Speakers

Engage with diplomats, journalists, and scholars

America's Role in the World® is higher education's premier nonpartisan foreign policy conference due, in no small part, to its unparalleled lineup of guests. Past participants include Ambassador William J. Burns, Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Ambassador Samantha Power, Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, Senator Todd Young, Senator Dan Coats, Susan Glasser, Carol Giacomo, Dina Temple-Raston, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.

Our ninth conference takes place April 4-5, 2024. The conference will be held at the Hamilton Lugar School in Shreve Auditorium and is free and open to the public. The event will also be livestreamed.

Welcome

Thursday, April 4 / 9:30am

Student Introduction: Kendrick Mernitz

John Ciorciari

John Ciorciari, Dean, Hamilton Lugar School

John Ciorciari has been dean of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies since March 1, 2024. Previously, he was a professor at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, where he served as associate dean for research and policy engagement and as director of the International Policy Center and Weiser Diplomacy Center. In 2023-24, he was on sabbatical as an Academic Visitor at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford. Ciorciari has practiced law at Davis Polk & Wardwell, served in several positions for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of International Affairs and was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University. The author of three books — most recently, Sovereignty Sharing in Fragile States — and the editor of four volumes, Ciorciari has published extensively on international relations, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region; international law and institutions; international criminal justice; and rule-of-law initiatives in fragile states.

Nick Cullather, Professor, Hamilton Lugar School

Nick Cullather is a professor of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies where he served as interim dean from 2022-2024. He is a historian of U.S. foreign relations, specializing in the history of intelligence, development, and nation-building. He investigates the U.S. use of aid, covert operations, diet, statistics, and technology to reconstruct social reality in countries around the world. His book, The Hungry World (2010), won the Ellis Hawley Prize for economic history, the Robert Ferrell Prize in diplomatic history, and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on a global policy issue. Cullather’s current research examines the information revolution of the middle years of the twentieth century, which saw the emergence of information science, the first databases, and the Central Intelligence Agency. Cullather has won Fulbright grants to Austria, the Philippines, and Singapore.

LaNitra Berger

LaNitra Berger

Director of African and African American Studies, George Mason University (read bio)

Kenneth Pomeranz

Kenneth Pomeranz

University Professor of Modern Chinese History and the College, University of Chicago (read bio)

Brian Edwards

Brian Edwards

Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Tulane University (read bio)

HLS Global Voices for Change Award

Thursday, April 4 / 11:30am

Student Introduction: Yaroslav Chalyi

Performance by The Indiana Slavic Choir Iryna Voloshyna, Founding artistic director of Indiana Slavic Choir; Ph.D. Candidate in Folklore

Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukrainian human-rights lawyer and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate

Global Voices for Change award recipient

Oleksandra Matviichuk, the head of the Centre for Civil Liberties, is a human rights lawyer focused on issues within Ukraine and the OSCE region. She leads initiatives aimed at fostering democracy and safeguarding human rights. The organization supports legislative reforms, monitors law enforcement and judiciary, conducts wide education programs, and leads international solidarity efforts.

In response to the full-scale war, Matviichuk co-founded the "Tribunal for Putin" initiative, documenting war crimes across affected Ukrainian regions. Recognized for her unwavering commitment, she received the Democracy Defender Award and participated in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University.

In 2022, she earned the prestigious Right Livelihood Award and was named one of the Financial Times' 25 Most Influential Women, while the Centre for Civil Liberties received the Nobel Peace Prize under her leadership.

Matthew Kaminski, Editor at large, Politico

Moderator

Matthew Kaminski is a Polish-born American journalist and commentator. He is the co-founder of POLITICO Europe, which launched in 2015, and former editor-in-chief of POLITICO in Washington from 2019 until last autumn. Kaminski helped turn POLITICO into the leading transatlantic publication on politics and policy. He's currently its editor-at-large, writing and speaking on global affairs. He serves on the board of World.Minds, the community of leaders in business, politics and science. Raised in Warsaw and Washington, Matt started reporting on Ukraine and the former Soviet Union for the Financial Times in 1993. He was a foreign correspondent, editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal in Brussels, Paris and New York. He's a Pulitzer finalist and won the Overseas Press Club Award for his coverage of Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014. His reporting on the EU won the Peter Weitz Prize in 2004.

Frances Burwell

Frances Burwell

Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic Council; Managing Director Europe-Eurasia, McLarty Associates (read bio)

Jerry McNerney

Rep. Jerry McNerney

Former Chair of the Congressional AI Caucus, U.S. House of Representatives (read bio)

Anshu Roy

Anshu Roy

Founder and CEO, Rhombus Power (read bio)

Shannon Raj Singh

Principal & Founder, Athena Tech & Atrocities Advisory (read bio)

Yinka Adegoke

Editor, Semafor Africa (read bio)

Samantha Custer

Samantha Custer

Director of Policy Analysis, AidData (read bio)

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

Zongyuan Zoe Liu

Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (read bio)

Jeremy Mark

Jeremy Mark

Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council (read bio)

Zachariah Mampilly

Zachariah Mampilly

Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs, Marxe School, City University of New York (read bio)

Terence McCulley

Terence P. McCulley

former U.S. Ambassador to the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Mali (read bio)

Samuel Ntewusu

Samuel Ntewusu

Professor (Director), Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana (read bio)

Moshood Olaniyi Omotosho

Mashood Olaniyi Omotosho

Professor, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria (read bio)

Rosa Brooks

Rosa Brooks

Associate Dean for Centers and Institutes; The Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy, Georgetown Law (read bio)

Lee Feinstein

Founding Dean and Professor of International Studies, Hamilton Lugar School; former U.S. Ambassador to Poland (read bio)

Merissa Khurma

Program Director, Wilson Center Middle East Program (read bio)

Michael Kuiken

National Security Advisor to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (read bio)

David McKean

David McKean

Ambassador (ret.), U.S. Department of State (read bio)

John Fernandez

Former Mayor, City of Bloomington (read bio)

Tyler Moore

Tyler O. Moore

Mayor, City of Kokomo (read bio)

David Rosenberg

David Rosenberg

Secretary of Commerce, State of Indiana (read bio)

Vanessa Green Sinders

Vanessa Sinders

President and CEO, Indiana Chamber of Commerce (read bio)

Bios

Yinka Adegoke is editor of Semafor Africa. As a journalist, he has reported from 20 countries across Europe, Africa and North America. Before joining Semafor, he was editor for Strategic Initiatives at Rest of World, he helped launch Quartz's Africa edition, he was deputy editor at Billboard, served as Reuters’ senior media correspondent covering the global media business, was an editor at New Media Age in London, and was a regular writer for The Guardian and The Financial Times. Adegoke has spoken at the World Bank, WTO and numerous business and technology events around the world. He’s also a pundit on broadcast outlets including BBC, CNN and NPR. He is a founding board member of Social Media Week Lagos and launched the Billboard Africa Music Day event.


LaNitra M. Berger is an associate professor of History and Art History and director of African and African American Studies at George Mason University. She is the recipient of the Spirit of King Award (2015) and the Margaret C. Howell Award (2018) at Mason. In 2021, she was elected president and board chair of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.

Berger received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from Duke University and a bachelor’s degree in Art History and International Relations from Stanford University. She is the author of the NAFSA guide, “Exploring Education Abroad: A Guide for Racial and Ethnic Minority Participants.” She is also the editor of the book Social Justice and International Education: Research, Practice, and Perspectives, published by NAFSA. Her first monograph, Irma Stern and the Racial Paradox of South African Modern Art: Audacities of Color, was published by Bloomsbury in December 2020.


Rosa Brooks is the Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of Law and Policy at Georgetown Law. She has worked previously in senior positions at the Defense Department and the State Department. Brooks’ articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal, and she spent four years as a weekly opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times and another four as a columnist for Foreign Policy. Her 2016 book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016; it was named one of the five best books of the year by the Council on Foreign Relations. Her most recent book, Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City (2021) was named one of the best non-fiction books of the year by the Washington Post.


Frances G. Burwell is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a senior director at McLarty Associates. She previously served as vice president, European Union and Special Initiatives, at the Council, and currently leads the Transatlantic Digital Marketplace Initiative. Her work focuses on the European Union and US-EU relations, including in the digital arena, and in energy and industrial policy. At McLarty Associates, she advises global companies on these issues and others. Her most recent publications include: The US-EU Summit: Time to Focus on Geopolitics (co-authored); The US-EU Trade and Technology Council: Assessing the Record on Data and Technology Issues (co-authored); Time for an EU Data & Technology Agency; and Digital Sovereignty in Practice: The EU’s Push to Shape the New Global Economy (co-authored).


Samantha Custer directs AidData's Policy Analysis Unit, which blends qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer real-world questions in a way that is both academically rigorous and policy relevant. Her research examines the influence of development investments and public diplomacy efforts, generates new evidence on the use and impact of open data, and leverages surveys to learn from the experiences of decision-makers in low- and middle-income countries regarding the impact of external money and ideas on domestic policy reforms. She holds a dual master's in Foreign Service and Public Policy from Georgetown University and has a 20-year track record of leading teams and supporting evidence-based decision-making as an international relations scholar-practitioner. She teaches courses for the Whole of Government Center of Excellence at William & Mary and is a member of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics.


Brian T. Edwards is dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Tulane University, where he oversees 35 departments and programs in the social sciences, humanities, and fine and performing arts. Prior to 2018, he was the Crown Professor in Middle East Studies at Northwestern University and founding director of their Program in Middle East and North African Studies. He is the author of Morocco Bound: Disorienting America’s Maghreb; After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East; co-editor of Globalizing American Studies; and many essays, articles and Op-eds. Edwards is currently working on a multisited initiative on Global Port Cities, linking researchers, urbanists, artists, and community activists in Tangier, New Orleans, and Dakar. He led a two-year initiative on anti-racism and the disciplines, released as a podcast in 2023, and writes frequently on the future of liberal arts education for the post-pandemic era.


Lee Feinstein is president of McLarty Associates, a leading global advisory firm based in Washington, DC. He is the Founding Dean of the Hamilton Lugar School, serving from 2014-2022. Feinstein has held senior positions in the US government, including as Ambassador to Poland (2009-2012), as principal deputy director of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and served on the Presidential Transition Team for President Obama. Feinstein was senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Feinstein served as a presidentially appointed trustee of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and is presently vice chair of its Committee on Conscience, which advises the Simon Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Feinstein is the author with Tod Lindberg of Means to an End: US Interest and the International Criminal Court (Brookings).


John Fernandez joined The Mill, Bloomington's home for innovators, to catalyze the regional innovation ecosystem, including leading collaborations with Indiana University, investors, and the robust start-up community. A key priority includes developing and managing The Trades District, a regional innovation hub located in Bloomington's certified tech park.

Prior to joining The Mill, Fernandez served as global chief innovation officer at Denton’s, the world’s largest law firm, where he co-founded Nextlaw Ventures and served as a managing director.

Prior to joining Dentons, Fernandez served as President Barack Obama’s assistant secretary of commerce for economic development. He also served as Bloomington, Indiana’s mayor from 1996 to 2003.


Merissa Khurma is the program director of the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center. She was a non-resident fellow in the International Security program at New America. She has leadership experience working in a range of development projects in the Middle East that focused on economic development, the Syrian refugee crisis, education, youth, gender development, and governance. Additionally, she served as director of the Office of Jordan’s Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein (2010-2013) and as press attaché and director of the Information Bureau at the Embassy of Jordan in Washington, D.C. (2003-2010). Khurma has an M.P.A from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, an M.S. in international security and foreign policy from Georgetown University, and a B.A. in Political Science from McGill University. She is also a leadership development practitioner with a focus on adaptive leadership, public narrative & community 0rganizing. Merissa speaks Arabic and French.


Michael Kuiken has been national security advisor to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer since 2017. Prior to that, he was a professional staff member with the United State Senate Committe on Armed Services from 2004-2015, and a legislative staff member for U.S. Senator Carl Levin from 2001-2004. Kuiken has extensive experience in creating, funding, and conducting oversight of Federal Government’s at the Department of Defense (DoD), State Department, National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), National Labs, Intelligence Community, Department of Homeland Security, and innovation agencies across the government. He earned a B.A. in Economics, Political Science, and Public Administration from Calvin University, and an M.A. in International Commerce and Policy from George Mason University.


Zongyuan Zoe Liu is Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her work focuses on international finance, sovereign wealth funds, industrial policies, and the geoeconomics of energy transition. Her regional expertise is in East Asia and the Middle East. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press, February 2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, June 2023). She is an adjunct assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University. Liu is a columnist for Foreign Policy. She received her Ph.D. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, and she is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.


Zachariah Mampilly is the Marxe Endowed Chair of International Affairs at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, CUNY and a member of the doctoral faculty in the Department of Political Science at the Graduate Center, CUNY. He is the co-founder of the Program on African Social Research.

He is the author of Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life during War (Cornell U. Press 2011) and with Adam Branch, Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change (African Arguments, Zed Press 2015). He is the co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil Wars (Cambridge U. Press 2015) with Ana Arjona and Nelson Kasfir; and Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory (Praeger 2011) with Andrea Bartoli and Susan Allen Nan. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Jacobin, The Hindu, Africa's a Country, N+1, Dissent, Al Jazeera, The Washington Post and elsewhere.


Jeremy Mark is a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center and a specialist in political, economic, and financial issues related to Asia. He worked for the International Monetary Fund for more than two decades, including as an adviser and speechwriter to the IMF management team. He also was a reporter and editor with the Wall Street Journal, the Asian Wall Street Journal, and CNBC Asia in New York, Tokyo, Taipei, and Singapore, and was co-winner of the 1995 Malcolm Forbes Award of the U.S. Overseas Press Club.


Ambassador Terence McCulley is a senior managing director with McLarty Associates, leading the firm’s Africa practice since 2019. During a long career with the U.S. State Department, McCulley served as ambassador to Mali, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire, and as deputy chief of mission in Togo, Senegal, Tunisia, and Denmark. In Washington, he covered Zaire (now DRC) during the Rwanda genocide. Earlier postings include Niger, South Africa, Chad, and India.

McCulley was the senior advisor for Africa at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 2016-2018. He is a senior visiting advisor for West Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace and chairs the US-Nigeria Council, a non-profit promoting increased commercial ties between the two countries.

McCulley received a B.A. in History and French from the University of Oregon. He studied in France as a Rotary Foundation graduate fellow, and later attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.


David McKean served in the U.S. Department of State from 2012-2017. Secretary Hillary Clinton appointed him as the director of the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, then in 2013 President Barack Obama appointed him as the director of policy planning, the internal “think tank” for the Department. In 2015 the president nominated McKean as ambassador to Luxembourg. During his time in the Department, he was awarded the Superior Honor Award and Distinguished Service Award.

Previously, McKean had a long career on Capitol Hill where he served as chief of staff to Senator John Kerry, minority staff director for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, and staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

McKean has written extensively about foreign policy for many publications and has authored six books on American political history. He is a graduate of Harvard College, Duke University Law School, and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.


Congressman McNerney has a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Differential Geometry), spent 20 years developing renewable energy technology, 16-years in the U.S. House of Representatives, and is now starting an AI trade association supported by Pillsbury Law to help ensure that AI benefits society.


Tyler Moore was elected the 35th mayor of Kokomo in 2019 and is starting his second term. Moore moved to Kokomo in 1972 and later graduated from Kokomo High School in 1989. He earned a degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1993, then returned to Kokomo in 1998 to work with his family. He served as county commissioner for 11 years before becoming mayor in 2020. Moore is active in his community by participating with a number of organizations such as United Way, Rotary, Knights of Columbus, Mental Health Association and others. Moore previously served in leadership with Indiana Land Title Association and was ILTA president in 2008. Moore is married to his wife, Ann, and is the proud father of 5 children. He and his family attend St. Patrick Catholic Church, where he has served on the Parish Council, Sunday Religious Education and youth ministry.


Professor Samuel Ntewusu is the director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana, Legon. He has been on the institute's faculty since 2011, previously serving as the research coordinator of the History and Politics Section. His core areas of research are urban history and transport, mining, chieftaincy, archiving, slavery and the slave trade, religious cults and environmental protection, German colonialism, drugs and drug abuse, Ghana-China relations, Zongos (migrant communities) and (in)formalisation in West Africa.

Ntewusu has authored several articles, book chapters, a monograph on urban and transport history and co-edited a book on history, gender and culture in Africa and Europe. He received the 2016 Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellowship. In 2019 he received the African Distinguished Speaker Series at California State University, Long Beach. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Voorhees University in South Carolina.


Mashood Omotosho is a professor of International Relations at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He holds Ph.D. in Political Science from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. M.Sc. in International Relations from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife Nigeria. He was a visiting fellow at the Department of Political Science, University of Florida. He has gained external recognition by winning an academic fellowship at the highly regarded Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Senegal. He also participated in the American Black History in Tacachale Centre, Gainesville, FL. He has won a research grant from Institute of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom. He is a country expert with V-Dem, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He was a convener of a workshop on “Women’s Rights in Islam: An Evaluation of Women in Purdah ‘Mata Kule’ in Northern Nigeria,” sponsored by the Institute of African Studies, University of Edinburg, UK.


Kenneth Pomeranz is a University Professor of Modern Chinese History and the College at the University of Chicago. His work focuses mostly on China, although he is also very interested in comparative and world history. Most of his research is on social, economic, and environmental history.

His award-winning publications include The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2000), The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society and Economy in Inland North China, 1853–1937 (1993), and The World that Trade Created (with Steven Topik, first edition 1999, third edition 2012). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, American Council of Learned Societies, the Institute for Advanced Studies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and other sources. He earned his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1988.


Vanessa Green Sinders became the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s first female president and CEO on January 5, 2024. After 20 years in Washington D.C., she moved “home” to Indianapolis with her husband, a Clay County native, and their two sons. She founded Green Sinders Consulting, a woman-led firm offering strategic advice, project execution and crisis management, and leadership development and coaching services to clients. Previously, she served as senior vice president for government affairs at Charter Communications/Spectrum, a Fortune 100 cable and broadband company. Prior to that, she was senior vice president and department head for government affairs at the American Hotel & Lodging Association. She was chief of staff for then-U.S. Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and policy director for former U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire. She received a bachelor’s degree in Government with a minor in Economics from Dartmouth College.


Shannon Raj Singh is the principal and founder of Athena Tech & Atrocities Advisory, which leverages international legal frameworks to address challenges at the intersection of digital technology and mass violence. Until November 2022, she was human rights counsel at Twitter, where she advised on risks related to the use of social media in conflicts including Ethiopia, Afghanistan, and Ukraine. Raj Singh’s background is in international criminal and humanitarian law, and she was previously based at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague. Today, she is co-chair of the War Crimes Committee of the International Bar Association, and a special advisor on social media & conflict to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Geneva-based organization supporting international peace negotiations. She is also working with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide to explore how social media can support efforts to avert mass atrocities.


David Rosenberg has served as secretary of commerce for the state of Indiana and a member of Governor Eric J. Holcomb’s cabinet since his appointment in August 2023. In his role, Rosenberg leads the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, guiding the strategy and growth of the state’s economy and its related economic development efforts. Prior to becoming secretary of commerce, he served as the IEDC’s chief operating officer and chief of staff, and he has also held previous leadership roles within the office of former Indianapolis mayor Greg Ballard and with Indianapolis Public Schools. Rosenberg is a graduate of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and was recently named as one of Howey Politics Indiana’s Power 50 and one of Indiana’s 250 Most Influential Leaders by the Indianapolis Business Journal.


