Guest Speakers

Each year, Harvard-Westlake holds several all-school assemblies featuring notable speakers chosen based on their relevance to the HW community and how they align with our mission statement. In addition, various clubs on campus schedule speakers to visit during activities period throughout the school year. These sessions are usually open to the entire Harvard-Westlake community.

2022-23 Shizu Saldamando (Artist in Residence), Ben Freeman (Jewish author and activist)

2021-22 Narsiso Martinez (Artist in Residence), Matt Maxey and Martise Colston (deaf activists and performers), Paula Yoo (author and screenwriter), Emmett G. Price III ’92 (scholar and educator), Noa Tishby (Israeli actor and activist), G. Gabrielle Starr (scholar and neuroscientist), Yona Nadelman (Holocaust survivor), Ming-Na Wen (actor), Victoria Garrick (volleyball player and mental health advocate)

2020-21 Patrick Martinez (Artist in Residence), Robert “Lefty” Kikawa (Japanese internment camp survivor), Wes Moore (author and antipoverty activist), Austin Channing Brown (author and racial justice advocate), Elijah Lee (13-year-old social activist and minister), Susanne Reyto (Holocaust survivor), Rabbi Sharon Brous (social justice advocate), Bettina Love (author and academic), Karen Korematsu (civil rights activist), Hunter Shafter (transgender actor and artist)

2019-20  Tyler Ford and Jacob Tobia (transgender authors), veronique d’entremont (Artist in Residence), David Ulin (author and LA Times book critic), Barbara Bestor (architect), Roy Choi (chef), Aaron Paley (CicLAvia cofounder), Yuval Sharon (director of the Detroit Opera)

2018-19  Lisa See (novelist), Andrew Puzder (attorney and businessman), Rosetta Lee (educator and diversity speaker), Ursula Martens (former Nazi Youth member) and Erika Jacoby (Holocaust survivor), Kid Cudi (rapper), Billy Collins (poet), Ibtihaj Muhammad (Olympic Fencer and activist), Janna Ireland (Artist in Residence)

2017-18  Hugh Hewitt (conservative radio talk show host and attorney), Ava Duvernay (filmmaker), Glenn Singleton (author and diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant), Luis Rodriguez (baseball player), Basil Kincaid (Artist in Residence), David Alvarado (documentary filmmaker), Roy Choi (chef)

Scholars in Residence
The Kutler Center Scholar in Residence program brings noted scholars and intellectuals to the Kutler Center to share their knowledge and expertise with our entire community. The residency is two and a half days. Scholars are chosen for their ability to represent diversity of thought and interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the world. By introducing our student body to respected scholars and thinkers, it is our hope that they will recognize the importance of interdisciplinary and collaborative approaches to learning, advancing knowledge and scholarship as well as solving the world’s problems.