Sandbox

Akiko Takeyama, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Director of the Center for East Asia Studies at the University of Kansas. 

Akiko is the author of Staged Seduction: Selling Dreams in a Tokyo Host Club (Stanford, 2016) and Involuntary Content: The Illusion of Choice in Japan's Adult Video Industry (Stanford, 2023), the latter receiving an Honorable Mention for the John Whitney Hall Book Prize.

Shiori Itō, Journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker

Shiori's primary focus is gender-based human rights issues. In 2020, TIME magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. She won the One Young World Journalist of the Year Award in 2022. In 2017, she published Black Box, based upon her own experience of rape. The book reveals the sexism in Japan’s society and institutions, and she won the Free Press Association of Japan Award for Best Journalism in 2018. In 2024, her debut feature-length documentary film, Black Box Diaries, was released worldwide—but not yet in Japan—and she was nominated for an Oscar, the first Japanese director to be honored in that category.

Madison Smith, Kansas college student

After surviving a life-threatening sexual assault in her hometown of Lindsborg, Kansas, college freshman Madison Smith and her parents were stunned when the local county prosecutor declined to file charges against the rapist, despite a strong case and compelling physical evidence. Traumatized by both the assault itself and her treatment by the police and prosecutor, Madison never wavered from the conviction that her attacker must be held accountable. She and her family refused to let the criminal justice system deny the facts and ignore her case, or to give up their quest for legal consequences.

Hilary Klotz Steinman, Emmy award-winning Independent documentary film producer and director

Hilary has been producing historical and vérité documentary films for over 25 years, with a focus on women’s history and the impact of technology on American lives. Her work has been featured on PBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, at Sundance Film Festival, the New York Historical Society and in theaters. 

Justin Broadman, Former Detective, West Valley City Police Department, UT

Justin has conducted nearly 300 forensic child victim interviews and 140 adult sexual assault victim interviews. Boardman co-authored a Trauma Informed Victim Interview protocol for adult sexual assault victims, which uses insights from the neurobiology of trauma.