January 2026 Lectures
LOCATION
January lectures will be held online via Zoom Webinar. View each description below to see the date and time of each lecture.
RESERVATIONS
No registration is required to attend online lectures. The Zoom link will be sent to all those subscribed to the OLLI newsletter the morning of the lecture. If you do not receive the OLLI newsletter and would like to attend, please join the email list here.
LECTURES
Anna Fierst, A Family Member Reflects on the Life and Times of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt
Tuesday, January 20
10:30-11:30 AM
Online
Anna Eleanor Fierst is a great granddaughter of Eleanor Roosevelt and is the current chair of the Eleanor Roosevelt Center at Val-Kill in Hyde Park, New York. She is the only daughter of Roosevelt's oldest grandchild, Eleanor Roosevelt Seagraves. Anna has a professional background in publication editing and marketing and managed the Communications Department at the Woman's National Democratic Club before becoming its president in 2014. Stepping down from this role after several years, she became active in an affiliate non-profit, the National Women's Foundation, and is now its vice-chair. Anna initially enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill but concluded her studies at Columbia University. She and her husband raised two children in Bethesda, Maryland.
Noreen Sugrue, The Healthcare Workforce Crisis
Thursday, January 22
10:30-11:30 AM
Online
Noreen Sugrue is a sociologist with advanced training in sociology and public health. A former NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CDC and Emory University, she was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for 22 years. From 2018 to 2025, she served as Director and Vice President of Research at the Latino Policy Forum. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Northwest Center in Chicago, leading research on health, immigration, housing, education, and the wealth gap, and is a past president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems.
Carolina Jimenez, Venezuela and US foreign Policy After Nicolas Maduro: A Return to Gunboat Diplomacy?
Tuesday, January 27
1:30-2:30 PM
Online
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval is President of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and a leading human rights advocate with more than 20 years of experience in research and advocacy across the Americas. She has held senior roles at Amnesty International and the Open Society Foundations, working on issues including grave human rights violations, migration, and refugees, and previously directed the Jesuit Refugee Service on the Colombian-Venezuelan border. She holds a PhD in international studies and advanced degrees from Waseda University, Chuo University, and the University of Cambridge, is a frequent international media contributor, and is a national of Venezuela and Mexico.
Bob Friedman, Creating Wealth: Closing the Racial Wealth Divide
Friday, January 30
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Online
Robert E. Friedman is a leading advocate for closing the racial wealth divide and expanding economic opportunity. A fourth-generation Californian and graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, he founded and helped lead Prosperity Now, a national nonprofit advancing economic participation for all. Friedman pioneered key asset-building strategies, including Individual and Child Development Accounts and Baby Bonds, helping shape US and global enterprise development fields. He is the author of A Few Thousand Dollars and serves on the boards of the San Francisco and Rosenberg Foundations and the California HOPE Accounts Board.
OLLI does not endorse any of the viewpoints expressed by the speakers in its series.
We thank the Lecture Committee and all those who suggested and contacted speakers: Ellen Babby, Joe Belden, Tamara Belden, Helen Blank, Jim Blasiak, Edward Cohen, Lesley Diaz (staff), David Flaxman (Co-Chair), Lisa Harper (Co-Chair), Jeanne Kent, Lynn Lewis, Irvin Nathan, Marc Pearl, and Paul Vamvas.