Anshu Roy earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan at the intersection of Materials, Complex Systems, High Performance Computing and Turbulence. Before starting Rhombus Power in 2011, he teamed up with Nobel Laureate Professor Alan Heeger to set a world record in solar cell efficiency.

Roy invented Mercury™ – Rhombus' patented platform for solid state subatomic particle detection. He is also the architect of Guardian, Rhombus’ Artificial Intelligence platform for strategic, operational, and tactical decisions at the Speed of Relevance. Guardian is purposefully transforming the nation's defense and national security enterprises.

Foreign Policy invited Roy and General Stanley McChrystal to open a long analysis of Artificial Intelligence’s potential application and implications for foreign policy and national security decision-making. Their analysis, “AI Has Entered the Situation Room,” was published in Foreign Policy’s inaugural AI Issue, June 2023.

Past guests

Charlie Bevis is a trainee lawyer, specializing in energy and environmental law and advising international clients on climate-related risks, including novel forms of climate litigation and developments in greenwashing regulation. He earned an LL.B. from the University of Bristol and received the Debbie Philips Prize for graduating as class valedictorian. His thesis, which evaluated the indigenous-led enviro-legal movement Vivir Bien, received the Head of Law School Award for highest dissertation mark.

Bevis led the COP Team at the international youth NGO ClimaTalk. As a COP26 and ‘27 delegate, he interviewed a range of stakeholders, including city mayors, charity heads and indigenous leaders, to demystify the UNFCCC and international climate negotiations for other young people. He is the UK’s head delegate and Climate Change & Disaster Risk Reduction delegate to the G20 Youth Summit, where he will be pressing the G20 to accept policies that will accelerate their response to the climate crisis. As a UK Ambassador for Stop Ecocide International, he advocates for the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to be amended to recognize ecocide as an international crime. 


Alexa Blanton is the head of fundraising at Climate Clock, a global campaign promoting swift, bold climate action. Blanton also serves as co-chair of the COP Task Force, annually coordinating strategy and logistics for her team’s participation in the conference. Through this role, she attended COP26 and remotely participated in COP27. Blanton graduated from the Hamilton Lugar School in 2019 with a BA/MA in International Studies. As a student, she was a member of the COP23 and UN Women CSW63 delegations. She lives in Rome, Italy with her husband.


Paul Burkhead is associate vice president, International Government Affairs at Eli Lilly and Company, based in Washington, DC. Burkhead has decades of experience in global government affairs and public policy, including work in the consumer products industry and as an expert consultant to multinational companies. Previously, Burkhead served in the U.S. government for many years, including as director for Europe and the Middle East at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. He began his career with the U.S. Department of State, where he served as a foreign service officer with postings at the U.S. Embassies in Bangkok, Port-au-Prince and Rome, and in the Bureau of European Affairs in Washington.

Burkhead holds a bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina and a master's degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.


YMCA climate change ambassador Rebecca Nkunde Chonya was named the most innovative youth at the 2021 National Innovation Fair, funded by UNDP. The award is in recognition of her project turning plastic waste into fashion accessories. In the same year, she represented her organization as a delegate in Glasgow Scotland at COP 26 and met with John Kerry to share concerns on young people’s voices being heard at COP. Chonya was a virtual speaker at the 2022 ChangeNOW conference (Paris, France), discussing planetary championship in education.

Chonya is a secondary Art and Design and Physical Education teacher. As a YMCA volunteer, she spearheads and manages projects to educate and empower communities with knowledge and skill related to climate change. Through a YMCA partner program, Gold youth, she trains youth peer educators.

Chonya believes that the Earth cannot speak for itself, so the onus is on humans to find solutions to global challenges as it is a responsibility given to us by God Almighty.


Thomas Day was a COP26 delegate and is currently a senior studying International Studies, primarily focusing on climate change-related issues.

On campus, Day has worked as a research assistant for Dr. Jessica O’Reilly’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ethnography project. As a research assistant, Thomas attended 100+ hours of the closed IPCC meetings with 195 member governments in attendance to approve scientific reports. Under Dr. O’Reilly’s mentorship, Day’s research on carbon dioxide removal technologies won him the 2022 SDG Poster Competition and served as the topic of his Honors Capstone project.

Day also worked for the U.S. Department of State, where he presented to influential stakeholders from the U.S. Department of State, USAID, and U.S. Embassies, in addition to regional partners, on strategies to reduce violence against environmental defenders.

After graduation, Day will be working as a Government & Public Services Analyst at Deloitte.


Michael De Groot is an assistant professor of International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is also faculty affiliate with the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute and the Institute for European Studies. Before coming to IU, he served as a postdoctoral fellow with Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania, a Henry A. Kissinger predoctoral fellow with the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale University, and a national fellow with the Jefferson Scholars Foundation at the University of Virginia. He received his PhD in History from the University of Virginia and B.A. in History from Stanford University.

De Groot’s research focuses on Russian and U.S. foreign relations, the Cold War and its legacy, the geopolitics of energy, and economic statecraft. He has published numerous articles and essays in academic journals and edited volumes as well as popular outlets such as The Washington Post, The Conversation, and The National Interest. His book, entitled Disruption: The Global Economic Shocks of the 1970s and the End of the Cold War, will be published by Cornell University Press later in 2023.


Mark A Drumbl is the Class of 1975 Alumni Professor at Washington and Lee University, School of Law, where he also serves as Director of the Transnational Law Institute. He has authored Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (CUP 2007) and Reimagining Child Soldiers in International Law and Policy (OUP 2012), and co-edited (with Dr. Jastine Barrett) of the Research Handbook of Child Soldiers (Elgar 2019). He is currently authoring ‘Getting’ Informers: Stories and Sentiments Starting in Communist Prague (OUP, 2023, with Barbora Holá) and editing The Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions (Brill, 2024, with Caroline Fournet). He has consulted widely including with the United Nations and US State Department, served an expert in court litigation and to drafting committees, his work has been relied upon by courts nationally and internationally, and has been a visiting professor at many universities worldwide including Oxford University, Université de Paris, Free University of Amsterdam, Queen’s University Belfast, University of Melbourne, and the University of Sydney.


Cedric Dzelu, a World YMCA global climate change ambassador, is the director of administration and finance for the African Youth Commission, a network of young people focused on achieving the Africa We Want, Agenda 2063. He is the focal person for Africa on a five-year climate change advocacy project funded by the Netherlands. Dzelu is also a World Bank Climate Change Ambassador, providing leadership to young people and governments to confront their roles in addressing the climate crisis.

Dzelu holds an MSc in Development Finance from the University of Ghana and a BSc in Marketing from the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, (GIMPA). With over 11 years of experience, his expertise meets perfectly at the intersection of Climate Change Advocacy, communication, community development, marketing, finance, writing, community service and volunteering. This has afforded him the opportunity to learn, lead, manage resources and plan finances such that project objectives are met.


Golnaz Esfandiari is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL focusing on Iran. She has reported from Afghanistan and Haiti. Her work has been cited by The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other major publications. Esfandiari has worked as a consultant on Iran with Freedom House, authoring several of their reports on human rights and press freedom in Iran. Born and raised in Tehran, she is fluent in Persian, French, English, and Czech.


Amanda Ghahremani is an international lawyer and consultant. Her expertise includes international criminal law, corporate accountability, universal jurisdiction, and transitional justice, for which she was nominated as Canadian Lawyer Magazine’s Top 25 Most Influential Lawyers three years in a row. As a consultant, Ghahremani is currently involved in several criminal and corporate accountability investigations, including in the context of Ukraine, Iran, and North Korea. Her recent work includes co-authoring the legal analysis on genocide for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada, litigating for corporate accountability against a Canadian mining company in the Nevsun case, and successfully leading the international campaign to release Iranian-Canadian political prisoner Professor Homa Hoodfar from arbitrary detention in Iran. She is also currently a research fellow at the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and a co-researcher for the Canadian Partnership for International Justice.


State Representative Carey Hamilton was first elected to the Indiana House of Representatives in 2016 to represent Indiana House District 87. She serves as the Democratic Caucus Chair in the Indiana House of Representatives. Representative Hamilton has received national recognition for founding and leading the bipartisan Indiana legislative trails caucus - advancing this critical quality of life, public health, and economic development infrastructure across the state.

Representative Hamilton currently works in the climate tech sector and has also worked as a nonprofit executive, owned a consulting company, and held state and local government program and policy positions - all in the environmental field - for more than 25 years. She is a graduate of Indiana University, Bloomington and is a married mother of two boys.


Catherine Heiger was a COP26 delegate and is currently a senior in the Hamilton Lugar School studying International Studies with minors in Spanish, German, and Business. She works as a Cox Research Scholar for Dr. Sarah Bauerle Danzman, investigating the intersection of foreign direct investment and national security and the politics of investment promotion.

Heiger interned at the U.S. Department of State, where she coordinated public diplomacy content ahead of multilateral conferences on environmental issues, including COP27, and authored policy recommendations on climate security for key leaders in the US Defense arena.

Heiger also worked at the European Environmental Bureau in Vienna, Austria, where she authored a report on EU incentive programs to reduce energy demand in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, offering recommendations to governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. She has additional experience working with the International Renewable Energy Agency and the American Civil Liberties Union.

After graduation, Heiger plans to pursue a career in sustainability consulting.


Russ Hensley is a fourth-year student at Indiana University (IU) Bloomington studying International Law and Institutions and Chinese Language and Culture, with a minor in Spanish. He serves on student advisory boards to Hamiton Lugar School Interim Dean Nick Cullather (Global Student 7) and IU President Pamela Whitten (Board of Aeons). He was a member of the IU COP26 Student Delegation to Glasgow, Scotland.

Outside of IU, Hensley has immersed himself in the study of international climate justice. While interning at Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association in Taipei, Taiwan, he used his Chinese language skills to work with clients facing environmental disasters. He is currently an intern for Climate Clock, conducting research and collaborating with organizations from around the world in the pursuit of climate justice.

Through this organization, attended COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

After graduation, Hensley will study Chinese at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University Taipei, Taiwan for a year, then return to the U.S. to pursue a degree in international/comparative law.


Dr. Ana Horigoshi is a development economist with extensive experience in development financing by traditional and non-traditional donors and its impacts on governance. Horigoshi is currently a senior research analyst at AidData, a research lab at William & Mary, where she conducts policy oriented quantitative analysis on a range of development topics, such as leaders’ opinions of development partners, Chinese development financing, US efforts to counter malign influence, and Chinese and Russian digital censorship efforts. Prior to joining AidData she has worked for the European Commission, the World Bank, and UNU-WIDER. Horigoshi holds a PhD in Economics from Université Paris-Dauphine, a Master’s in Public Policy and Development from the Paris School of Economics, and a Master’s in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies.


A historian of Soviet empire, Claire P. Kaiser is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies. She is the author of Georgian and Soviet: Entitled Nationhood and the Specter of Stalin in the Caucasus (Cornell UP, 2023). She has also contributed to edited volumes on nationalism and empire in the Soviet periphery. Kaiser has been an area studies instructor at the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute, served as an election observer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in missions to Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, and began her career at the US Embassy in Kyiv. She is also head of strategy for a Washington-based global strategy firm. A native of Evansville, Indiana, she earned a PhD in modern Russian and Soviet history at the University of Pennsylvania; and an MA in Eurasian, Russian, and Eastern European studies and a BS in foreign service from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She is a term member of the Council of Foreign Relations and speaks Russian and Georgian.


Sarah Kemp, vice president for international government affairs, joined Intel in February of 2022 with decades of global policy expertise. Before joining Intel, she served as the associate vice president (AVP) for global health policy/ESG strategy for Organon and was Merck’s AVP for public policy for Asia Pacific and the emerging markets.

Before Merck, Kemp served as the deputy under secretary for the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. She oversaw a $485 million annual budget and 2,100 trade and investment professionals based in 108 U.S. cities and 76 markets worldwide. Before her time in D.C., she was the minister counselor for commercial affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and had postings in Hanoi, Hong Kong, and Bangkok.

Kemp received her MBA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, her MPA from Columbia University, and her BA from Hamilton College. She is an independent board member of NTIC and CIPE and a member of the WEF’s Global Future Council on China.


Michael Kimmage is an ordinary professor and department chair in the Catholic University of America’s Department of History, and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund. He specializes in the history of the Cold War, in twentieth-century U.S. diplomatic and intellectual history and in U.S.-Russian relations since 1991. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio.

Kimmage publishes widely on international affairs, U.S.-Russian relations and American diplomatic history. His latest book, The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy, was published by Basic Books in April 2020. He is the chair of the Kennan Institute Advisory Council.

In addition to his books, Kimmage has written articles and books reviews for the New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Jewish Review of Books and Los Angeles Review of Books. He has been a visiting professor at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and at Vilnius University in Lithuania.


Kristina Lund is the president and CEO of AES’ US Utilities – AES Indiana and AES Ohio – which provides electric service to more than one million customers. Under Lund’s leadership, AES’ US Utilities are leading the inclusive clean energy transition with new technologies to meet their customers’ most critical objectives in a sustainable way.

Previously, Lund was AES’ chief product officer of Carbon-Free Energy, and served in two regional chief financial officer positions for AES’ Eurasia and Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean businesses. In total, Kristina drove financial performance and strategic execution for our businesses in 13 countries, representing more than $10 billion in assets. Prior to her CFO roles, Lund served as the Vice President of the Corporate Strategy and Investment Group, leading the establishment of AES’ first companywide carbon emissions reduction target.

Lund is Chair of IPALCO Enterprises, Inc., and DPL Inc. , and serves on many boards in Indiana and Ohio. She graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School.


Kelly Golnoush Niknejad is an award-winning journalist and a pioneer in disruptive new media. She is the founder of TehranBureau.com, a highly acclaimed digital news service launched in 2008. She was a trailblazer in incorporating social media into foreign reporting. Her site formed unprecedented partnerships with The Guardian newspaper in London and PBS/Frontline. She is the inaugural recipient of the Innovator Award from Columbia Journalism School for “inspiring, creating, developing, or implementing new ideas that further the cause of journalism.” She holds both an M.S. and an M.A., with a specialization in political reporting, from Columbia University. Her work includes reporting for The Guardian, PBS/FRONTLINE, New Lines Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune, Time, Foreign Policy, and California Lawyer.

Golnoush has served as a moderator and panelist on discussions about digital journalism and Iranian politics. Past venues have included MIT, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Columbia University, Paley Center/Carnegie, and the Poynter Institute. Golnoush started her professional career as an attorney in California, where she was trained and admitted to practice law. She is working on her memoir.


Alicia O’Sullivan, an environmental activist since the age of 8, is a University College Cork law student from rural Ireland. She has represented Ireland at the first United Nations Youth Climate Summit, attended COP26, and been part of local, national, and international campaigns and projects around education, youth representation and climate action. She served on Ireland's National Youth Council, been a member of Ireland's Youth Climate Justice Committee, was elected as education officer at Ireland's Second-Level Student Union, and Sustainability Officer at her University's Students’ Union, to name a few.

O’Sullivan has been a powerful voice for youth in Ireland, successfully advocating for 2 million euros which went directly to youth groups working on climate related projects.

O’Sullivan is currently focused on her studies to prepare for a career in foreign service, and she continues to work on many projects including US Climate Envoy John Kerry's international climate initiative ‘World War Zero’ which she co-founded.


Rachel Poynter is the U.S. State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for North America, covering bilateral relationships with Mexico and Canada. She most recently served as the director of the Office of Policy Planning and Coordination in the Western Hemisphere Affairs Bureau, where she coordinated the Bureau’s work on regional and global issues, foreign assistance planning in Latin America and the Caribbean, congressional affairs and hemispheric strategy development.

Poynter previously served as the director of the Office of Mexican Affairs and the Department’s U.S.-Mexico Border Coordinator. She was the director for North American affairs at the National Security Council from 2013-14, a portfolio that included preparing the President for his participation in the North American Leaders Summit. Poynter spent five years working in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State and was a Brookings Fellow with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, where she worked on trade issues.

Poynter has a Master of Public Affairs and a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies, both from the University of Texas at Austin.


Amb (ret) Eunice Reddick had a distinguished career in the U.S. Department of State, culminating in two ambassadorial appointments - Niamey, Niger (2014-2017) and Libreville, Gabon (2007-2010). She also served as charge d’affaires at U.S. Embassy Bujumbura (2019-2020) and U.S. Embassy Nouakchott (2014).

Following retirement from the Foreign Service, Reddick served in several teaching positions, including 2018-19 DACOR Lecturer at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Leavenworth, Kansas, and the 2022 International Law Lecturer at the Hamilton Lugar School of International and Global Studies at Indiana University, among others.

Reddick is a member of the International Advisory Council for the official celebration of America’s 250th independence anniversary in 2026. She holds Board of Director positions with Black Professionals in International Affairs, American Women for International Understanding, and Helen Keller International.

Reddick received a BA in history and literature from New York University and a master’s degree in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International Affairs. After completing her graduate studies, Reddick worked for several years at the Africa-America Institute in New York and Washington DC.


General Gene Renuart, USAF (Ret), is the founder and president of The Renuart Group (TRG), LLC, a defense, homeland security, energy, project management, and leadership consulting firm, with offices in Colorado and North Carolina. His principle focus at TRG has been to provide strategic advice to DoD agencies and defense corporations as well as develop commercially backed public, private partnerships designed to assist the DoD in budget-constrained infrastructure requirements. General Renuart’s Air Force career culminated as Commander, NORAD and US Northern Command after nearly 39 years of distinguished service. In this last role, he was responsible for providing for the Homeland Defense and Defense Support to Civilian Authorities for the United States, and for partnering with Canada and Mexico in broader security issues for North America.


Ribeiro is a 3rd year PhD Student in Anthropology at Indiana University, member of the Center for the Analysis of Socio-Ecological Landscapes (CASEL) and member of the Kovener Teaching Fellows Program at IU.

Ribeiro is interested in Social-cultural Anthropology with a focus on the study of politics, institutional ethnography, and multi-scale governance. She spent the last years studying the production and local implementation of international projects as well as the network of organizations part of this system, including environmental NGOs and indigenous organizations in the Brazilian Amazon. Now pursuing her PhD, she focuses on the dilemma of indigenous peoples’ participation in global environmental politics and governance. Ribeiro earned a B.A. in Social Sciences and a M.A. in Social Anthropology at the University of Brasília, Brazil.


Andrea Richter-Garry is senior vice president of global strategy & engagement at the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), overseeing efforts related to government affairs, trade and defense strategy on behalf of the state. She also manages relationships with foreign governments and shapes federal advocacy. Previously, Richter-Garry held the role of advance to President Barack Obama at the White House, where she led teams to prepare the logistical, security and communications aspects for the President’s foreign and domestic travel.

Richter-Garry completed her B.A. in Political Science, Global Studies and German at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN and received her M.A. in European Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She began her government career at the U.S. Department of State in 2009 and honed an expertise in economic statecraft. While chief of staff of the Bureau of Energy Resources within the Department, she shaped foreign policy engagement at the critical nexus of energy and national security.


Greg Ronczka is vice president - environment & sustainability for Heidelberg Materials’ North American business. In this role he is responsible for environmental compliance of current operations, managing legacy claims and liabilities from discontinued operations, and achieving the company’s sustainability commitments and targets including carbon reduction.

