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LYDIA DUGDALE

Founder, Heal the Nation

One Big Thing: Dr. Lydia Dugdale is helping lead a renewed cultural conversation about mortality, meaning, and human dignity—bringing her work in medical ethics, faith, and public life to initiatives like Heal the Nation. As a practicing physician and ethicist, she focuses on recovering the moral, spiritual, and communal resources needed to care for one another well at the end of life, arguing that learning to “die well” reshapes how individuals, families, and societies live. Through her scholarship, teaching, and public engagement, she contributes to Sagamore-connected efforts aimed at healing social fragmentation and strengthening a culture of responsibility, hope, and human flourishing.

  • Lydia is a Professor of Medicine at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, while practicing as an internal medicine physician and hospital ethicist.
  • She is the author of The Lost Art of Dying, which draws on historical and ethical traditions to rethink end-of-life care and challenge the over-medicalization of death in modern society.
  • Lydia previously held leadership roles at Yale, including Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics and co-director of the Program for Medicine, Spirituality, and Religion, shaping interdisciplinary conversations on faith, medicine, and human flourishing.

One Big Thing: Joseph Loconte is shaping the cultural and intellectual conversation around faith, freedom, and Western civilization by directing The Rivendell Center—bringing history, literature, and public life together to recover the moral and spiritual foundations of a free society. Through bestselling books, documentary films, and national commentary, he is translating the ideas of figures like J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis into timely insights for today’s cultural and political moment.

  • A New York Times bestselling author, his book A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War explores how the friendship and wartime experience of Tolkien and Lewis reshaped modern imagination and moral vision
  • A widely published commentator on religion and public life, his work has appeared in major outlets including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Review, and he spent a decade as a commentator for NPR’s All Things Considered
  • Has advised national and international leaders on human rights and faith-based policy, including testimony before Congress and service connected to U.S. policy efforts on religious freedom and global institutions.
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Joseph Loconte

Dr. Joseph Loconte

Senior Fellow

Founder and Director, Sagamore's Rivendell Center

Erica komisar, LCSW

Founder, Attachment Circles

One Big Thing: Erica Komisar is one of America’s leading advocates for strengthening children’s emotional health through secure parent-child relationships. A clinical social worker, psychoanalyst, and parent coach with more than 30 years of experience, Komisar has built her career around helping families understand how early attachment, parental presence, and emotional security shape lifelong resilience and well-being. Eric has partnered with Sagamore to put her research into practice through Attachment Circles, a caregiver community focused on nurturing children through attachment theory. 

  • She is a nationally recognized author on parenting and child development. Komisar is the author of Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters and Chicken Little: The Sky Isn’t Falling, Raising Resilient Adolescents in the New Age of Anxiety. Her work emphasizes the critical importance of strong emotional bonds and resilience-building during childhood and adolescence
  • Erica bridges the worlds of mental health, education, and business. A graduate of Georgetown University, Columbia University, and The New York Freudian Society, Komisar serves as a psychological consultant and speaker for schools, healthcare organizations, and corporations. Her workshops on parenting, child development, and work-life balance have reached audiences at institutions including Goldman Sachs and Shearman & Sterling.
  • She has appeared on CBS, ABC, FOX, and NPR and is a regular contributor to leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and New York Daily News. She also serves as a Contributing Editor for the Institute for Family Studies.