and the founder of WOCinEEB, an international organization for racial and gender minorities in ecology and evolutionary biology.
The Upper Valley Community Award
This award honors individuals outside of Dartmouth College who have demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to social justice in the Upper Valley. It recognizes community members who work tirelessly to promote inclusion and the well-being of all, whether through grassroots activism, nonprofit leadership, advocacy, direct service, or community building. Recipients, above all, embody the values of compassion, resilience, and moral courage, inspiring others to build a more just and inclusive society.
Martha Tecca ’87
Chair of the Board at Supporting and Helping Asylees and Refugees
A management strategist and entrepreneur, Tecca has helped launch and grow nonprofit organizations, networks, businesses, and faith-based programs aimed at improving well-being, healthcare, and lifelong communities. She works to lead change through collaboration, resourcefulness, and a passionate focus on individual and community involvement. Since 2023, Tecca has served as board chair of SHARe, a volunteer-based nonprofit that helps asylum seekers and refugees settle into the Upper Valley. The organization looks for creative ways to effectively use local resources, assisting newcomers with housing, jobs, education, English language learning, healthcare, legal support, physical and creative outlets, and social involvement.
The Lifetime Achievement Award
Honoring staff, faculty, or alumni who have dedicated more than 20 years to their chosen field and have consistently promoted awareness, understanding, or action for the common good in areas such as community building, education, civil rights, public health, economic, environmental, or social justice.
Charles R. Thomas Jr. ’79
Chair and Professor of Radiation Oncology and Applied Sciences at Geisel School of Medicine
The author or co-author of more than 380 articles and co-editor of multiple textbooks, Thomas is recognized as a scholar and mentor whose nearly four‑decade career exemplifies sustained excellence, leadership, and advocacy for equity in medicine. While renowned internationally for his foundational contributions to radiation oncology, he also has mentored generations of underrepresented students, trainees, and early career physicians, creating a legacy of both scientific advancement and community building.
The Lester B. Granger, Class of 1918, Award
Recognizing alumni whose lifelong commitment to public service has been exemplary. Granger Award recipients have exhibited leadership and innovation in meeting community needs and benefiting an underserved population.
Cathleen Caron ’92
Founding Director of Justice in Motion
Caron is the founder and executive director of Justice in Motion, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting migrant rights across borders. She has more than 20 years of human rights experience in the United States and abroad. Previously, she directed a national needs assessment by the Alola Foundation of human trafficking in East Timor and was a staff attorney with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project in Florida. Before attending the American University Washington College of Law, where she earned her JD, Caron worked on human rights issues in Guatemala.
The Social Justice Awards are co-sponsored by the William Jewett Tucker Center, Dartmouth Dialogues, Office of Pluralism and Leadership, Institutional Diversity and Equity, Office of the Provost, Center for Business, Government, & Society at Tuck School of Business, Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth Cancer Center, Dartmouth NEXT, the Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life, Department of Government, and the Center for Social Impact.