Prior to joining Heidelberg Materials in 2017, Ronczka served as director of site assessment & remedial services for CB&I Environment & Infrastructure, Inc. HE previously served in a variety of other roles of increasing responsibility with CB&I and its legacy companies leading to nearly 27 years of continuous service with the company.

Ronczka holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Geosciences from the Pennsylvania State University and a Master of Public Health Degree in Environmental and Occupational Health from the University of Pittsburgh.


Jennifer Trahan is a clinical professor at New York University's Center for Global Affairs and director of their Concentration in International Law and Human Rights. She is an internationally renowned expert on issues of international law and international justice and a prolific scholar. She published two digests on the case-law of ad hoc tribunals, and scores of law review articles and book chapters. Her recent book, "Legal Limits to Security Council Veto Power in the Face of Atrocity Crimes" (Cambridge U. Press 2020), received the 2020 Book of the Year Award from the American Branch of the International Law Association (ABILA). She serves as a US representative to the Use of Force Committee of the International Law Association and holds various positions with the ABILA. She has served as an amicus curiae to the International Criminal Court on the appeal of the situation regarding Afghanistan and on the Council of Advisers on the Application of the Rome Statute to Cyberwarfare. She additionally serves as Convenor of the Global Institute for the Prevention of Aggression.


Alex Vatanka is the founding director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute. He specializes in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran. He was formerly a senior analyst at Jane’s Information Group in London. Vatanka is also a senior fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and an adjunct professor at DISAS at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Born in Tehran, Vatanka holds a BA in Political Science (Sheffield University, UK), and an MA in International Relations (Essex University, UK), and is fluent in Persian and Danish. He is the author of two books: “The Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran: The United States, Foreign Policy and Political Rivalry Since 1979” (2021) and “Iran and Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy, and American Influence” (2015).

He has written chapters for many books, and is presently working on his third book “The American and Iranian Rivalry in the Arab World” @AlexVatanka


Tim William Waters is professor of law, Val Nolan Faculty Fellow, and associate director of Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law Center for Constitutional Democracy. Waters writes and teaches on the laws of war, international criminal law, secession, and changes in states’ borders.

He is the author of Boxing Pandora: Rethinking Borders, States, and Secession in a Democratic World (Yale 2020) and editor of The Milosevic Trial: An Autopsy (Oxford 2013). He is a frequent contributor to policy debate on international law and politics and has published extensively in leading journals of international law and international relations. His op-eds on Iraq, Ukraine, the Balkans, and international justice, as well as gun rights and public discourse in America, have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Völkerrechtsblog, Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy.

A graduate of UCLA, Columbia, and Harvard, Waters has held fellowships at Harvard Law School, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and visited at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.

Iman Alramadan is a Senior Lecturer of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at the IU Hamilton Lugar School. She is also the Director of Cultural & Co-curricular Activities of the Arabic Flagship, and the Arabic Section Head from 2019-2022 for the IU Language Workshop. She is a specialist in teaching Arabic as a foreign language. Additionally, she is versed in Arabic grammar and morphology as well as Arabic literature. She has studied the language of Arabic science heritage and Arabic medical terminology. Her publication highlights include “Terms of Pathology in the Canon of Medicine of Avicenna” and “Le Lexique Technique de la Médcine Arabe.”

Yuen Yuen Ang is an expert on China’s political economy and the global impact of its rise, and more broadly, the political economy of development. Her work has been recognized for both its scholarly and public impact. Ang is named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for “high-caliber scholarship that applies fresh perspectives to some of the most pressing issues of our times.” She is the inaugural recipient of the Theda Skocpol Prize for Emerging Scholars, awarded by the American Political Science Association for “impactful empirical, theoretical and/or methodological contributions to the study of comparative politics.”

Natalia Arno is the President and Founder of the Free Russia Foundation, a nonprofit and nonpartisan US-based nongovernmental organization that informs US policy makers on events in Russia in real time and supports the formulation of an effective and sustainable US policy on Russia. In 2004, Natalia joined the International Republican Institute, a US nonprofit nonpartisan organization, and became Russia Country Director. In December 2009, Natalia represented Russia in the World Summit of Women Leaders in Geneva, Switzerland. Forced to leave Russia as a result of her pro-democracy work, Natalia founded the Free Russia Foundation with other pro-democracy exiled activists in 2014. The organization serves as a voice for those who cannot speak under the repression of the current Russian leadership.

Hussein Banai is an Assistant Professor of International Studies at the IU Hamilton Lugar School, and Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies at MIT. His research interests lie at the intersection of political thought and international relations, with a special focus on topics in democratic theory, non-Western liberal thought, diplomatic history and theory, US-Iran relations, and Iran’s political development. He has published on these topics in academic, policy, and popular periodicals. In addition to his scholarly work, he frequently comments on Iran-related issues in the media. His interviews have appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Voice of America, Time, NPR, NBC News Online, CNN Online, BBC News, BBC Persian Service, and U.S. News & World Report, among many others.

Sarah Bidgood is the Director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. Her research focuses on US-Soviet and US-Russia nonproliferation cooperation, as well as the international nonproliferation regime more broadly. She is the co-editor of the book, Once and Future Partners: The United States, Russia, and Nuclear Non-Proliferation, which was published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2018. Sarah’s work has appeared in publications such as International Security, Arms Control Today, The Nonproliferation Review, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, War on the Rocks, DefenseNews, among others. Her analysis has been featured in media outlets including The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, NPR, The Guardian, Vice News, DefenseOne and VOX.

Mariana Budjeryn is a Research Associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Formerly, she held appointments as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Belfer Center, a research fellow at Harvard Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, and as a visiting professor at Tufts University and Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. Mariana’s research focuses on the international non-proliferation regime, arms control, and post-Soviet nuclear history. Her analytical contributions appeared in The Nonproliferation Review, Harvard International Review, World Affairs Journal, Arms Control Today, The Washington Post, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, War on the Rocks, and in the publications of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where she is a Global Fellow. Mariana’s book Inheriting the Bomb: Soviet Collapse and Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine is forthcoming in 2022 with Johns Hopkins University Press.

Bradley B. Chambers is the Secretary of Commerce for the state of Indiana and CEO of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), serving as a member of Governor Eric Holcomb’s cabinet and leading the state’s economic development efforts since his appointment in summer 2021. For more than 37 years, Chambers has been a leader in the investment, development and management of high-quality multifamily and mixed-use properties across the nation. As founder, president and CEO of Indianapolis-based Buckingham Companies, Chambers has led the company to the development and acquisition of investments exceeding $3 billion.

Deborah Cohn is Provost Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University. Her current research focuses on Cold War cultural diplomacy in and beyond the Americas as well as the Cold War history of modern language study in the U.S. Her research is situated within the fields of Latin American Studies, American studies, and Cold War studies, among others. She also studies 20th-century Spanish American literature and the cultural and political contexts in which it was written, published, and canonized. Her research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Archive Center, the American Philosophical Society, and the Harry Ransom Center, among other sources.

Kristen Cordell is a Senior Policy Adviser on Security and Development Policy for the Policy, Planning and Learning Bureau at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where she works on the development response to Chinese foreign assistance, humanitarian coordination, and stabilization. She is currently on a one-year national security fellowship supported by the Council on Foreign Relations’ International Affairs Fellowship program. In her previous role at USAID, she supported the agency’s two largest development portfolios—Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2016, she was detailed to the U.S. government’s participation in the World Humanitarian Summit and the presidents’ meeting on migration at the UN General Assembly. Prior to USAID, Cordell supported UN development programs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Lebanon.

Tom Countryman is the Chair of the Arms Control Association Board of Directors, and former United States Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation. He served for 35 years as a member of the U.S. Foreign Service until January 2017, achieving the rank of minister-counselor. He served as Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security and simultaneously as Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation. As Acting Under Secretary, Countryman advised the Secretary on arms control, nonproliferation, disarmament, and political-military affairs. Prior to his position as Assistant Secretary, he served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European Affairs, and as the Foreign Policy Advisor to the Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps. Countryman has served at U.S. embassies in Belgrade, Cairo, Athens, and Rome.

Samantha Custer directs the Policy Analysis Unit at AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, which blends qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer real-world questions in a way that is both academically rigorous and policy relevant. Her research examines the influence of development investments and public diplomacy efforts, generates new evidence on the use and impact of open data, and leverages surveys to learn from the experiences of decision-makers in low- and middle- income countries regarding the impact of external money and ideas on domestic policy reforms. She has produced publicly available studies in partnership with the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Asia Society Policy Institute, the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Oak and Tides Foundations, along with the governments of Denmark, Germany, and the United States.

Elizabeth Cullen Dunn is the Director of Indiana University’s Center for Refugee Studies and a Professor of Geography whose work focuses on forced migration. For more than a decade, she has worked with refugees and internally displaced people. Her latest book, No Path Home: Humanitarian Camps and the Grief of Displacement, looks critically at the refugee camp as a space of both bureaucratic regulation and existential crisis. Dunn also works in food studies. From 2001-2008, her work focused particularly on global food safety regulations, and the new spaces they created.

Olga Filippova is Associate Professor of Sociology at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University and currently directs international cooperation work in the Department of Sociology. Dr. Filippova’s research focuses on politics of identity; reforms in Ukraine; social (re)construction of the past; border studies; cyber-ethnography; drug use, and HIV prevention and treatment; urban food sustainability. The geographical area of her specialization is the Former Soviet Union, with focus on Ukraine and Transnistria. Her publications appeared in Europe-Asia Studies; The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics; Journal of American Academy of Religion; Ab Imperio; The Anthropology of East Europe Review: Central Europe, East Europe and Eurasia. Since 2018 she is involved in the developing of the Program on Dialog and Differences and Conflict Analysis and Resolution at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (together with Mason University).

Sumit Ganguly is a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and holds the Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations at Indiana University, Bloomington. A specialist on the international and comparative politics of South Asia he is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of at least twenty books on the region. His most recent books are Deadly Impasse: India and Pakistan at the Dawn of a New Century (Cambridge, 2016), Ascending India and Its State Capacity (Yale University Press, 2017) co-authored with William R. Thompson and The Future of US-India Security Cooperation edited with Christopher Mason (Manchester University Press, 2021) He is currently co-editing the Routledge Handbook of South Asian Security with Frank O’Donnell and the Oxford Handbook of Indian Politics with Eswaran Sridharan. In 2018-2019 he was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg. Professor Ganguly is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a columnist for foreignpolicy.com. He has served as an Associate Editor of International Security and Security Studies, is a member of the editorial board of International Security and the founding editor of Asian Security and The India Review. In January 2023, he will assume the editorship of the International Studies Review.

Allan E. Goodman is the Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of International Education. IIE promotes the exchange of scholars and students, rescues scholars, students, and artists from persecution, displacement, and crises, conducts research on international academic mobility, and administers the Fulbright program sponsored by the United States Department of States. Dr. Goodman is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the selection committees for the Rhodes and Schwarzman Scholars and the Yidan Prize. Before joining IIE, Dr. Goodman was Executive Dean of the School of Foreign Service and Professor at Georgetown University. He has served at the Department of State and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Nicole Lamb-Hale is Vice President and General Counsel for Cummins, Inc. She has extensive executive level experience in the private and public sectors. Prior to joining Cummins, Nicole was a Managing Director at Kroll, a global governance, risk and transparency consultancy, the head of its Washington, DC office and a Fellow of the Kroll Institute, a think tank associated with the firm. Before Kroll, Nicole was a Senior Vice President of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategic advisory and commercial diplomacy firm. Nicole was nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Manufacturing and Services in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration (ITA). Before serving as Assistant Secretary, Nicole served, by presidential appointment, as the Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Prior to her government service, Nicole practiced law as an equity partner in two international law firms.

Paula Reed Lynch is Director of the Office of Policy and Resources Planning in the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM/PRP) at the U.S. Department of State – her office is responsible for the strategy, policy, and planning that underlies PRM’s $4.9 billion (FY 2021) humanitarian budget, which her office formulates, defends, and allocates. Policies that her office covers include protection for refugees, conflict victims, and stateless persons, cash and voucher assistance, and promoting coherence among humanitarian and development programs. Her office also covers Congressional relations for PRM. Paula has spent her career connected to humanitarian assistance, whether serving at the Department of State in PRM, the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS, now Conflict Stabilization Operations, CSO), or in the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance (F). She has served overseas at the U.S. Mission in Geneva (Switzerland), U.S. Embassy Kigali (Rwanda), and, in 2018, an extended TDY to Kampala (Uganda) related to fraud in refugee registration. She is a career member of the Senior Executive Service. At an interagency level, Paula served at the White House on the Interagency Task Force on the UN World Conference Against Racism in 2000-01, covering the migration issues negotiated, which then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called the most progressive language ever reached on migration. She drafted PRM guidelines on Monitoring Refugee Protection (2003) after ground-truthing them on a field mission to Tanzania; she has also done field monitoring in Pakistan, India, Lebanon, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and Uganda, and has done field travel in many more countries. Paula has received awards for her work on behalf of refugee women, for achievements as the elected Rapporteur of the Executive Committee of UNHCR in Geneva, Switzerland (2003), for creating PRM’s first strategic plan (1997), and related to interagency humanitarian response in Lebanon (1982), Kosovo (1999), and Afghanistan (2002). She was included in a USAID Group Award for the Greater Horn of Africa Initiative in 1996.

Melanie Nezer is Senior Vice President of Global Public Affairs at HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees. Nezer is responsible for planning, directing, managing and implementing strategies that successfully represent and connect HIAS externally, and optimize its impact. She oversees the departments of Communications, Community Engagement, Development, and Policy and Advocacy. Melanie also has served as HIAS’ Vice President, Policy and Advocacy and, previously, as Migration Policy Counsel and Director of the Employment Visa Program, representing at-risk Jewish professionals and religious workers seeking to work in the U.S. during times of instability and crisis in their home countries. Before joining HIAS, Melanie was the Immigration Policy Director for the organization now known as US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).

Veysel Ok is Co-founder, Lawyer, and Coordinator of the Media and Law Studies Association, a Turkish nonprofit organization that offers legal protection to persecuted journalists, promotes the public’s right to information, and defends minority rights, with a particular focus on refugees and the LGBTQI+ community. For his contributions to the rule of law, he was awarded the Thomas Dehler Prize in 2019. In 2020, he won the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Award, which honors individuals who have had a significant impact on the fight against censorship anywhere in the world.

Vop Osili is President of the Indianapolis City-County Council, representing District 11. He is chairman of the Council’s Rules and Public Policy Committee and serves on the Public Works Committee. Osili is committed to addressing the important issues—equity, fair and affordable housing, homelessness, reentry, police/community engagement, inclusive urban development— impacting the daily lives of Indianapolis citizens. Osili has collaborated extensively with community groups, civic organizations and the business community on the expansion of work opportunities, skills-training and disadvantaged small business financing. He helped establish Indianapolis’ first city-funded microloan program targeting residents and businesses operating in neighborhoods with households well below area median income. With a background in architecture, Osili is a founding partner of A2SO4, an Indianapolis-based architectural design company that was one of the first LEED-certified firms in the nation.

Jung H. Pak is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Affairs and for Global China issues. She also serves as Deputy Special Representative for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Prior to arriving at State, she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she focused on Korean Peninsula issues, East Asia regional dynamics, and transnational threats. While at Brookings, she authored Becoming Kim Jong Un, which has been translated into multiple languages and draws from her deep knowledge and experience as an intelligence officer. Pak has held senior positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and served as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Korea at the National Intelligence Council. Before her career in national security, Dr. Pak taught U.S. history at Hunter College in New York City.

Sarah Phillips is a Professor of Anthropology and director of the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University Bloomington. She has been a faculty member at IU-Bloomington since 2003, where she teaches courses on the Anthropology of Russia and Eastern Europe, Postsocialist Gender Formations, and Medical Anthropology. Dr. Phillips is an expert in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly the former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Russia), postsocialist transformations, civil society and non-governmental organizations, globalization, development and gender studies, post-Chernobyl health and healing, folk medicine, disability studies, HIV-AIDS, and addiction. She is currently collaborating with Dr. Jill Owczarzak at Johns Hopkins University on a four-year research project funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse.

Anne C. Richard is Former Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration. She is currently Distinguished Fellow and Afghanistan Coordination Lead for Washington DC-based nonprofit, Freedom House. Previously, Richard was the vice president of government relations and advocacy for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), an international aid agency that helps refugees, internally displaced and other victims of conflict. She was also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University/SAIS and a board member of the Henry L. Stimson Center. From 1999 to 2001, Richard was Director of the Secretary’s Office of Resources, Plans and Policy at the State Department. From 1997 to 1999, she was the deputy chief financial officer of the Peace Corps. Earlier, she served as a Senior Advisor in the Deputy Secretary’s Office of Policy and Resources at the State Department.

José Luis Sanz is a Washington DC-based correspondent for El Faro, the first exclusively digital newspaper in Latin America. Founded in 1998, El Faro has become El Salvador’s leading media outlet with independent coverage that has had them threatened, harassed and even surveilled using the now infamous Pegasus software. A founding member of Sala Negra, El Faro’s investigative team on organized crime and violence, he dedicated five years to portraying the history, structure and activities of the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and Barrio 18 gangs. He is part of the teams that received the Latin American Award for Investigative Journalism in 2013 and the Gabriel García Márquez Award for Excellence in 2016. Under his direction, El Faro established alliances with media such as Univisión, Eldiario.es, The New York Times and El País. El Faro officially opened a permanent correspondent office in Washington DC in January 2021.

Justyna Zając is a Visiting Professor of Political Science and Professor of Practice in European Security Studies at Indiana University. She serves as Director of the Polish Studies Center at the IU Hamilton Lugar School. Her research focuses on international relations with special emphasis on international security and foreign policy analysis. In her work – research, publications, and pedagogy – she is primarily preoccupied with European security, broadly understood, and its Mediterranean and East-Central European aspects. She has published numerous books and papers in Poland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, and Jordan. Additionally, her research includes Poland’s foreign and security policy. Her interest in analyzing problems at the crossroads of politics, policy, and science comes through public service. She was appointed by the President of the Republic of Poland as a member of the National Strategic Review Committee.

Madeleine K. Albright is a professor, author, diplomat and businesswoman who served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. In 1997, she was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. She is a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Dr. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, a global strategy firm, and Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She also chairs the National Democratic Institute, serves as the president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and is a member of the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board. In 2012, she was chosen by President Obama to receive the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in recognition of her contributions to international peace and democracy. Dr. Albright is a seven-time New York Times bestselling author. Her most recent book, Hell and Other Destinations was published in April 2020. Her other books include: her autobiography, Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003); The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006); Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership (2008); Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box (2009); Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 (2012), and Fascism: A Warning (2018).

Paul Barrett is the deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He joined the Center in September 2017 after working for more than three decades as a journalist and author focusing on the intersection of business, law, and society. Most recently, he worked for 12 years for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, where he served at various times as the editor of an award-winning investigative team and a writer covering topics such as energy and the environment, military procurement, and the civilian firearm industry. From 1986 to 2005, he wrote for The Wall Street Journal, serving as the newspaper’s Supreme Court corespondent and later as the page one special projects editor.

Paul is the author of four critically acclaimed nonfiction books, the most recent of which are GLOCK: The Rise of America’s Gun, a New York Times Bestseller, and THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who’d Stop at Nothing to Win. Both of those books were optioned for Hollywood movies.

At the Center for Business and Human Rights, Paul has focused primarily on researching and writing a series of reports on the role and obligations of the social media industry in a democracy. Specific topics have included the problems of foreign and domestic disinformation, the consequences of outsourced content moderation, and the debate over the liability of social media platforms for content posted by their users.

