I hope to make a positive, productive contribution, as cheesy as that may sound.

I had seen people who had lost everything and everyone they loved to war, famine, and natural disasters.

I hope telling stories though 'Making a Difference' - as in my academic work and nonprofit work - will help me to live my grandmother's adage of 'Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.'

Determination gets you a long way.

I have never thought of my life as being an enigma.

That's who my mom is. She's a listener and a doer. She's a woman driven by compassion, by faith, by a fierce sense of justice and a heart full of love. So, this November, I'm voting for a woman who is my role model, as a mother, and as an advocate. A woman who has spent her entire life fighting for families and children.

I'm really grateful I grew up in a house in which media literacy was a survival skill.

What inspires me most are people who imagine and implement solutions to challenges in their own lives, in their communities, in our country and around the world.

I want to be the best daughter and wife and friend and person I can be. And I want to help empower the people around me to be the best they can be.

Fried chicken is my husband's favorite food.

I have a boyfriend and a dog, and I still haven't figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

As a kid, I was pretty obsessed with dinosaurs and the day that my parents took me to Dinosaur National Park, I didn't think life could get any better.

My dad had always been a big decaf coffee drinker. But my mom had always been more of a tea drinker. So I grew up around a lot of tea. And I also really love tea. But I'm not one of those people who has ever felt the need to choose between coffee and tea. I think that is a completely false dichotomy.

Millennials regularly draw ire for their cell phone usage. They're mobile natives, having come of age when landlines were well on their way out and payphones had gone the way of dinosaurs. Because of their native fluency, Millennials recognize mobile phones can do a whole lot more than make calls, enable texting between friends or tweeting.

My mother has often said that the issue of women is the unfinished business of the 21st century. That is certainly true. But so, too, are the issues of LGBTQ rights the unfinished business of the 21st century.

I'd ask myself, 'What do I think is really unjust?' That should be a starting point for how you engage with the world.

My grandmother, who passed away at the beginning of November, had a core adage in her life that 'life is not about what happens to you but about what you do with what happens to you.' She recently had been cajoling me and challenging me to do more with my life. To lead more of a purposefully public life.

We proved we could be safe and secure at home, and still have more allies and friends in the world.

I am excited to work with NBC News to continue to highlight stories of organizations and individuals who make their communities and our world healthier, more just and more humane.

I certainly believe that all of my friends should have the right, as Marc and I did, to marry their best friend. I certainly expect my straight friends to help us achieve that for all New Yorkers, for all Americans, and for the children that, at least, Marc and I hope to have someday.

I'm sorry, I don't talk to the press. Even though I think you're cute.

For most of my life, I did deliberately lead a private life and inadvertently led a public life.

I've always been incredibly proud of both of my parents and proud of the work I had done privately as a person, professionally and academically.

I hope that young people will also look to politics as a vehicle to not only have their voices heard, but actually to be the change makers that they want to see. They are disaffected, understandably, but I hope that young people will not only turn out to vote but also run for office.

When my father announced his campaign for president on Oct. 3, 1991, I had already cast my vote in favor of his candidacy.

My parents always asked me what I thought, listened to my opinions, articulated their diagnoses of our challenges at home and abroad, and shared their ideas for how to build a more equal and prosperous country. I always felt part of their call to serve and part of my father's journey.

The solid, middle-class values of hard work, responsibility, family, community, and faith my father talked about tirelessly from Iowa to New York, he lived at home. The hopes he had for his family and for me, he had for all Americans. I think Americans understood this.

People who imagine and implement solutions to challenges in their own lives, in their communities, in our country and in our world have always inspired me.

Every day at some point I encounter some sort of anti-American feeling.

I know I'm late, but I've finally joined Facebook!

My parents and my grandmother inspire me every day and, every day, in my work and personal life.

I think about how best to live my grandmother's twin mantras that 'Life is not a dress rehearsal' and 'Life is not about what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.'

Over the summer I thought that I would seek out non-Americans as friends, just for diversity's sake. Now I find that I want to be around Americans - people who I know are thinking about our country as much as I am.

Through their 'Making a Difference' franchise, I am excited to work with NBC News to continue to highlight stories of organizations and individuals who make their communities and our world healthier, more just and more humane.

Oxford is wonderful. I'm having a great time. We do go out, but I still try to spend most of my time studying in the library.

My parents taught me to approach the world critically, but also to approach it with a sense of responsibility.

For most of my life, I deliberately led a private life in the public eye.

My parents have been incredibly supportive from perhaps the first real independent decision I made to become a vegetarian at 11, which was certainly not consistent with their diet at the time.

We need women who are at the head of a boardroom, like at the head of the White House, at the head of kind of major scientific enterprises so that little girls everywhere can then think, you know what? I can do that, I want to do that, I will do that.

I think that we need women role models everywhere. I think that it's really hard to imagine yourself as something that you don't see.

My mother is very good in Scrabble. In Boggle, my father is probably better.

I do really well in the traditional board games: Backgammon, Checkers.

I always knew I was the center of my parents.

Even during my father's 1984 gubernatorial campaign, it was, 'Do you want to grow up and be governor one day?' 'No. I am four.'

I certainly feel a strong call of public service.

I hadn't planned on or expected to have a public dimension in my life.

I live in a city and a state and a country where I support my elected representatives.

I just hope that I will be as good a mom to my child, and hopefully children, as my mom was to me.

We have to do whatever we can to ensure that no child dies of diarrhea.

I think that there are more opportunities for young women in America than there are in Tanzania. But I also think there are many of the same problems.