The Soul of the Nation: How Culture Drives Politics

Join Jamie Citron, former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and current Chief of Staff at the Mellon Foundation for a conversation about culture, politics, and public life. Evan Wang, National Youth Poet Laureate and new chair of the IOP Arts Coalition, will moderate the discussion.

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About Jamie Citron

Jamie is the Chief of Staff at the Mellon Foundation. In this role he manages the Office of the President, partners with Dr. Alexander in the management of the Senior Leadership Team, and oversees the Foundation’s government affairs work. Prior to this role, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement (OPE). In this role he leveraged nearly twenty years of experience in public engagement, protocol, organizing, fundraising, and management to advance the President’s relationships with diverse community leaders across the United States. Under his leadership, OPE engaged over 750,000 Americans weekly.

Prior to this, Jamie was Special Assistant to the President and Director of Strategy and Operations in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. Jamie has held additional roles in both government and politics overseeing President Obama’s organizing and fundraising efforts within the LGBTQ+ community, serving as Deputy Director of the White House Visitor’s Office, and as Director of Development Strategy at the Obama Foundation and Presidential Library.

Jamie currently serves on the board of GrowNYC, whose mission is to improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers by providing access to fresh, local food; conserving and enhancing the city’s green spaces; and advancing environmental education and sustainability.

In recognition of his leadership and advocacy, Jamie was named a member of the OUT100 for 2024 by OUT Magazine, and in 2023 the New York Road Runners selected Jamie as a member of the 2023 New York City Marathon Team Inspire. He has been profiled in Runner’s World Magazine and InsideHook for his work to raise awareness and needed funds for gun violence prevention through running.

About Evan Wang

Evan Wang (王潇) is the 9th National Youth Poet Laureate of the United States, the first male and Chinese individual to hold this title, author of Slow Burn (Northwestern University Press, 2026), the youngest winner selected by Chris Abani and Susannah Young-ah Gottlieb for the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize, and a GLAAD 20 under 20 honoree. His work appears in POETRY Magazine, The Kenyon Review, The Journal, RHINO, Sixth Finch, Waxwing, The Margins, The Harvard Advocate, and elsewhere. Deemed a “prodigy” by Teen Vogue, Evan has been featured at and recognized by the Biden White House, NPR, TEDx, Button Poetry, and more.

Evan has earned invitations to perform and speak at the U.S. Department of Education, the Smithsonian Institution, the Google DeepMind Headquarters, and the Miami Book Fair, and for festivals such as Wawa Welcome America and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. In 2025, Evan was celebrated at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City for International Youth Day alongside leaders from 84 different countries, and was invited to London to speak at Google's AI for Learning Forum, where he met Sir Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is the recipient of two National YoungArts Awards, a Scholastic National Gold Medal, the Coca-Cola Scholarship, and was a commended 2024 Foyle Young Poet of the Year.