Since 2008, Paul has served as an adjunct professor at the NYU School of Law. He co-teaches a seminar called “Law, Economics, and Journalism,” in which students learn to analyze social issues with the tools of those three professions.

Paul has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and an A.B. from Harvard College.

Emily Bell is Founding Director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, and a leading thinker, commentator and strategist on digital journalism. The majority of Emily’s career was spent at Guardian News and Media in London working as an award winning writer and editor both in print and online. As editor-in-chief across Guardian websites and director of digital content for Guardian News and Media, Emily led the web team in pioneering live blogging, multimedia formats, data and social media ahead, making the Guardian a recognized pioneer in the field. She is co-author of Post Industrial Journalism: Adapting to the Present (2012) with C.W. Anderson and Clay Shirky. Emily is a trustee on the board of the Scott Trust, the owners of The Guardian, a member of Columbia Journalism Review’s board of overseers, an adviser to Tamedia Group in Switzerland, chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Advisory Council on social media, and a member of Poynter’s National Advisory Board. 

James Clapper is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and is the former Director of National Intelligence. Clapper has held several key positions within the United States Intelligence Community. He served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) from 1992 until 1995. He was the first director of defense intelligence within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and simultaneously the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He served as the director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) from September 2001 until June 2006. On June 5, 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Clapper to replace Dennis C. Blair as United States Director of National Intelligence. The Honorable James Clapper served as the fourth U.S. Director of National Intelligence (DNI) from August 9, 2010 to January 20, 2017. In this position, Mr. Clapper led the United States Intelligence Community and served as the principal intelligence advisor to President Barack Obama.

Dan Coats is an American politician and former diplomat. From 2017 to 2019, he served as the Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration. A member of the Republican Party, he served as a United States Senator from Indiana from 1989 to 1999 and again from 2011 to 2017. He was the United States Ambassador to Germany from 2001 to 2005, and a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1981 to 1989. Coats served on the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence while in the U.S. Senate.

Larry Diamond is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He is also professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford. He leads the Hoover Institution’s programs on China’s Global Sharp Power and on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region.  At FSI, he leads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, based at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, which he directed for more than six years.  He also co-leads with (Eileen Donahoe) the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center. He is the founding coeditor of the Journal of Democracy and also serves as senior consultant at the International Forum for Democratic Studies of the National Endowment for Democracy.

Michele Dunne is the director and a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, where her research focuses on political and economic change in Arab countries, particularly Egypt, as well as U.S. policy in the Middle East. She was the founding director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council from 2011 to 2013 and was a senior associate and editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 2006 to 2011. Dunne was a Middle East specialist at the U.S. Department of State from 1986 to 2003, where she served in assignments that included the National Security Council, the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff, the U.S. embassy in Cairo, the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem, and the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. She also served as a visiting professor of Arabic language and Arab studies at Georgetown from 2003 to 2006.

Katie Eder is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Future Coalition, a national network that fosters community and collaboration among youth leaders and youth-led organizations by providing young people with the tools, resources, and support to power their ideas and amplify their impact. Since launching in fall of 2018, Future Coalition has organized young people around climate change, voting, and gun violence prevention. Under Katie’s leadership, the coalition has grown to over 40+ youth-led organizations along with thousands of youth leaders and changemakers across the country. As a major force in the youth climate movement, Future Coalition has been key to the success of two major national campaigns – the March 15 Youth Climate Strike in which over 450 strikes took place across the US, and the June 1st Juliana v. US mobilizations – in which Future Coalition helped to build the public interest in the landmark federal climate case in which 21 young people are suing the U.S. government over climate change.

Catherine Coleman Flowers is the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice (CREEJ) which seeks the implementation of best practices to address the reduction of health and economic disparities, improve access to clean air, water, and soil in marginalized rural communities by influencing policy, inspiring innovation, catalyzing relevant research, and amplifying the voices of community leaders. This is done within the context of climate change and through the lens of environmental justice. A member of the Board of Directors for the Climate Reality Project, she is employed as the Rural Development Manager for the Equal Justice Initiative and serves as a Senior Fellow for the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary. Her goal is to find solutions to raw sewage that exist in rural communities throughout the United States. Catherine is also an internationally recognized advocate for the human right to water and sanitation and works to make the UN Sustainable Development Agenda accountable to front-line communities. Her journey is chronicled in her book entitled Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret, which will be published by the New Press this November. Catherine was recently awarded a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship grant for her work as an Environmental Health Advocate.

Stephen J. Hadley is a principal of Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel LLC, an international strategic consulting firm founded with Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, and Anja Manuel. Mr. Hadley is also Board Chair of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and an Executive Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Council. Mr. Hadley served for four years as the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs from 2005 to 2009. From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Hadley was the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor, serving under then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Mr. Hadley had previously served on the National Security Council staff and in the Defense Department including as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy from 1989 to 1993. During his professional career, Mr. Hadley has served on a number of corporate and advisory boards, including: the National Security Advisory Panel to the Director of Central Intelligence, the Department of Defense Policy Board, and the State Department’s Foreign Affairs policy Board. He is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group.

Juliette Kayyem has spent the last two decades in both state and federal government managing complex policy initiatives and organizing government responses to major crises. Professor Kayyem is currently the Senior Belfer Lecturer in International Security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she is faculty chair of the Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects.  Previously, she served as President Obama's Assistant Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, where she played a pivotal role in major operations responding to the BP Oil Spill and H1N1 pandemic. As the majority of us are at home socially distancing due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Juliette has become the face of tough-love crisis management: she will tell us what we need to hear, not necessarily what we want to hear. In the process, she is advising mayors, governors, and CEOs, laying out a path forward for readers of her columns in The Atlantic, informing millions of viewers on CNN where she serves as a National Security Analyst, and teaching her many Twitter followers about the “preparedness paradox” and the need to understand a basic truth of this crisis: “Reality bites, but it is all we got.” The truth is this well-informed guidance is similar to what the Pulitzer Prize finalist for editorial columns told us in her 2016 best-selling book, Security Mom: “In the struggle for resiliency, there is no finish line. There is only a plan, and a whole lot of learning, followed by a new and better plan.” Juliette helps us understand the “adaptive recovery” of this global pandemic and reminds us regularly that our “now normal” will be a new, different one.

Fil Menczer is a distinguished professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University, Bloomington, and Director of the Observatory on Social Media. He has courtesy appointments in cognitive science and physics. He holds a Laurea in Physics from the Sapienza University of Rome and a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Cognitive Science from the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Menczer is an ACM Distinguished Scientist, a Fellow of the Center for Computer-Mediated Communication, a Senior Research Fellow of The Kinsey Institute, and a board member of the IU Network Science Institute. He previously served as division chair in the IUB School of Informatics and Computing, director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, visiting scientist at Yahoo Research, Fellow of the Institute for Scientific Interchange Foundation in Torino, Italy, and Fellow-at-large of the Santa Fe Institute. His research interests span Web and data science, computational social science, science of science, and modeling of complex information networks. In the last ten years, his lab has led efforts to study online misinformation spread and to develop tools to detect and counter social media manipulation. This work has been covered in many US and international news sources, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NPR, PBS, CNN, BBC, Economist, Guardian, Atlantic, Reuters, Science, and Nature. Menczer received multiple service awards and currently serves as associate editor of the Network Science journal and on the editorial boards of EPJ Data Science, PeerJ Computer Science, and Harvard Misinformation Review.

Kiera O’Brien is the Founding President of Young Conservatives for Carbon Dividends, an advocacy organization that aims to mobilize young conservative leaders in support of the Baker-Shultz Carbon Dividends Plan and renew the GOP’s proud legacy of environmental leadership. Kiera was born and raised in Ketchikan, Alaska, a small island community in the rainforest of southeastern Alaska. She is a recent graduate of Harvard College, where she studied Government and served as President of the Harvard Republican Club. While in college, she co-founded Students for Carbon Dividends, an educational organization harnessing the energy and passion of student leaders to light the way towards a bipartisan climate breakthrough. She has given testimony as an expert witness for the U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on the Climate Crisis and is a regular commentator in national media. In addition to leading YCCD, she is currently a Public Voices Fellow with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and is an incoming graduate student at Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Minxin Pei is the Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. He is also a non-resident senior fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the editor of China Leadership Monitor. His research focuses on democratization, economic reform and governance in China, and U.S.–China relations. He is the author of From Reform to Revolution: The Demise of Communism in China and the Soviet Union (Harvard University Press, 1994) China’s Trapped Transition: The Limits of Developmental Autocracy (Harvard University Press, 2006) and China’s Crony Capitalism: The Dynamics of Regime Decay (Harvard University Press, 2016). Pei’s research has been published in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, Modern China, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, and many edited books. Pei received his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.

Dr. Julie Posetti is a multi-award winning, internationally published journalist and academic. She is the inaugural Global Director of Research with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) where she leads the Journalism and the Pandemic Project (in collaboration with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University), and a major global study into online violence against women journalists. She also co-leads the #HoldTheLine Coalition – an advocacy partnership that campaigns on behalf of prominent American-Filipino journalist Maria Ressa whose case is emblematic of convergent threats confronting journalism and democracy globally. She brings three decades of high-level international journalism practice to her research, including time as a news editor, documentary reporter and national political correspondent with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Dr. Alina Polyakova is President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. Dr. Polyakova is a recognized expert on transatlantic relations with over a decade of leadership experience and deep expertise on European politics, Russian foreign policy, and digital technologies. Before joining CEPA, she was the Founding Director for Global Democracy and Emerging Technology at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she served as Director of Research for Europe and Eurasia at the Atlantic Council, where she developed and led the institute’s work on disinformation and Russia. Dr. Polyakova writes extensively on Russian political warfare, European security, digital authoritarianism, and the implications of emerging technologies to democracies. She is the author of the book, The Dark Side of European Integration, and of a large number of major reports on disinformation and democracy in Europe. She is a frequent contributor to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic, and commentator in major media outlets, including Fox News, CNN, and BBC.

Amb. Tim Roemer Tim Roemer, former U.S. Member of Congress, 9/11 Commissioner, and Ambassador to India, is Executive Director and Strategic Counselor at APCO Worldwide. He works with clients on government relations and provides strategic advice. With his background in international trade, education policy, and national security, Ambassador Roemer is a trusted consensus-builder, problem solver and international expert.

In 2009, he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to India, one of America’s largest diplomatic missions. During his time in office, Ambassador Roemer helped move India from being America’s 25th largest trading partner to 12th. He oversaw the signing of the Counterterrorism Cooperation Initiative, which broadened U.S. – India coordination in intelligence, homeland security, border security, money laundering, and terrorist financing. He worked with the U.S. Government to assist India on the Global Center for Nuclear Energy Partnership. Ambassador Roemer strengthened U.S. cooperation with India in technology transfers and sales in the defense and space industries.

Earlier, Ambassador Roemer proudly served for 12 years in the United States Congress as the Representative for Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District. Coming from a family of educators, he fought to improve access, standards and achievement for American education. He was known for his bipartisan work on getting laws passed and his insights on the Intelligence Committee. Ambassador Roemer was appointed to serve on the 9/11 Commission and helped pass the Commission’s recommendations into law. Later, he was a member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Presidential Task Force on Combating the Ideology of Radical Extremism, the 21st Century National Parks Commission, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, and the 9/11 FBI Review Commission.

Ambassador Roemer is a member of the Aspen Institute’s US-India Strategic Dialogue, and the Center for American Policy’s U.S.-India 21st Century Institute. He is also a strategic adviser to Issue One, a non-profit organization working on a non-partisan basis to address the insidious impact of big money on American democracy. He has traveled around the country to speak on this issue at conferences and public venues. He is a lecturer at the Washington Campus’ Executive MBA Program where he speaks on national security, market entry, and the U.S.-India relationship.

He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California at San Diego. He earned a master’s and a doctoral degree in American government from the University of Notre Dame, with his dissertation on: “The Senior Executive Service: Retirement and Public Personnel Policy.” Both schools have recognized his achievements with distinguished alumnus awards.

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian covers China for Axios, based in Washington, DC. Before joining Axios, she served as the lead reporter for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' China Cables project and as a staff editor and contributing reporter at Foreign Policy magazine. She was a 2017 Arthur F. Burns Fellow in Berlin, Germany, and a 2016 Jefferson Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii. She holds a master’s degree from Yale University and a graduate certificate from the Johns Hopkins SAIS-Nanjing Center.

Whit Ayres is a leading Washington, DC political consultant with over thirty years of experience in polling and survey research for high profile political campaigns and associations. He is the author of 2016 and Beyond: How Republicans Can Elect a President in the New America (Resurgent Republic 2015). Ayres founded North Star Opinion Research, a national public opinion and public affairs research firm, after a career as a tenured professor at the University of South Carolina. He is a graduate of Davidson College and holds a PhD in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ayres’ comments and analysis appear in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and numerous regional newspapers as well as National Public Radio.

Andrew Bell is an assistant professor at the Indiana University Hamilton Lugar School. His current research examines the effect of the international humanitarian law and norms of restraint on combatant conduct toward civilians during war. Bell earned a PhD in Political Science from Duke University, a JD-MA from the University of Virginia School of Law, and an MTS from Duke Divinity School. He has held fellowships with the U.S. Naval Academy and the International Committee of the Red Cross, and he has served as an active duty and reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force with service in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Isabella Fallahi is an Iranian Latina activist and organizer who speaks on how the climate crisis affects her health and the livelihoods of marginalized communities, as well as everyone’s future. Fallahi is a leader in both the United States and worldwide on initiating student led strikes and initiatives calling attention to a crises many youth feel is feeling being ignored. She’s the former communications director for Zero Hour an organization dedicated to creating an intersectional movement of young people to combat the climate crisis, and recently co-founded an international climate justice coalition called Polluters Out, which focuses on removing the fossil fuel industry from all spheres of influence.

Geoffrey Garin became president of Hart Research in 1984, after having worked in the firm since 1978 as a senior analyst and vice president. His clients include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Harvard University, and the College Board. In 2008, he helped direct the strategy team for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign during its final two months, and in 2012 he served as the pollster and strategic advisor to Priorities USA, the super PAC supporting President Obama’s reelection. Garin graduated from Harvard College.

Vice Admiral Lee Gunn served for thirty-five years in the U.S. Navy. His last active duty assignment was Inspector General of the Department of the Navy where he was responsible for the Department’s overall inspection program and its assessments of readiness, training, and quality of service. Gunn holds a bachelor’s degree in Experimental and Physiological Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles and a Master of Science in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Wendy Leutert is the GLP-Ming Z. Mei Chair of Chinese Economics and Trade. Her research focuses on Chinese political economy, specifically the historical evolution and global expansion of China's state-owned enterprises. Other areas of her research include leadership in China's public sector, China’s early reform and opening, corporate governance in state-owned enterprises, and international investment and trade. Her research is forthcoming or has been published in The China Quarterly, China Perspectives, and Asia Policy. Her commentary has been featured in media outlets including the Financial Times, New York Times, Reuters, TheWashington Post, and South China Morning Post.

Adam P. Liff is Assistant Professor of East Asian International Relations at Indiana University School of Global and International Studies, and Director of its 21st Century Japan Politics and Society Initiative. Beyond IU, he is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution, as well as an Associate-in-Research at Harvard University's Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. Liff's academic scholarship has been published in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, The China Quarterly, and The Washington Quarterly. Liff holds a PhD and MA in Politics from Princeton University, and a BA from Stanford University.

Kelly Magsamen is the Vice President for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. Kelly received her BA from American University and her MA from Johns Hopkins University. She is the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Secretary of Defense, the Agency Seal Medal from the Central Intelligence Agency, and multiple Superior Honor awards from the Department of State. Kelly also currently serves on the Advisory Board for Foreign Policy for America; the Advisory Council of National Security Action; and the Policy and Strategy Advisory Board for the Texas National Security Review. She is a frequent national security commentator on CNN and MSNBC.

Janet McCabe is Professor of Practice at the Indiana University McKinney School of Law and Director of the IU Environmental Resilience Institute. From 2013 through 2017, McCabe was the Acting Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation at the United States Environmental Protection Agency and was nominated by President Barack Obama to be Assistant Administrator of that office. McCabe grew up in Washington, DC and graduated from Harvard College in 1980 and Harvard Law School in 1983.

Jessica O’Reilly is an environmental anthropologist. Through participant observation and ethnographic interviews, she examines how people and ideas in science and policy interact, how experts make decisions about matters of concern, and how relationships with the environment inform knowledge production. Her current project analyzes how assessors in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change make decisions in the writing of their assessment reports, which form the core set of science advice to the UNFCCC. Much of this work is represented in her new book The Technocratic Antarctic: an Ethnography of Scientific Expertise and Environmental Governance (Cornell University Press 2017).

Nicholas Rasmussen is the Acting Executive Director and Senior Director for National Security and Counterterrorism Programs at the McCain Institute for International Leadership. He has over twenty-seven years in U.S. government service, including in senior counterterrorism posts at the White House and in the U.S. Intelligence Community from 2001 to 2017. He holds distinguished professor and fellowship appointments at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, University of Texas at Austin, the National Security College, and the Reiss Center on Law and Security. Rasmussen holds a BA degree from Wesleyan University and an MPA from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Frank A. Rose is a Senior Fellow for Security and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. Prior to joining Brookings, Rose served as Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Space and Defense Policy. He has also held positions at the U.S. Department of Defense, in the U.S. Congress, and the private sector. Rose received his bachelor’s degree in History from American University in 1994 and a master’s degree in War Studies from King’s College, University of London in 1999.

Allison Stanger is Russell Leng ’60 Professor of International Politics and Economics at Middlebury College. She is the author of Whistleblowers: Honesty in America from Washington to Trump (2019) and One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy (2009), both with Yale University Press. Stanger’s writing has appeared in the TheAtlantic, Foreign Affairs, and TheNew York Times. She has testified before the Commission on Wartime Contracting, the Senate Budget Committee, and the Congressional Oversight Panel. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and received her PhD in Political Science from Harvard University.

Daniel Twining joined International Republican Institute as president in September 2017, where he leads the Institute’s mission to advance democracy and freedom around the world. Previously, he served as counselor and director of the Asia Program at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, based in Washington, DC. Twining also served as a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, as foreign policy advisor to U.S. Senator John McCain, and as a staff member of the U.S. Trade Representative. He holds MPhil and DPhil degrees from Oxford University, where he was the Fulbright/Oxford Scholar from 2004-07. He has been a columnist for Foreign Policy and Nikkei and has served as an advisor to six presidential campaigns.

Bill Whitaker has been a journalist for four decades and has covered major national and international news stories. He joined CBS News in 1984 and was named a 60 Minutes correspondent in 2014. In addition to 60 Minutes, he’s worked for CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday Morning, and as CBS News’ Tokyo correspondent. Whitaker has received many awards including Emmy, duPont, and Peabody awards. In 1997, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where he also earned his bachelor’s degree. Additionally, he has master’s degrees from Boston University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Noah Arjomand is Mark Helmke Postdoctoral Scholar in Global Media, Development, and Democracy at the Center for International Media Assistance and Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies. He studied sociology (PhD) at Columbia University and, before that, public and international affairs (AB) at Princeton University.

Noah’s research focuses on cross-cultural communication and its mediators, particularly in the Turkish- and Persian-speaking world. His PhD dissertation, currently under revision into a book manuscript, is an ethnography on the roles and strategies of “fixers” who broker communication between foreign journalists and sources in Turkey, demonstrating how they shape the news and manage their ambivalent position between cultural and moral worlds.

Noah is also interested in media production, including documentary film and photography and the use of audiovisual and interactive media to communicate scholarly and policy-relevant ideas. He has published mixed media visual/written essays on Afghanistan and Turkey and done multimedia work for music and theater companies Morningside Opera, Wet Ink Ensemble, and Siren Baroque. Noah’s first feature-length documentary, which deals with assistive communication technology and its role in the life of an ALS patient (his mother), is currently in post-production.

Tiffany Benjamin is Senior Director, Corporate Responsibility and Global Health Programs. She also serves President of the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation. In her Senior Director role, she manages the company’s civic engagement, corporate social responsibility efforts, disaster relief efforts, and global health initiatives. Prior to that, she was Senior Director, Litigation and Legal Compliance, Assistant General Counsel, Assistant Corporate Secretary and she served as the company’s anti-corruption counsel and legal counsel on the company’s privileged internal investigation process.

Prior to joining Lilly, Ms. Benjamin served as Senior Investigative Counsel for the Democratic Staff of U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, working on investigations into national matters including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Wal-Mart Mexico bribery allegations, the 2012 fungal meningitis outbreak, and the Solyndra loan guarantee investigation. Before joining the Committee, she worked as an associate in the D.C. office of King and Spalding, as a member of its Special Matters team, handling white collar matters and government investigations. Ms. Benjamin has a law degree from Harvard Law School and an undergraduate degree from Indiana University.

Fred H. Cate is Vice President for Research, Distinguished Professor, and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law at Indiana University. He specializes in information security and privacy law and has testified before numerous congressional committees and served on many advisory groups for companies and governmental and international organizations. He served as the founding director of IU's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research from 2003 to 2014, where he is now a senior fellow. He is also a senior policy advisor to the Centre for Information Policy Leadership and one of the founding editors of the Oxford University Press journal, International Data Privacy Law. He is the author of more than 200 articles and books, including most recently Bulk Collection: Systematic Government Access to Private-Sector Data (with Jim Dempsey) published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. Professor Cate attended Oxford University and received his J.D. and his A.B. with Honors and Distinction from Stanford University. A former Senator and President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, he is a fellow of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Bar Foundation, and an elected member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute.

Derek Chollet is Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor for security and defense policy at The German Marshall Fund of the United States. He served in senior positions during the Obama administration at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, most recently as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He is a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, where he co-edits "Shadow Government," and is a regular contributor to Defense One. He is also an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. His most recent book is The Long Game: How Obama Defied Washington and Redefined America’s Role in the World.

Lee Feinstein is founding Dean and Professor of International Studies at the Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University Bloomington. Prior to joining HLS, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Poland (2009-2012). Before that he was a senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, specializing in U.S. foreign policy, international institutions, and national security affairs. He served on the Presidential Transition Team for President Obama and as Principal Deputy Director and member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State from 1994-2001. Feinstein serves on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a presidentially appointed position, and is a member of the Museum’s Executive Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Board of the Kosciusko Foundation, on the Advisory Council of the Indiana University Center for Global Health, and on the Indiana Advisory Committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He is the author of Means to an End: U.S. Interest and the International Criminal Court (with Tod Lindberg), and a regular commentator on international affairs.

Carol Giacomo, an expert in foreign and defense issues, joined The New York Times Editorial Board in 2007. At The Times, she writes editorials arguing the paper’s position on the leading national security challenges of the day, including the nuclear threats posed by North Korea and Iran; the wars in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq; the rising threats from Russia and China; and the impact of America’s declining international leadership under President Trump.

Before that, she was the diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in Washington, where she covered foreign policy for the international wire service for more than two decades. During her time at Reuters, she traveled over 1 million miles to more than 100 countries with eight secretaries of state and various other senior U.S. officials.

In 2018, she won the Arthur Ross Media Award for commentary on foreign affairs from the American Academy of Diplomacy, an organization of 150 plus former diplomats. Ms. Giacomo is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was a Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University in 2013. Giacomo often speaks publicly at academic institutions, think tanks and on media shows. Born and raised in Connecticut, she holds a B.A. in English Literature from Regis College, Weston, Mass.

Agnieszka Graff is an associate professor at the American Studies Center, University of Warsaw; she teaches US culture, literature and film, African American studies and gender studies. She has authored several books of feminist essays: Świat bez kobiet (World without Women, 2001); Rykoszetem (Stray Bullets – Gender, Sexuality and Nation, 2008), Magma (The Quagmire Effect, 2010), Matka Feministka (Mother and Feminist, 2014). Her articles on gender in Polish and US culture have appeared in collected volumes and academic journals including Public Culture, Feminist Studies and Signs. She is the co-editor of an up-coming issue of Signs "Gender and the Rise of the Global Right." Her ongoing research is on connections between the anti-gender mobilization and right-wing populism.

Graff is an activist and media commentator as well as a scholar: a founding member of Women’s 8th of March Alliance, co-organizer and speaker of Congress of Polish Women, collaborator of Batory Foundation, Heinrich Boell Foundation, Political Critique. She writes for major journals and newspapers, including Gazeta Wyborcza and has authored introductions to Polish editions of Betty Friedan’s Feminine Mystique (2012), Susan Faludi’s Backlash (2013) and Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (2015).

Lee H. Hamilton is one of the nation's foremost experts on Congress and representative democracy. Hamilton founded the Center on Congress at Indiana University in 1999 and served as its director until 2015, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented Indiana from 1965-1999. He also served as president and director of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., from 1999-2010. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015), and of the University Medal (IU, 2018).

Hamilton currently serves as a distinguished scholar in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and as a professor of practice in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University.

A leading figure on foreign policy, intelligence, and national security, Hamilton served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission and co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Until recently, he served as co-chair of the U.S. Department of Energy's Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future with General Brent Scowcroft, as a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Homeland Security Advisory Board.

Continuing to play a leading role in public affairs, Hamilton has been at the center of efforts to address some of our nation’s highest profile homeland security and foreign policy challenges. He currently serves as co-chair of the Task Force to Prevent Extremism in Fragile States with Gov. Tom Kean.

Among his published works are How Congress Works and Why You Should Care (2004), Strengthening Congress (2009), and Congress, Presidents, and American Politics (2016). He writes twice-monthly commentaries about Congress and what individuals can do to make representative democracy work better. He is a frequent contributor to the national press.

Marie Harf is a national security communications and policy strategist who has worked on critical issues including the Iran nuclear negotiations and the Syrian refugee crisis.

Previously, Harf was senior advisor to and press spokesperson for Chuck Hagel during his successful confirmation to be Secretary of Defense.

During the 2012 election, Harf was Associate Policy Director responsible for all national security and foreign policy issues on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Harf developed and implemented the campaign’s national security policy and communications strategies and was a member of President Obama’s debate preparation team.

Prior to joining President Obama’s campaign, Harf served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s Media Spokesperson, where she crafted the CIA’s media strategy on a wide range of sensitive national security and intelligence topics.

Harf began her career in the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, where she was an analyst on Middle East leadership issues. She produced finished intelligence products—including for the President’s Daily Brief—on top foreign policy priorities and authored in-depth assessments of foreign leaders.

Harf received her Master’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where her thesis evaluated the prospects for continued regime stability in Saudi Arabia. She graduated with honors from Indiana University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with concentrations in Jewish Studies and Russian and Eastern European Studies. Ms. Harf is a native of Granville, Ohio.

Grant Harris is CEO of Harris Africa Partners LLC and advises companies, universities, and non-profits on working in Africa. From 2011 to 2015, Harris served as the principal advisor to President Barack Obama on sub-Saharan Africa, serving as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the White House. In this role, Harris conceived of the historic U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, which generated $37 billion in new commitments to support trade, investment, and development across Africa. Harris also initiated President Obama’s Doing Business in Africa Campaign; launched the President’s Young African Leaders Initiative; and was the primary architect of the U.S. Strategy Toward Sub-Saharan Africa. Prior to this position, Harris was Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Susan Rice, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Previously, Harris was an associate at the law firm of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Prior to that, Harris served in the African Affairs Directorate at the White House under President Bill Clinton and, before that, in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. Harris holds a law degree from Yale Law School, a Master’s in Public Affairs from Princeton University, and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Adam Hitchcock is an investor and advisor whose career has spanned finance and politics. He is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Sovereign Infrastructure Group, a multi-strategy global infrastructure investment business. He is Managing Partner of Patch Capital Partners, a residential real estate financial institution. He serves as a Senior Advisor at Resolute Consulting, a national public affairs firm.

Previously, he was a Managing Director at Guggenheim Partners, reporting to the executive chairman. Before entering finance, Adam worked in political campaigns and government. He served in the Obama White House in the Office of the Chief of Staff and the Council of Economic Advisers. Before joining the Obama White House, Adam was on the Obama-Biden White House Transition Project and the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Adam is a member of the Dean’s Council at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, is on the Board of Advisors at the Truman National Security Project, serves on the Studies Committee at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and is a member of the Atlantic Council. He was a lecturer at the University of Chicago for four years teaching a class on global macro.

He is involved with the non-profit community in Chicago serving on the board of Urban Initiatives and leadership council of A Better Chicago.

Juliette Kayyem currently serves as the Belfer Lecturer in International Security at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government where she is Faculty Director of the Homeland Security Project. She is the founder of Kayyem Solutions, LLC, as well as the CEO of Zemcar, a lifestyle company focused on connecting busy parents with qualified drivers to solve their family’s transportation needs. She is also an on-air national security analyst for CNN.

Kayyem spent her government service managing complex policy initiatives and organizing government responses to major crises in both state and federal government. She was President Obama's Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Before that, she was Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor, and has served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorism, a legal advisor to US Attorney General Janet Reno, and a trial attorney and counselor in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Juliette is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Global Cyber Alliance, the Trilateral Commission and served on the DHS Secretary's Homeland Security Advisory Committee. Her newest book, Security Mom: My Life Protecting the Home and the Homeland, was published in 2016.

Lucas Kello is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Oxford University. He serves as Director of the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs, a major research initiative on the impact of modern technology on international relations, government, and society. He is also co-Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security at Oxford's Department of Computer Science. His recent publications include The Virtual Weapon and International Order (Yale University Press), "The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft" in International Security, and "Security" in The Oxford Companion to International Relations (Oxford University Press).

Harold Hongju Koh is Sterling Professor of International Law at Yale Law School. He returned to Yale Law School in January 2013 after serving for nearly four years as the 22nd Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. Professor Koh is one of the country’s leading experts in public and private international law, national security law, and human rights. He first began teaching at Yale Law School in 1985 and served as its fifteenth Dean from 2004 until 2009. Professor Koh has received numerous honorary degrees and awards for his human rights work. He has authored or co-authored eight books, published more than 200 articles, testified regularly before Congress, and litigated numerous cases involving international law issues in both U.S. and international tribunals.

Koh holds a B.A. degree from Harvard College and B.A. and M.A. degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was Developments Editor of the Harvard Law Review. Before coming to Yale, he served as a law clerk for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the United States Supreme Court and Judge Malcolm Richard Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, worked as an attorney in private practice in Washington, and served as an Attorney-Adviser for the Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice.

Christopher A. Kojm is a Professor of Practice at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He also serves as the Director of the Elliott School's Leadership, Ethics and Practice Initiative. He re-joined the School in 2014 after serving as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (2009-14). He also directs the School's US Foreign Policy Summer Program and previously directed its mid-career Master's program. He taught previously at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (2004-07).

In government, Kojm served as a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1984-98 under Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, and as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1998-2003). He also served as deputy director of the 9/11 Commission (2003-04) under Chairman Thomas H. Kean and Vice Chair Lee H. Hamilton, and later (2004-05) as president of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the Commission’s follow-on public education organization. He also served as a Senior Advisor to the Iraq Study Group (2006) under Co-Chairs James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton.

Dave Lawler is an associate editor and author of Axios World newsletter. Dave joined Axios after four years with the London Daily Telegraph, most recently as the newspaper’s Washington Correspondent. He played a central part in the Telegraph’s 2016 election coverage, contributing news stories, analysis and dispatches from the campaign trail. In addition to U.S. Politics, Dave provided on the ground reporting for major events including terrorist attacks in San Bernardino and Orlando.

Roberto Salinas León is President of the Mexico Business Forum, where he works on assorted projects of policy analysis, media, investment advisory and economic consultancy. He is also currently the Director of the Center for Latin America of Atlas Network. He has published more than 2,000 editorials (English and Spanish) on public policy topics; occasional columnist in The Wall Street Journal, The Journal of Commerce, Investor’s Business Daily, Barrons, and many others. He was a weekly economic analyst in the news show "Hechos," TV Azteca, 1994-2004. He is now occasional commentator for CNN, CNN Latinamerica, CNCB, Reuters, National Public Radio, BBC Radio, and others. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on three occasions—on NAFTA and free trade, structural reform in Mexico, and monetary and exchange rate policy.

James D. Lienhoop is the 37th Mayor of the City of Columbus, taking office on January 1, 2016. Although newly elected as Mayor, he has served City government since 2006, beginning as an interim member of City Council to replace a council member who was called to active duty. He was elected to his own term as Columbus City Councilman, at-large representative, in 2012. Lienhoop has been heavily involved in the Columbus community, having served on the board, usually in an officer capacity, of numerous not-for-profit endeavors.

Prior to being elected Mayor, Lienhoop was employed at Blue and Co. from 1986-2015. He started as manager of the Seymour, Indiana tax department and became manager of the Columbus, Indiana office in 1989. He also served as Director in charge of Blue’s Southern Indiana Offices and, for six years, Chairman of the firm.

Danny Lopez currently serves as Chairman of the newly-created Governor’s Workforce Cabinet under Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb. Since the beginning of the Holcomb administration last January, he has served as the Governor's Deputy Chief of Staff and previously was then-Lieutenant Governor Holcomb’s Chief of Staff under the previous administration.

Lopez began his work in politics, advocacy, and government in 2004 as managing partner of Capitol Gains, Corp., a political consulting and Spanish-language media relations firm. Since moving to Indiana in 2008, Lopez has held the positions State Director, US Senator Dan Coats; Special Assistant, Indiana Governor Mike Pence; Deputy Director, State of Indiana Civil Rights Commission; Executive Director, State of Indiana Commission on Hispanic Affairs and Director of Legislation/Communications, City of Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan.

Lopez is engaged with a number of private and public organizations serving a true cross-section of Hoosiers. He was named to the Indianapolis Business Journal’s prestigious Forty Under 40 list for 2016 and has previously served on a number of boards, including the State of Indiana Charter School Board and the City of Bloomington Economic Development Commission.

Richard G. Lugar is president of The Lugar Center, a non-profit organization focusing on global food security, WMD non-proliferation, aid effectiveness, and bipartisan governance. Lugar also serves as a professor of practice and distinguished scholar at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University. Lugar volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1957, ultimately serving as an intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations. A fifth generation Hoosier, Lugar left the U.S. Senate as the longest serving member of Congress in Indiana history. Before his election to the Senate, Lugar helped manage the family’s food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis, served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners, and served two terms as mayor of Indianapolis.

During his six terms in the Senate, Lugar exercised leadership on critical issues such as food security, nuclear non-proliferation, energy independence, and free trade. In 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 7,600 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the United States.

Brian P. McKeon is a senior director at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement at the University of Pennsylvania, a foreign policy institute based in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the Center, he served for three decades in all three branches of the federal government. He worked for over 20 years in the U.S. Senate, all for Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE), in his Senate office and then as his chief counsel for 12 years at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He served in the Obama administration for all eight years in various national security positions, including Deputy National Security Adviser to Vice President Biden, Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff for the National Security Council, and Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. McKeon also worked for a year as a law clerk to U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar in the Eastern District of Virginia. In addition to his government service, he worked on the Clinton/Gore re-election campaign in 1996. He received a BA from the University of Notre Dame, and a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Ernest J. Moniz, former U.S. Secretary of Energy, is chief executive officer and co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization working to prevent catastrophic attacks with weapons of mass destruction and disruption (WMDD)—nuclear, biological, radiological, chemical, and cyber.

Moniz served as the thirteenth U.S. Secretary of Energy from 2013 to 2017. As Secretary, he advanced energy technology innovation, nuclear security and strategic stability, cutting-edge capabilities for the American scientific research community, and environmental stewardship.

Moniz served on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty from 1973 until 2013 and is now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus and Special Advisor to the MIT President. He also is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center and president and CEO of Energy Futures Initiative.

W. Gyude Moore is a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. He previously served as Liberia’s Minister of Public Works with oversight over the construction and maintenance of public infrastructure from December 2014 to January 2018. Prior to that role, Moore served as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Head of the President’s Delivery Unit (PDU). As Head of the PDU, his team monitored progress and drove delivery of the Public Sector Investment Program of Liberia—a program of over $1 billion in road, power, port infrastructure, and social programs in Liberia after the civil war.

At CGD, Moore's research focus is around financing infrastructure in Africa and the changing landscape of development finance on the continent. His research tracks the channels of private sources of finance, the rise of China and its expanding role in Africa, and Africa’s response to these changes. He holds a BS in Political Science from Berea College and an MS in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Suzanne Nossel is Chief Executive Officer at PEN America. Since joining the organization in 2013, she has overseen a doubling of the organization's staff and budget and the strengthening and expansion of membership, research and advocacy, and public programs. Prior to joining PEN America, she served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. She has served in the Obama Administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, leading US engagement in the UN and multilateral institutions on human right issues, and in the Clinton Administration as Deputy to the US Ambassador for UN Management and Reform.

Nossel coined the term "Smart Power," which was the title of a 2004 article she published in Foreign Affairs Magazine and later became the theme of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's tenure in office. She is a featured columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and has published op-eds in The New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times, as well as scholarly articles in Foreign Affairs, Dissent, and Democracy, among others. Nossel serves on the Board of Directors of the Tides Foundation. She is a former senior fellow at the Century Foundation, the Center for American Progress, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Nossel is a magna cum laude graduate of both Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Lauren Robel has served as Provost and Executive Vice President of Indiana University Bloomington since 2012. During her tenure, she has overseen the founding of the Center for Rural Engagement and its Sustaining Hoosier Communities initiative, as well as the organization of IU Corps, an umbrella connecting service-related courses, internships, research, and volunteerism. Robel has also overseen the reorganization of a number of units across campus, as well as the creation of several schools. Previously, she served as dean of the Maurer School of Law, where she was a founding board member of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement.

Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She covers politics and policy, foreign and domestic, and provides insight into the conservative movement, the Republican and Democratic parties, and threats to Western democracies.

Rubin, who is also an MSNBC contributor, came to The Post after three years with Commentary magazine. Prior to her career in journalism, Rubin practiced labor law for two decades, an experience that informs and enriches her work.

Jake Sullivan is the Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served in the Obama administration as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Adviser to Vice President Biden, as well as Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary Clinton. He was the policy director on Secretary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

Sally Smith is the founder and executive director of The Nexus Fund, whose mission is to build and strengthen the global community to end mass atrocities. The organization works in countries with a high risk of mass atrocities, but where there is still time for prevention, providing critical resources to locals on the front lines who are often overlooked by traditional donors, as well as thought leadership on how we can make "never again" a reality. Since 2016, Nexus also combats hate and division in the U.S.

Smith's virtual reality film, Behind the Fence, about the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar, won the 2017 SXSW Grand Jury Prize, was nominated for an Emmy, and was screened at the United Nations. Smith has written for Crooked.com, The Washington Post, and has been a guest on Pod Save the World and CNN International. Since 2003, she has worked for numerous campaigns, foundations and nonprofit organizations, including Obama for America 2007-2008.

Neera Tanden is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress and the CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where she focuses on how both organizations can fulfill their missions to expand opportunity for all Americans.

Before leading American Progress, Tanden was the organization's chief operating officer. She previously served as senior adviser for health reform at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role, she developed policies around reform and worked with Congress and stakeholders on particular provisions of President Barack Obama's signature legislative achievement, the Affordable Care Act. Prior to that, Tanden was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign and was policy director for Hillary Clinton's first presidential campaign, where she managed all domestic policy proposals.

Before the 2008 presidential campaign, Tanden served as legislative director in Sen. Clinton's office and deputy campaign manager and issues director for Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign. She began her career as an associate director for domestic policy in former President Bill Clinton's White House and senior policy adviser to the first lady. She has appeared on numerous news programs and been included in Elle magazine's "Women in Washington Power List" and Politico Magazine's "Politico 50," an annual list of the top thinkers, doers, and visionaries in American politics.

Dina Temple-Raston is a special correspondent who develops programming focused on the news of the day and issues of our time. Previously, Temple-Raston served as NPR's counter-terrorism correspondent, reporting from all over the world. In that role, Temple-Raston covered deadly terror attacks in the U.S. and abroad, the evolution of ISIS, and radicalization. While on leave from NPR, Dina independently executive produced and hosted a non-NPR podcast about adolescent decision making called What Were You Thinking.

In 2014, she completed a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University where as the first Murrey Marder Nieman Fellow in Watchdog Journalism she studied the intersection of Big Data and intelligence. Prior to joining NPR in 2007, Temple-Raston was a longtime foreign correspondent for Bloomberg News in Asia and served as Bloomberg's White House correspondent during the Clinton Administration. She has written four books, including The Jihad Next Door: Rough Justice in the Age of Terror, about the Lackawanna Six terrorism case. She is a frequent contributor to the PBS Newshour, a regular reviewer of national security books for the Washington Post Book World, and also contributes to the New Yorker, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, Radiolab, the TLS, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among others.

She is a graduate of Northwestern University and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Michael J. Abramowitz is president of Freedom House, a non-governmental organization that seeks to promote democratic change through research, advocacy and action. Before joining Freedom House in February 2017, he was director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Levine Institute for Holocaust Education, which oversees the museum’s education and exhibition programs. He previously led the museum’s genocide prevention efforts. Abramowitz had a long career in journalism, serving in a variety of roles at The Washington Post, including national editor and White House correspondent.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former Marshall Memorial Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, former media fellow at the Hoover Institution, and a board member of the National Security Archive.

Asaad Alsaleh is  assistant  professor  of  Arabic  Literature  and  Cultural Studies in the Department  of  Near  Eastern  Languages and Cultures, Indiana  University.  His  research examines  personal  narratives  in  Arabic literature,  particularly autobiography,  dealing  with issues  related  to identity and displacement. His interest in narratives  demonstrating the intersection of Arabic literature and political culture resulted in the publication of his book, Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions (2015).

Alyssa Ayres is senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and author of Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World (2018). Ayres served in the Obama administration as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia from 2010 to 2013, providing policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people. Ayres was founding director of the India and South Asia practice at McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory firm, from 2008 to 2010. She was project director for the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S.-India Relations in 2015, has co-edited three books on India and Indian foreign policy, and authored the 2009 book about nationalism, culture, and politics in Pakistan, Speaking Like a State, which received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies Book Prize for 2011–2012.  

Dan Balz is chief correspondent at The Washington Post. He joined the Post in 1978 and has covered politics throughout his career. He has authored four books, including two New York Times bestsellers. In addition to regular appearances on PBS’s Washington Week, Balz is a frequent guest on Sunday morning talk shows and other public affairs programs. U.S. Congressman Lee Hamilton, Distinguished Scholar in IU’s School of Global and International Studies will present Balz with the Lee H. Hamilton Public Service Fellowship. Balz’s talk is co-sponsored by the Media School, the Indiana Center on Representative Government and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

Christine Barbour teaches in Indiana University’s Department of Political Science, of which she is also a three time alumna and where she is also the internship director.  She is the co-author of three American politics textbooks and two Indiana-based cookbooks. She was active in starting the farm-to-table, Slow Food movement in Bloomington and has been a food columnist for the Bloomington Herald Times and, for the last ten years, Bloom magazine. 

Matthew Barzun served as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom from August 2013 to January 2017.  He served as national finance chair for former President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign in 2011 and 2012.  From August 2009 to May 2011, he served as U.S. ambassador to Sweden.  In 2008, he volunteered for then-Senator Barack Obama’s presidential election campaign, leading the effort to conduct supporter-driven small-dollar fundraisers.  From 2004 to 2008, Mr. Barzun was a private investor in a number of internet start-ups including MedTrackAlert, which he co-founded.  He joined CNET Networks in 1993 as its fourth employee and held various management positions during his 11 years with the company, including chief strategy officer. 

Sergio Berensztein is a political analyst based in Buenos Aires, where he runs a consultancy that works with public and private sector leaders to assess political and regulatory risks in uncertain environments, focusing on Argentina with a broad Latin American perspective. He has served as an advisor to multiple international organizations including the Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the Inter American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank. Berensztein was a professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella from 1997 to 2017 and has been a visiting professor at Princeton, Georgetown, and Duke Universities. Currently, he is the Director of the Institute of Behavioral Sciences and Public Policy at the Instituto de Neurologia Cognitiva (INECO). He has written more than 50 publications on political reform, institutional development, and political economy. Berensztein is a columnist for the newspaper La Nacion and the co-host of a daily radio show -- “Vuelo de Regreso” [Return Flight] -- on FM Milenium 106.7. His forthcoming book focuses on the impact of 9/11, the Great Recession, and recent technological advances shaping the political landscape in both developed and developing countries. 

James F. Collins is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former director of its Russia and Eurasia Program.  He is an expert on the former Soviet Union, its successor states, and the Middle East. Collins was the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in 2007, he served as senior adviser at the public law and policy practice group at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.  Collins served as ambassador-at-large and special adviser to the secretary of state for the newly independent states in the mid-1990s and as deputy chief of mission and chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow from 1990 to 1993. In addition to three diplomatic postings in Moscow, he also held positions at the U.S. embassy in Amman, Jordan; the consulate general in Izmir, Turkey; and the Department of State and White House in Washington.

Collins is the recipient of the Secretary of State’s Award for Distinguished Service; the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award; the Secretary of State’s Award for Career Achievement; the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service; and the NASA Medal for Distinguished Service.  He has been active on the boards of nonprofit organizations concerned with U.S. foreign policy and U.S. relations with Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. He has served as a member of the board of the U.S.-Russia Foundation, the U.S.-Russia Business Council, the American Academy of Diplomacy, the Open World Leadership Center, and American Councils for International Education.  Before joining the State Department, Collins taught Russian and European history, American government, and economics at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Gebisa Ejeta is distinguished professor of plant breeding and genetics and international agriculture, and is executive director of the Center for Global Food Security at Purdue University. Ejeta has had the honor of serving at the highest level of science and policy advisory for several international development and U.S. government agencies, including as special advisor to the USAID Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, as science envoy of the U.S. State Department, and as a member of the U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Ejeta currently serves on the boards of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, the Chicago Council for Global Affairs’ Global Food and Agriculture Program, the National Academy of Sciences Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, the International Water Management Institute, and on the U.S. Government Board for International Food and Agricultural Development. A 2009 World Food Prize laureate and recipient of a national medal of honor from the President of Ethiopia, Ejeta is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, fellow of the Crop Science Society of America, and fellow of the African Academy of Sciences.

Jon Eldon recently returned from three years of working within an international NGO in West Africa to complete his PhD at the University of California - Santa Cruz, where he studied agricultural ecology and soil science in the context of rural development. His research focuses on farmer adaptation and agro-ecosystem management, with an emphasis on collaborative research methods in complex agricultural systems. With his recent work in Senegal and The Gambia, he secured support from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, USAID, and Australia Aid to conduct over 1000 farmer field trials that tested alternative crop management practices across a socially and spatially heterogeneous landscape. He has also worked in semi-subsistence agriculture in the South Pacific and highly commercialized production in California and Oregon. He is currently a visiting scholar at Indiana University at the Ostrom Workshop and will be joining the School of Public and Environmental Affairs in the fall.

Rebecca Erbelding worked as an archivist and curator at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum from 2003-2015, and since 2015, has been a historian for the museum's upcoming exhibition, Americans and the Holocaust, opening in April 2018. Her first book, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe, will be published in April 2018. Her work has previously been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. Her 2007 discovery of the personal photo album of Karl Hoecker, the adjutant to the final commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, has been featured on The History Channel and the National Geographic channel.

Lee Feinstein is founding dean and professor of international studies at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Prior to joining SGIS, he served as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of Poland (2009-2012). Before that he was a senior fellow and deputy director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, specializing in U.S. foreign policy, international institutions and national security affairs. He served on the Presidential Transition Team for President Obama and as principal deputy director and member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State from 1994-2001. Feinstein serves on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a presidentially appointed position, and is a member of the Museum’s Executive Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Board of the Kosciusko Foundation, on the Advisory Council of the Indiana University Center for Global Health, and on the Indiana Advisory Committee of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. He is the author of Means to an End: U.S. Interest and the International Criminal Court (2009), with Tod Lindberg, and a regular commentator on international affairs.

Karen Freeman-Wilson is the mayor of Gary, Indiana.  Elected in 2011, Freeman-Wilson is the first woman to lead the steel city and the first African-American female mayor in the state.  A Gary native, Freeman-Wilson has served her state and hometown in a number of capacities.  As the twice-elected Gary City Judge, she helped pioneer the drug court movement in Indiana. During her tenure as Indiana Attorney General, Freeman-Wilson championed the rights of youth, seniors, and nursing home patients, and worked to combat gas price gouging and to ensure that tobacco settlement dollars were directed towards smoking cessation and health care. During her tenure as executive director of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, the state was one of the first to pass legislation comparable to the American with Disabilities Act.

Freeman-Wise has served as the CEO of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals and executive director of the National Drug Court Institute, based in Washington, D.C. Under her leadership, the NADCP became the premier organizational advocate for drug treatment in the judicial arena, and the number of drug courts in the U.S. doubled to 1700.  After being named one of the “Top 100 To Watch” by the National Democratic Leadership Council, Freeman-Wilson was asked to address the 2000 National Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. 

Lee H. Hamilton is one of the nation’s foremost experts on Congress and representative democracy. Hamilton founded the Center on Congress at Indiana University in 1999 and served as its director until 2015, after serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he represented Indiana from 1965-1999. He also served as president and director of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., from 1999-2010. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2015). Hamilton currently serves as a distinguished scholar in the School of Global and International Studies and as a professor of practice in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. A leading figure on foreign policy, intelligence, and national security, Hamilton served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission and co-chairman of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group. Until recently, he served as co-chair of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future with General Brent Scowcroft and as a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

Continuing to play a leading role in public affairs, Hamilton has been at the center of efforts to address some of our nation’s highest profile homeland security and foreign policy challenges. He is currently a member of the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council. Among his published works are How Congress Works and Why You Should Care (2004), Strengthening Congress (2009), and Congress, Presidents, and American Politics (2016). He writes twice-monthly commentaries about Congress and what individuals can do to make representative democracy work better. He is a frequent contributor to the national press.

Marie Harf is a national security policy and communications strategist who has held a variety of senior roles in government and politics since arriving in Washington over a decade ago.  Harf currently serves as a fellow in Georgetown University’s Institute of Politics and Public Service in the McCourt School of Public Policy. She is also a Fox News contributor, providing on-air national security and political analysis across the network’s daytime and prime time programming. 

From 2013 until 2017, Harf was a key member of Secretary John Kerry’s team at the State Department, serving as his senior advisor for strategic communications and as the department’s deputy spokesperson. She led the Obama administration’s communications and outreach strategy on the Iran nuclear negotiations and helped manage the successful effort to secure support for the deal from Congress. Harf ran all national security and foreign policy issues during President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. She began her career at the Central Intelligence Agency, first as an analyst on Middle East leadership issues and later as its media spokesperson.

Jeffrey C. Isaac is James H. Rudy Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. He served as Editor in Chief of Perspectives on Politics, a flagship journal of the American Political Science Association, from 2009-2017, and in 2017 was awarded APSA’s Frank J. Goodnow Award for Distinguished Public Service to the profession for his work. He has published four books, edited two anthologies, and published over 75 articles and essays. His book Democracy in Dark Times (Cornell University Press, 1998) is published in Romanian as Democratia in Vremuri Intunecate (Bucharest: Polirom Press, 2000). He is a Contributing Editor of Dissent magazine, and also a Contributing Editor at Public Seminar, where he publishes regularly on current events, and also writes a weekly column on music and politics called Blue Monday. Public Seminar Books, a new digital publishing venture of the New School, will be publishing his book, Against Trump: Notes from Year One, in 2018.

James Keith has become one of the US government’s top experts on China during his 31-year career as a US diplomat, serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China, National Security Council Director for China, Consul General in Hong Kong, and as a Political Officer in the US Embassy in Beijing. He also has broad experience in Asia outside of China. From 2007 to 2010 he was the US Ambassador to Malaysia. He was previously posted in Seoul and Jakarta, as well as serving as NSC Director for Southeast Asia. Ambassador Keith grew up across Asia, living in Tokyo, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Taipei and currently leads McLarty Associates’ Asia practice. He joined the US Foreign Service in 1980 and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. 

Andrew C. Kuchins is a senior fellow and research professor at the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CERES) in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has previously held senior positions at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He has also taught and held research positions at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. 
  
Kuchins is the author and editor of six books, including The Russia Balance Sheet (2009) with Anders Aslund, Russia after the Fall (2002), and more than 100 academic articles, book chapters, reports, and op-eds. He is currently working on a manuscript exploring lessons learned from the history of US-Russia relations. He regularly consults with U.S. government agencies and officials, foreign policymakers, and the business world about developments in Russia and Eurasia, and is frequently called upon for commentary and analysis by leading U.S. and foreign media.  

Maria Lipman is a Russian political analyst and commentator who is currently a visiting lecturer at the School of Global and International Studies. She is the editor of Counterpoint, an online journal published by the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University, and was the editor-in-chief of Pro et Contra, a policy journal published by the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2003-2014. Before joining Carnegie Moscow Center, Lipman was co-founder and deputy editor of two Russian weekly magazines. From 2001-2011, Lipman wrote an op-ed column on Russian politics, media, and society for The Washington Post. She has contributed to a variety of Russian and U.S. publications; since 2012, she has written a blog for The New Yorker online. She has contributed to and co-edited several volumes on Russian politics and society, including The State of Russia: What Comes Next? (2015). Lipman is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit and has been regularly featured as a Russia expert on a range of international broadcast media.

Richard G. Lugar is the president of The Lugar Center, a non-profit organization focusing on global food security, WMD non-proliferation, aid effectiveness, and bipartisan governance. Lugar also serves as a professor of practice and distinguished scholar at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University. Lugar volunteered for the U.S. Navy in 1957, ultimately serving as an intelligence briefer for Admiral Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations. A fifth generation Hoosier, Lugar left the U.S. Senate as the longest serving member of Congress in Indiana history. Before his election to the Senate, Lugar helped manage the family’s food machinery manufacturing business in Indianapolis, served on the Indianapolis Board of School Commissioners, and served two terms as mayor of Indianapolis.

During his six terms in the Senate, Lugar exercised leadership on critical issues such as food security, nuclear non-proliferation, energy independence, and free trade. In 1991, he forged a bipartisan partnership with then-Senate Armed Services Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to destroy weapons of mass destruction in the former Soviet Union. To date, the Nunn-Lugar program has deactivated more than 7,600 nuclear warheads that were once aimed at the United States.

Michael A. McRobbie has served as president of Indiana University since 2007. He previously served as IU’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer, as vice president for research, and as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs for IU Bloomington. Under McRobbie’s leadership as president, IU has seen a major expansion in the size and quality of its student body, a reinvigoration of the global partnerships that support the university’s international academic programs, an extensive program of building with the renovation and construction of more than 100 major new buildings with a total value of more than $2 billion, and a large-scale academic restructuring of the university, with the establishment of ten new schools. A native of Australia, McRobbie received a Ph.D. from the Australian National University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, and public policy.  Since 2008, he has served as president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, an independent, private foundation that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all.  He previously served as co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy, and as executive director of a bipartisan national commission on college affordability appointed by the President and congressional leaders. Merisotis is the author of the widely-acclaimed book America Needs Talent, named a Top 10 Business Book of 2016 by Booklist.

Merisotis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is frequently sought after as a media commentator and contributor. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Washington Monthly, Huffington Post, Politico, Roll Call and other media outlets.  His work includes extensive global experience as an adviser and consultant in southern Africa, the former Soviet Union, Europe, and other parts of the world. Additionally, Merisotis chairs the board of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and holds leadership positions on the boards of his alma mater Bates College in Maine, the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C., Anatolia College in Greece, and the U.K.-based European Access Network.

Blair Milo is the State of Indiana’s first Secretary for Career Connections and Talent, working to help the state fill an estimated one million job openings over the next ten years. Prior to her appointment to Governor Holcomb’s cabinet, Milo served as Mayor of La Porte, Indiana, after being first elected in 2011 and reelected in 2015.  During her administration, Milo prioritized economic development, sustainable infrastructure needs, and the encouragement of positive lifestyle choices. During her time in office, 1,100 new jobs and over $260M in new investment were created.  Milo serves on the State Workforce Innovation Council and has chaired the Career Counseling Task Force.  One of 25 elected women from across the country named to Governing magazine’s 2017 Women in Government Leadership network, Milo also serves on the Indiana Advisory Alliance for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition and the Board of Governors for the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series.  Prior to her roles in public service, Secretary Milo served as a surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy, completing two Persian Gulf deployments, as well as serving in Bahrain, Iraq, and at the Pentagon.  In July 2010, Milo transitioned from active to reserve duty. In 2017 she was named American Legion Military Person of the Year (Reserve Category) for the State of Indiana.

James T. Morris is the vice chairman of Pacers Sports & Entertainment. Morris was chief of staff to Indianapolis Mayor Richard G. Lugar from 1967-73 before joining the Lilly Endowment, serving as its president from 1984-88. From 1989-2002, he was also the chairman and chief executive officer for IWC Resources Corporation and Indianapolis Water Company. Before joining PS&E, Morris was the executive director for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) where he led the world’s largest humanitarian agency. Morris has received 17 honorary degrees and Indiana University’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award. He has been a trustee and board chairman for both IU and Indiana State University, serves on the National Advisory Board for the Boy Scouts of America, and is treasurer of the United States Olympic Committee. Along with his service on a number of corporate boards, Morris is former chair and longtime member of the Riley Children’s Foundation Board of Governors.

Yascha Mounk is a lecturer on government at Harvard University and a senior fellow at New America. A columnist at Slate and the host of The Good Fight podcast, he is a leading expert on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. His most recent book, The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It (2018), shows why the public’s belief in democracy is wilting away in America, Western Europe, and beyond and the two core components of liberal democracy ― individual rights and the popular will ― are increasingly at war with each other. 

Samantha Power is the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School. From 2013 to 2017 Power served as the 28th U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, as well as a member of President Obama’s cabinet. In this role, Power became the public face of U.S. opposition to Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria, negotiated the toughest sanctions in a generation against North Korea, lobbied to secure the release of political prisoners, helped build new international law to cripple ISIL’s financial networks, and supported President Obama’s pathbreaking actions to end the Ebola crisis. From 2009 to 2013, Power served on the National Security Council as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, where she focused on issues including atrocity prevention; UN reform; LGBT and women’s rights; the protection of religious minorities; and the prevention of human trafficking.

Power’s book, “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Power is also author of the New York Times bestseller Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World (2008) and the editor, with Derek Chollet, of The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World (2011). She began her career as a journalist, reporting from places such as Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe and has twice been named to Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list. Before joining the U.S. government, Power was the founding executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School.

Lauren Robel has served as provost and executive vice president of Indiana University Bloomington since 2012. During her tenure as provost, she has overseen the founding of the new Center for Rural Engagement and its Sustaining Hoosier Communities initiative, as well as the organization of IU Corps, an umbrella for all of IU Bloomington’s service-related courses, internships, research, and volunteerism. She has directed the reorganization of a number of units across campus, such as the School of Informatics and Computing and the School of Public Health, as well as the creation of several new schools: the Media School, the School of Global and International Studies, and the School of Art, Architecture, and Design. Robel has also initiated a number of campus-wide programs, including the Center of Excellence for Women in Technology and the IU Bloomington Arts and Humanities Council. She is currently coordinating the multi-year IU Bloomington Bicentennial Strategic Plan, a series of initiatives designed to strengthen and reinvigorate the residential learning experience on the Bloomington campus leading up to IU’s bicentennial in 2020. Previously, Robel served as dean of the Maurer School of Law, where she was a founding board member of the Law School Survey of Student Engagement and the Val Nolan Professor of Law.

Eric Schwartz became president of Refugees International in June 2017 after a three-decade career focused on humanitarian and human rights issues. Between 2009 and 2011, he served as U.S. assistant secretary of state for population, refugees, and migration. As assistant secretary, he was credited with strengthening the State Department’s humanitarian advocacy around the world, initiating and implementing critical enhancements to the U.S. refugee resettlement program, and raising the profile of global migration issues in U.S. foreign policy. He was the senior human rights and humanitarian official at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, managing humanitarian responses to crises in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. He also served as the U.N. deputy special envoy for tsunami recovery after the 2004 Asian tsunami; as Washington director of Asia Watch (now the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch); and staff consultant to the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, among other positions in the U.S. government, at the U.N., and in the non-profit sector.  

Before joining Refugees International, Eric served a six-year term as dean of the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. During much of that period, he also served on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and, ultimately, as the commission’s vice chair.  

Katie Simmons is associate director of research at Pew Research Center. She is an expert in survey methodology and conducts research on international public opinion on a variety of topics, including U.S. foreign policy, the global economy, democracy and terrorism. Simmons helps to coordinate the center-wide international research agenda and serves as a methodology consultant on all international projects at the center. She is also involved in all aspects of the research process, such as managing survey projects, developing questionnaires, analyzing data and writing reports. Prior to joining Pew Research Center, Simmons worked as a research analyst for non-profit clients at Belden Russonello Strategists. Simmons is an author of reports on the crisis in Ukraine, global economic conditions, life satisfaction and economic reform in Mexico. She speaks about findings from Pew Research Center studies to a variety of audiences, including government agencies, academic groups, and domestic and international media.

Ronald D. Vitiello is the acting deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).  He previously served as chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, responsible for its daily operations and assisting in planning and directing nationwide enforcement and administrative operations. He served as deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol from 2010 until July 2016, when he was promoted to the executive assistant commissioner of operations support at CBP.  Vitiello was chief patrol agent of the Swanton Sector in Vermont from 2005 until July 2007, when he was selected as a member of the Senior Executive Service and promoted to chief patrol agent of the Rio Grande Valley Sector in Texas. There, Vitiello was appointed as the lead U.S. CBP hurricane preparedness coordinator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Region VI. He was responsible for deploying personnel and resources to a national domestic incident site, representing the CBP commissioner as the lead field coordinator, and leading more than 12,000 CBP employees in Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana.

In his capacity as assistant chief at U.S. Border Patrol Headquarters from 2002-2005, Vitiello was one of the key contributors in the unification of CBP and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.  Previous leadership positions include special operations supervisor at the Nogales Station in the Tucson Sector and assistant patrol agent in charge of the Nogales Station, as well as deputy assistant regional director for the Border Patrol at the Central Region Office in Dallas, Texas, where he oversaw the regional implementation of Operation Rio Grande.  Vitiello entered on duty with the Border Patrol in 1985 at the Laredo Station in the Laredo Sector, where he also served as a Supervisory Border Patrol Agent.  

Celeste Wallander is president and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Foundation. She served as special assistant to the President and senior director for Russia/Eurasia on the National Security Council (2013-2017), as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia (2009 to July 2012), professor at American University (2009-2013), visiting professor at Georgetown University (2006-2008), director for Russia/Eurasia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2001-2006), senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (2000- 2001), and professor of government at Harvard (1989-2000). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  Additionally, Wallander is the author of over 80 publications on European and Eurasian security issues, focused on Russian foreign and defense strategy.

John Kojiro Yasuda is assistant professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University‘s School of Global and International Studies (SGIS). He specializes in contemporary Chinese politics. Yasuda’s research includes the study of regulatory reform in developing countries, governance, and the political economy of East Asia.  His work has covered a range of regulatory sectors including food safety, aviation safety, environmental protection, and financial regulation. He has published articles in the Journal of Politics, Regulation & Governance, and The China Quarterly. His new book, On Feeding the Masses:  An Anatomy of Regulatory Failure in China (2017) examines the political roots of China‘s food safety crisis.

Todd Young has been United States Senator from Indiana since 2017, having served as United States Representative for Indiana’s 9th congressional district from 2011-2017. He currently serves on the Senate Committees on Foreign Relations; Health, Education, Labor & Pensions; Commerce, Science & Transportation; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy after graduating from high school, Young was offered an appointment to the United States Naval Academy a year later. After graduation, Young accepted a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he attained the rank of Captain. Young worked for the Heritage Foundation, as a legislative assistant for energy policy to Senator Richard Lugar, and at a family law firm in Paoli, Indiana before being elected to Congress.

Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures in the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University. She is the author and editor of seven books, including most recently Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) and the award-winningStriving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford University Press, 2015). Her research has been supported by the Guggenheim Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Asaad Al-Saleh is Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature and Cultural Studies in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Indiana University. His research examines personal narratives in Arabic literature, particularly autobiography, dealing with issues related to identity and displacement. His interest in narratives demonstrating the intersection of Arabic literature and political culture resulted in the publication of his book, Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions(Columbia University Press, 2015).

Matthew Barzun was America’s ambassador to the UK from 2013-2017. Previously, he served as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden from 2009-2011. He was a pioneer in the early days of the internet, becoming the fourth employee of CNET Networks in 1993 and working there until 2004 in a variety of roles including Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Vice President. Before the President’s election in 2008, Barzun was among the fist to join Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee where he produced the first $25 per-person fundraiser and helped teach Obama University for campaign volunteers. President Obama selected him as National Finance Chair for his 2012 re-election campaign. Barzun has served on the boards of many non-profits focused on education, public policy, and interfaith relations.

David Bosco is Associate Professor at the School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University. He is author of books on the International Criminal Court and the U.N .Security Council, both published by Oxford University Press. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Professor Bosco worked previously as a private attorney and on refugee issues in the Balkans. He is currently researching a book on ocean governance and the law of the sea.

Pete Buttigieg is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana’s fourth-largest city. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds degrees from Oxford and Harvard Universities. He was the Democratic nominee for Indiana State Treasurer in 2010 against incumbent Richard Mourdock. Previously he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company where he worked in energy, retail, economic development, and logistics. Elected in 2011 at the age of 29, he is one of America’s youngest mayors of a city with over 100,000 residents. He is president of the Indiana Urban Mayors Caucus and serves on the board of the Truman National Security Project. A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve, he spent most of 2014 was on leave from the office while deployed to Afghanistan.

Roger Cohen is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated columnist on international affairs and diplomacy for The New York Times and the International New York Times. He joined the Times in 1990 after 10 years as a journalist for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters. He was a Times foreign correspondent for more than a decade before becoming acting foreign editor on Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the 9/11 attacks, and foreign editor six months later. He became an op-ed columnist in 2009. His work has taken him to many countries, including Bosnia, Iran, Israel and Afghanistan. His retrospective book about his Balkan experiences, Hearts Grown Brutal: Sagas of Sarajevo (Random House, 1998) won a citation for excellence from the Overseas Press Club. His most recent book is an acclaimed family memoir, The Girl from Human Street: A Jewish Family Odyssey.

Deborah Cohn is professor of Spanish at Indiana University, Bloomington. She specializes in the Cold War, focusing in particular on: U.S. cultural diplomacy; how U.S. universities functioned as vehicles for soft power in U.S. efforts to win “hearts and minds” around the world; and Latin American-U.S. literary and cultural relations. Her research on William Faulkner’s tours as goodwill ambassador for the U.S. Department of State has been published in Diplomatic History and other sources. She is the author of The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism during the Cold War (Vanderbilt UP, 2012), History and Memory in the Two Souths: Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction (Vanderbilt UP, 1999), as well as coeditor, with Jon Smith, of Look Away! The U.S. South in New World Studies (Duke UP, 2004). Her research has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the American Philosophical Society

Aurelian Craiutu is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, where he teaches courses in political theory and the history of political thought. He has written and edited several books on modern French political thought, most recently Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an age of Extremes (Penn Press, 2016), A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought (Princeton UP, 2012) and (with Jeremy Jennings) Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings (Cambridge UP, 2009).

Nick Cullather is a professor of history and international studies, and Executive Associate Dean of SGIS. He is a historian of U.S. foreign relations, specializing in the history of intelligence, development, and nation-building. In August 2014, Cullather began serving as co-editor of the journal Diplomatic History, the journal of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is the author of The Hungry World: America’s Cold War Battle Against Poverty in Asia (2010), which won the Ellis Hawley Prize for economic history, the Robert Ferrell Prize in diplomatic history, and was shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on a global policy issue. Cullather has won Fulbright grants to the Philippines and Singapore. Cullather earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Indiana University and a doctorate from the University of Virginia.

Ivo H. Daalder is president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Prior to joining the Council, he served as the Ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization for more than four years, appointed by President Obama in 2009. Before that, Daalder was a Senior Fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, specializing in American foreign policy, European security and transatlantic relations, and national security affairs. He served on the National Security Council staff as director for European Affairs from 1995-97. Daalder serves on the board of UI LABS, on the leadership board of the chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and on the Advisory Committee of the Secretary of State’s Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society, for which he also co-chairs the Global Cities Working Group. His most recent books include In the Shadow of the Oval Office: Profiles of the National Security Advisers and the Presidents they Served—From JFK to George W. Bush (with I. M. Destler) and the award-winning America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy (with James M. Lindsay). Daalder is a frequent contributor to the opinion pages of the world’s leading newspapers, and a regular commentator on international affairs on television and radio.

E.J. Dionne Jr. grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts. He attended Catholic schools, graduated from Harvard University, and received a D.Phil. in sociology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 1975, he went to work for The New York Times covering state, local, and national politics and also serving as a foreign correspondent. He reported from more than two dozen countries, including extended periods in Paris, Rome, and Beirut. He joined The Washington Post in 1990 as a political reporter and has been writing a column for the Post since 1993, which appears in more than 240 newspapers. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University, where he teaches in the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Government Department. Dionne analyzes politics weekly on NPR’s All Things Considered and is a regular analyst for MSNBC and This Week on ABC News. He is the author of Why Americans Hate Politics (Los Angeles Times Book Prize and National Book Award nominee). His most recent book, Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism – From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond, was published in 2016. In 2017, Bloomsbury published We Are The Change We Seek, a collection of President Obama’s speeches that he edited with Joy-Ann Reid of MSNBC.

Evan A. Feigenbaum is Vice Chairman of the Paulson Institute, an independent center, located at the University of Chicago, established by former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson. He is also Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 2001 to 2009, he served at the U.S. State Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, Member of the Policy Planning Staff with principal responsibility for East Asia and the Pacific under Secretaries of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and as an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, with whom he worked closely in the development of the U.S.-China senior dialogue. Feigenbaum has been Head of the Asia practice group at Eurasia Group, Senior Fellow for Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, and taught at Harvard University and the U.S .Naval Postgraduate School. Feigenbaum holds a PhD in Chinese politics from Stanford University and is the author of three books and monographs, including most recently The United States in the New Asia, and China’s Techno-Warriors, which was selected by Foreign Affairs as a best book of 2003 on the Asia-Pacific, as well as numerous essays.

Emma Gilligan is Associate Professor in the School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University. After completing her doctoral studies in Russian history at the University of Melbourne, Australia, Gilligan was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at the University of Chicago from 2003-2006. Her first book, Defending Human Rights in Russia; Sergei Kovalyov Dissident and Human Rights Commissioner, 1969-96 (Routledge, 2004), traces the evolution of the Soviet human rights movement from the 1960s in Moscow to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It analyzes, in particular, the rise of Sergei Kovalyov, Russia’s first human rights commissioner under the presidency of Boris Yeltsin and the impact of former Soviet dissidents on the discourse of human rights in the post-Soviet era. Her second book, Terror In Chechnya: Russia and the Tragedy of Civilians in War (Princeton University Press, 2010) examines the war crimes committed by Russian soldiers against the civilian population of Chechnya. The study places the conflict in Chechnya within the international discourse on humanitarian intervention in the 1990s and the rise of nationalism in Russia. Emma Gilligan is the author of articles for the Chicago Tribune, and the International Herald Tribune. She has appeared on MSNBC, Al Jazeera and Radio Liberty.

John Hamilton was elected Mayor of Bloomington in 2015. He is focused on improving the economy – helping it become more equitable, so Bloomington works for people from all walks of life; more sustainable, so we are building a better future with today’s efforts; and more productive, so we can help build value for all to share. A Bloomington native, Hamilton grew up the son of a Methodist minister and a professional musician. He graduated from Harvard College and Indiana University Maurer School of Law, then had a distinguished career primarily in the public and nonprofit sectors, focused on increasing economic justice and opportunity, social and health services, civil rights, and environmental stewardship. Hamilton founded City First Bank of D.C. (City First), a certified Community Development Financial Institution dedicated to strengthening low-to-moderate-income communities. As the Secretary of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, he oversaw Indiana’s social safety net and a staff of 10,000 with an annual budget of $6 billion. He also protected our air, water and land as Commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and served as an elected member of the Board of Trustees for the Monroe County Community School Corporation.

Marie Harf is a national security communications and policy strategist who has held a variety of senior roles in government and politics since arriving in Washington over a decade ago. She currently serves as a Fox News contributor focused on national security and political analysis. Harf served as Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications (2015 to 2017) and the State Department’s Deputy Spokesperson (2013 to 2015). In 2013, she was the senior advisor to and press spokesperson for Chuck Hagel during his successful confirmation to be Secretary of Defense. During the 2012 election, Ms. Harf was Associate Policy Director responsible for all national security and foreign policy issues on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Harf began her career in Washington in 2006 as an officer at the Central Intelligence Agency, first serving as an analyst on Middle East leadership issues in the Directorate of Intelligence and then as the Agency’s Media Spokesperson. Harf received her Master’s degree in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia, where her thesis evaluated the prospects for continued regime stability in Saudi Arabia. She graduated with honors from Indiana University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science with concentrations in Jewish Studies and Russian and East European Studies.

Mark Hertling served four decades in the US Army. Before retirement, he was Commanding General of US Army Europe, where he led over 50,000 soldiers and partnered with armies of 50 countries in Europe and the Levant. Hertling commanded the 1st Armored Division in combat in Northern Iraq in 2007-8, acted as Assistant Division Commander in Baghdad in 2003-4, and he commanded at both the Army’s National Training Center in California and the Joint Multi-National Training Center in Germany. Receiving a Bachelor of Science from West Point in 1975, LTG Hertling holds Masters’ Degrees in History, National Security Studies and Kinesiology (the latter from Indiana University’s School of Public Health). He is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the Crummer School, Rollins College. Mark’s military honors include Distinguished Service Medals, Legions of Merit, Bronze Stars, Purple Heart, and Army Commendation Medals for Valor. He received the German Gold Cross, the Romanian Land Forces Emblem of Honor, and the Polish Soldier’s Medal of Honor. Since retiring in 2013, Hertling is a SVP at the innovative Florida Hospital in Orlando. From 2013-2017. he was one of 25 members of the President’s Council on Fitness. He is an adjunct scholar at West Point’s Modern War Institute, and he serves as a military analyst for CNN. His book, Growing Physician Leaders, was published in May 2016.

Adam Hitchcock is a managing director at Guggenheim Partners. He is also a lecturer at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Before joining Guggenheim, he served as the chief of staff of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. In this role, he managed the staff and operations of the Council and was the strategic adviser to the Council’s chairman on policy and politics. Prior to that, Adam served as a special assistant in the White House Office of the Chief of Staff, where he provided counsel and support to President Obama’s senior advisors. Before joining the Obama Administration, Adam was on the Obama-Biden White House Transition Project and the Obama 2008 presidential campaign. Previously, he worked for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Adam is a fellow and member of the Board of Advisors at the Truman National Security Project, serves on the Studies Committee at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and is a member of the Atlantic Council. He is on the board of Urban Initiatives, a nonprofit organization that runs health, education, and character development programming for kids in the Chicago Public Schools.

Eric Holcomb is the 51st Governor of Indiana. He was elected governor following an unprecedented 106-day campaign and was sworn in on January 9, 2017. Prior to his election as governor, he served as Indiana’s Lt. Governor. Holcomb is a veteran of the United States Navy and was a trusted advisor to both Governor Mitch Daniels and Senator Dan Coats. Throughout his career in public service, Eric has earned a reputation of being a consensus builder. He’s worked with Hoosiers from all walks of life to build support for a number of initiatives and is the author of the book, Leading the Revolution, which outlined the successes of the Mitch Daniels approach to campaigning and governing. Eric is a graduate of Pike High School in Indianapolis and Hanover College in southeastern Indiana where he majored in U.S. History with a focus on the Civil War and Reconstruction. A student of history, he is a collector of presidential signatures and currently has documents signed by 41 of our nation’s 44 presidents. A life-long Hoosier, Eric has traveled extensively throughout Indiana and has made a jump shot in each of the state’s 92 counties.

Feisal Istrabadi focuses his research on the processes of building legal and political institutions in countries in transition from dictatorship to democracy. Prior to his diplomatic appointment as Deputy Permanent Representative of Iraq to the United Nations, Istrabadi served as a legal advisor to the Iraqi Minister for Foreign Affairs during the negotiations for U.N. Security Council resolution 1546 of June 8, 2004, which recognized the reassertion by Iraq of its sovereignty. He was also principal legal drafter of Iraq’s interim constitution, the Law of Administration of the State of Iraq for the Transitional Period, and principal author of its Bill of Fundamental Rights. Before contributing to the reconstruction of Iraq, Istrabadi was a practicing trial lawyer in the United States for 15 years, with approximately 70 civil trials in federal and state courts, focusing on civil rights, employment discrimination, and constitutional torts. Istrabadi lectures often at universities and think tanks on Iraq-related issues and appears frequently in national and international media. He is the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University.

Christopher A. Kojm served as Chairman of the National Intelligence Council from 2009 to 2014. In the Fall of 2014, he rejoined the Elliot School as Visiting Professor of the Practice of International Affairs. He was previously the Elliott School’s director of the mid-career MIPP program from 2008 to 2009 as well as the director of the U.S. Foreign Policy Summer Program (USFPSP) from 2007 to 2008. He also taught at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School (2004-07) and at Georgetown University (2005). In government, Chris served as a staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 1984-98 under Rep. Lee H. Hamilton, as a deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1998-2003), and as Deputy Director of the 9/11 Commission (2003-04). He was president of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, the Commission’s follow-on public education organization (2004-05) and served as a Senior Advisor to the Iraq Study Group (2006).

Adam Liff is Assistant Professor of East Asian International Relations at SGIS, Indiana University. His research focuses on international security and the Asia-Pacific, with particular emphasis on the foreign relations of Japan and China; U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy; the U.S.-Japan alliance, and the rise of China and its impact on its region and the world. Liff’s academic scholarship has been published in International Security, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Strategic Studies, Security Studies, The China Quarterly, and The Washington Quarterly, and has been cited widely in global media, including in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Economist. Since 2014, Liff is also associate-in-research at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. He holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Politics from Princeton University, and a B.A. from Stanford University.

Tod Lindberg is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the author of The Heroic Heart: Greatness Ancient and Modern, The Political Teachings of Jesus and Means to an End: U.S. Interest in the International Criminal Court (with Lee Feinstein). He is editor of Beyond Paradise and Power: Europe, America, and the Future of a Troubled Partnership and Bridging the Foreign Policy Divide (with Derek Chollet and David Shorr). From 1999 to 2013, he was editor of Policy Review. He teaches Ethics and Decision-Making in International Politics at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies and a graduate seminar on the same subject at Georgetown University. He is co-author with Lee Feinstein of Allies against Atrocities: The Imperative for Transatlantic Cooperation to Prevent and Stop Mass Killings, a new report published by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Maria Lipman is the Editor of COUNTERPOINT, an online journal published by the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (George Washington University); she is a Russian political analyst and commentator. Lipman was the editor-in-chief of Pro et Contra, a policy journal published by the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2003-2014. Before joining Carnegie Moscow Center, Lipman was co-founder and deputy editor of two Russian weekly magazines. From 2001-2011, Lipman wrote an op-ed column on Russian politics, media and society for The Washington Post. She has contributed to a variety of Russian and U.S. publications; since 2012, she has written a blog for The New Yorker online. She contributed to and co-edited several volumes on Russian politics and society, including The State of Russia: What Comes Next? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) and “How Putin Silences Dissent” (Foreign Affairs, May/June 2016) Lipman is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit and has regularly featured as a Russia expert on a range of international broadcast media. She is currently a visiting lecturer at IU’s School of Global and International Studies.

Keith Luse is the Executive Director of The National Committee on North Korea. At the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he served as the Senior East Asia Professional Staff Member for Chairman and later Ranking Member Senator Richard Lugar, from 2003 until 2013. He was Staff Director for Mr. Lugar at the Senate Agriculture Committee from 1999 through 2002, where the Senator also served as Chairman and later Ranking Member. For eight years during the 1990’s, Luse travelled extensively throughout Southeast Asia, conducting research for U.S. companies planning to penetrate the region’s markets. Earlier in his career, Luse was Senator Lugar’s State Director, followed by service as Chairman of the Indiana Republican Party. Upon departing the Senate in 2013, Luse was awarded the Philippine Legion of Honor Award by President Aquino for assisting Senator Lugar’s efforts to foster relations between the United States and the Philippines and Southeast Asia. He is a Co-Recipient of the 2010 Kato Ryozo Award for Service to the U.S.–Japan Alliance. In 2016, President Truong Tan Sang awarded Luse Vietnam’s Medal of Friendship for his contributions to normalization of U.S.–Vietnam relations. Luse has made five trips to North Korea. Luse was presented a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Indiana University. His graduate certificate in public management and additional graduate studies were obtained at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University–Purdue University, Indianapolis.

Michael A. McRobbie has served as president of Indiana University since 2007. He previously served as IU’s vice president for information technology and chief information officer, as vice president for research, and as interim provost and vice president for academic affairs for IU Bloomington. Under McRobbie’s leadership, IU has seen a major expansion in the size and quality of its student body, a reinvigoration of the global partnerships that support the university’s international academic programs, an extensive program of building with the renovation and construction of nearly 70 major new buildings with a total value approaching $2 billion, and a large-scale academic restructuring of the university, with the establishment or reconfiguration of eight new schools. A native of Australia, McRobbie received a Ph.D. from the Australian National University. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Blair Milo was first elected Mayor of La Porte, Indiana in 2011 and re-elected in 2015. Upon taking office, she focused her administration on building the most conducive climate for economic development growth, providing for sustainable infrastructure needs and fostering a community dedication toward positive lifestyle choices. Appointed by former Indiana Governor Mike Pence, Mayor Milo serves on the State Workforce Innovation Council and chairs the Career Counseling Task Force. She is a member of Governing Magazine’s Women in Government Leadership Series and serves on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Regional Councils; the Indiana Advisory Alliance for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; the Board of Directors for Accelerate Indiana’s Municipalities; and the Board of Governors for the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series. Prior to moving home to run for Mayor, Milo served as a Surface Warfare Officer in the U.S. Navy (2005-07), completing two Persian Gulf deployments. After serving in Bahrain and Iraq, Milo transferred to the Chief of Naval Operations staff at the Pentagon, and in July 2010, transitioned from active to reserve duty, where she holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander. Milo was born and raised in La Porte, Indiana. She earned a B. A. in Political Science at Purdue University and a commission as an Ensign in the United States Navy in 2004. In 2010, she earned a Master’s Degree in Legislative Affairs from the George Washington University.

Elaine Monaghan, a professor of practice in journalism and public relations at IU’s Media School, is a veteran reporter, writer and foreign correspondent. Born in Scotland, she is a graduate of Reuters’ journalism training program in London. For Reuters, she was based in Moscow, Kyiv/Minsk, Dublin/Belfast, and finally Washington, where she served as State Department correspondent during the tenures of Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell, traveling with them from 1999 to 2002. Monaghan later covered the Iraq invasion and other aspects of post-9/11 life for The Times of London as a Washington correspondent, served as foreign policy correspondent and magazine writer for Congressional Quarterly, and co-authored a CIA memoir. Notable experiences in her reporting life included Boris Yeltsin’s reelection campaign, President Alexander Lukashenko’s ascent to power, Dublin’s entry to European monetary union, Northern Ireland’s peace deal, Kosovo’s refugee crisis, and the impact of the September 11 attacks on the State Department and U.S. foreign and domestic policies. Her most exotic reporting trip took her on a rare trip to the Kurile Islands. Before coming to Bloomington in 2014, she spent two years working in strategic communications, notably as a consultant for Amnesty International USA.

James T. Morris is the Chair of the Indiana University Board of Trustees and is the Vice Chairman of Pacers Sports & Entertainment. A graduate of Indiana University with a master’s degree from Butler University, he was former Mayor Richard G. Lugar’s chief of staff from 1967-73, before joining the Lilly Endowment, serving as its president from 1984-88 and from 1989-2002. He was also the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for IWC Resources Corporation and Indianapolis Water Company. Before going to PS&E, Trustee Morris was the Executive Director for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) where he led the world’s largest humanitarian agency. Trustee Morris has received many honors, including 16 honorary degrees and IU’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award. He has been a trustee and board chairman for both Indiana State University and Indiana University, serves on the National Advisory Board for the Boy Scouts of America, and is treasurer of the U.S. Gymnastics Federation. He is chair of the Board for Riley Children’s Foundation, and serves on a number of corporate boards.

Christiana Ochoa is Professor of Law at the Maurer School of Law, Indiana University, and has focused the majority of her scholarship on the question of how economic activity intersects with human well-being. Before joining the faculty in 2003, she had worked at the global law firm, Clifford Chance, where she dedicated her efforts to cross-border capital markets and asset-finance transactions. She had also worked for a number of human rights and non-governmental organizations in Colombia, Brazil and Nicaragua. Together with her life-experience in Latin America, this work focused her attention on governance in the field of business and human rights. Since that time, her research on governance mechanisms has expanded into the field of law and development. Her scholarship in these areas has been published widely, and her first documentary film, “Otra Cosa No Hay/There is Nothing Else,” was completed in 2014. She is pursuing fieldwork toward the production of a second documentary, which will focus on law as a set of tools for the realization of differing views of development. She is associate director of the IU Center for Documentary Research and Practice, a center within The Media School that brings together scholars and artists from across the university who will work on an array of nonfiction media projects.

Lauren Robel was named provost of Indiana University Bloomington and executive vice president of Indiana University in 2012. She is the Val Nolan Professor of Law in the Maurer School of Law, where she served as Dean from 2002 to 2011 and as associate dean from 1991 to 2002. In fall 2013, Robel initiated a strategic planning process aimed at reimagining and invigorating academic programs across the Bloomington campus in anticipation of Indiana University’s Bicentennial in 2020. Robel’s Bicentennial Strategic Plan for Indiana University Bloomington includes ambitious initiatives for the Bloomington campus such as a new School of Art and Design, a new program in engineering, and the integration of health sciences programs into a new on-campus Academic Health Center. The plan also calls for initiatives to promote student and faculty success in a variety of areas, from financial literacy and career development to work-life balance and diversity recruitment. As the chief academic officer for the Bloomington campus, Robel oversaw the campuswide implementation of the 2011 New Academic Directions report. The recommendations outlined in the report led to the formation of several new schools and programs on the Bloomington campus, including The Media School, the School of Informatics and Computing, the School of Public Health, the School of Global and International Studies, the Integrated Program in the Environment, and the Office of Scholarly Publishing.

Tim Roemer is a strategic counselor at APCO Worldwide who works with clients on government relations. In 2009, he was appointed U.S. Ambassador to India, one of America’s largest diplomatic missions. During his time in office, Roemer helped move India from being America’s 25th largest trading partner to 12th. He strengthened U.S. cooperation with India in technology transfers and sales in the defense and space industries. Roemer was a member of the 9/11 Commission, and is one of the authors of the 9/11 Commission Final Report. He also served on the Washington Institute’s Presidential Task Force on Combating the Ideology of Radical Extremism; the 21st Century National Parks Commission; the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism; and the 9/11 FBI Review Commission as well as several Blue Ribbon national panels. Earlier, Roemer proudly served for 12 years in the United States Congress as the Representative for Indiana’s 3rd Congressional District. He is currently a member of the Aspen Institute’s U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue, and the Center for American Policy’s U.S.-India 21st Century Institute. He is also a strategic adviser to Issue One, a non-profit organization working on a non-partisan basis to address the insidious impact of big money on American democracy. He is a lecturer at the Washington Campus Executive MBA Program where he speaks on national security, market entry, and the U.S.-India relationship. He completed his bachelor’s degree at the University of California at San Diego. He earned a master’s and a doctoral degree in American government from the University of Notre Dame.

Kori Schake is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is the editor, with Jim Mattis, of the book Warriors and Citizens: American Views of Our Military. She teaches Thinking About War at Stanford, is a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine, and a contributor to War on the Rocks. Her history of the Anglo-American hegemonic transition is forthcoming (2017) from Harvard University Press. She has served in various policy roles including at the White House for the National Security Council; at the Department of Defense for the Office of the Secretary and Joint Chiefs of Staff and the State Department for the Policy Planning Staff. During the 2008 presidential election, she was Senior Policy Advisor on the McCain-Palin campaign. She has been profiled in publications ranging from national news to popular culture including the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and Vogue Magazine. Her recent publications include: “Republican Foreign Policy After Trump” (Survival, Fall 2016), “National Security Challenges for the Next President” (Orbis, Winter 2017), “Will Washington Abandon the Order?” (Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2017).

Ron Sela is Associate Professor of Central Eurasian and International Studies at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies, where he also serves as Director of the Islamic Studies Program. He has published books and articles on the history and historiography of Muslim societies, particularly in Central Asia, with forays into South Asia and the Middle East, using original narrative and documentary sources in diverse languages (incl. Persian, Arabic, Turkic, Hebrew, Russian, etc.). Recently, he has been leading an international initiative to study the crisis of religious authority in the Muslim world.

Wendy R. Sherman is Senior Counselor at Albright Stonebridge Group and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. She is a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations as well as the Aspen Strategy Group. Ambassador Sherman led the U.S. negotiating team that reached agreement on a Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between the P5+1, the European Union, and Iran for which, among other diplomatic accomplishments, she was awarded the National Security Medal by President Barack Obama. Prior to her service at the Department of State, she was Vice Chair and founding partner of the Albright Stonebridge Group, Counselor of the Department of State under Secretary Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor to President Clinton and Policy Coordinator on North Korea, and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs under Secretary Warren Christopher. Early in her career, she managed Senator Barbara Mikulski’s successful campaign for the U.S. Senate and served as Director of EMILY’S list. Ambassador Sherman served on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, was Chair of the Board of Directors of Oxfam America and served on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board and Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism.

Steven Simon is John J. McCloy ’16 Visiting Professor in History at Amherst College. He previously served on the NSC during the Clinton and Obama administrations and in a range of posts at the Department of State. In addition, he has been Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor at Princeton University, Hasib Sabbagh Senior Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, University Fellow in History of Religion at Brown University, International Affairs Fellow at Nuffield College Oxford, Bosch Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, visiting lecturer at Dartmouth College, Executive Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the US and Middle East, and senior analyst at the RAND Corporation. His first book, The Age of Sacred Terror, co-authored with Daniel Benjamin, won CFR’s Arthur Ross award for best book on international affairs. His new book, The Long Goodbye: The United States and the Middle East from Islamic Revolution to the Arab Spring (Penguin Random House), will be released in early 2019.

Mireya Solís is a senior fellow and the Philip Knight Chair in Japan Studies at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies. An expert in Japan’s foreign economic policies, Solís earned a Ph.D. in government and an M.A. in East Asian studies from Harvard University, and a B.A. in international relations from El Colegio de México. Her main research interests include Japanese politics, political economy, and foreign policy; international and comparative political economy; International Relations; and government-business relations. She also has interests in broader issues in U.S.-Japan relations and East Asian multilateralism. She has written and co-edited several books on trade in Japan and East Asia, including Dilemmas of a Trading Nation: Japan and the United States in the Evolving Asia-Pacific Order (Brookings Press, forthcoming); Competitive Regionalism: FTA Diffusion in the Pacific Rim, with Barbara Stallings and Saori N. Katada (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Cross-Regional Trade Agreements: Understanding Permeated Regionalism in East Asia, with Saori N. Katada (Springer, 2008); and Banking on Multinationals: Public Credit and the Export of Japanese Sunset Industries (Stanford University Press, 2004). She has also published numerous articles and book chapters on implications of and responses to the recent economic crisis, Japan’s domestic politics and foreign and economic policies, and East Asian multilateralism.

Constanze Stelzenmüller is the inaugural Robert Bosch senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Prior to working at Brookings, she was a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where she directed the influential Transatlantic Trends survey program. Her areas of expertise include: transatlantic relations; German foreign policy; NATO; the European Union’s foreign, security, and defense policy; international law; and human rights. Stelzenmüller is the former director of GMF’s Berlin office. From 1994 to 2005, she was an editor for the political section of the German weekly DIE ZEIT. Stelzenmüller’s essays and articles, in both German and English, have appeared in a wide range of publications, including Foreign Affairs, Internationale Politik, the Financial Times, the International New York Times and Süddeutsche Zeitung. She is also a frequent commentator on American and European radio and television, including Presseclub (ARD), National Public Radio, and the BBC. Stelzenmüller holds a doctorate in law from the University of Bonn (1992), a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1988), and a law degree from the University of Bonn (1985).

Ray Takeyh is Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of specialization are Iran, political reform in the Middle East, and Islamist movements and parties. Prior to joining CFR, Takeyh was senior advisor on Iran at the Department of State. He was previously a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Takeyh is the coauthor of The Pragmatic Superpower: Winning the Cold War in the Middle East and is the author of three previous books, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic, and The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine: The US, Britain and Nasser’s Egypt, 1953–1957. He has also written more than 250 articles and opinion pieces in many news outlets including Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Takeyh has testified more than twenty times in various congressional committees and has appeared on PBS Newshour, Charlie Rose, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, BBC, FOX, and CSPAN. He has a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University.

Celeste Wallander is the CEO and Director of the The U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (USRF). Previously, she has served as Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia on the National Security Council Staff. Prior to joining the NSC Staff, she was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/ Eurasia in the Office of International Security Affairs (ISA) from May 2009 to July 2012. An accomplished and recognized scholar on security relations in Europe and Eurasia, Wallander is the author of over 80 scholarly and public interest publications on these and related topics. Before joining government, Dr. Wallander was a professor in the School of International Service at American University and director of the M.A. Program in Global Governance, Politics, and Security (2009-2013) and Transatlantic Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United States (2012-2013). She has testified before Congress, lectured extensively in the U.S. and abroad, and served as a media analyst. Wallander received her Ph.D. (1990), M.Phil. (1986) and M.A. (1985) degrees in political science from Yale University, and her B.A. (1983 – summa cum laude) in political science from Northwestern University. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Atlantic Council of the United States, and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

John Yasuda is Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies. He specializes in contemporary Chinese politics. He has published articles in the Journal of Politics, Regulation & Governance, and The China Quarterly. His book, On Feeding the Masses, which examines the political roots of China’s food safety crisis, is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Prior to joining SGIS, Yasuda was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, an MPhil in Comparative Government from Oxford University, and his BA in Government from Harvard University.

Pete Yonkman is president of Cook Group, Cook Medical, and Cook Inc. He joined Cook Inc.’s corporate counsel team in 2001 and was named vice president and chief corporate counsel of Cook Group in 2004. That same year, he took on the additional role of vice president for the company’s expanding operations in Asia. In 2005, Yonkman was named president of Cook’s urological device manufacturing facility in Spencer, IN. When he was named executive vice president of the core medical company’s ten clinical divisions in 2007, he took on global responsibility for a much broader scope of medical products. Each clinical division focuses on a treatment area, overall providing minimally invasive devices to over 40 medical specialties. In 2014, Yonkman was named president of Cook Medical. He was additionally named president of Cook Group and Cook Inc. in July of 2015. Currently, Yonkman serves on the Cleveland Clinic Heart & Vascular Institute Leadership Board and several boards at the Maurer School of Law: Intellectual Property Advisory Board, Fundraising and Strategic Planning, and Entrepreneurship Law Clinic Advisory Board. He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and philosophy from Indiana University – Bloomington (Phi Beta Kappa) and a J.D. from the Maurer School of Law – Indiana University – Bloomington.

Philip Zelikow is the White Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He has also served as the Dean leading the University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He was a career diplomat, posted overseas and in Washington, including service on the NSC staff for President George H.W. Bush. Since leaving government service in 1991 he has taught and directed research programs at Harvard University and at the University of Virginia, where he directed the Miller Center of Public Affairs from 1998 to 2005. In addition to service on government advisory boards and as an elected member of a local school board, he has taken two public service leaves from academia to return full-time to government service, in 2003-04 to direct the 9/11 Commission and in 2005-07 as Counselor of the Department of State, a deputy to Secretary Rice. He has been a member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board for President Bush (2001-03) and for President Obama (2011-13). He has also been an adviser to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s program in global development.