U.S. & CANADA Dr. Patrick Campbell Patrick Campbell is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at West Point. Dr. Campbell received his political science PhD in 2010 from the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. From 2006 to 2010, he served in various roles with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., primarily as Special Assistant in the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in the National Institute of Justice, and in the office of the Assistant Attorney General. His research interests include the political development of representation in the United States; the American presidency; American political thought; and the causes and consequences of political polarization. At West Point, he teaches courses on American political development, the American presidency, American government, and political thought.
Dr. Jeffrey Sedgwick Dr. Jeffrey Sedgwick currently serves as the Executive Director of the Justice Research and Statistics Association, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to the use of nonpartisan research and analysis to inform criminal and juvenile justice decision-making. He also serves as Chair of the National Research Council’s Panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics and is co-founder and managing partner of Keswick Advisors, a statistical analysis and policy evaluation consulting firm in Richmond, Virginia. Dr. Sedgwick was confirmed by the Senate as Director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in April 2006, and in January 2008, he was named acting Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) in addition to the BJS directorship. He was formally nominated in April 2008 as AAG for OJP and confirmed to the post in October 2008; he served in that capacity until the change in presidential administrations in January 2009. He previously served at BJS as Deputy Director for Data Analysis from January 1984 to January 1985. He is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he began working in 1978, specializing in aspects of American government including public finance, criminal justice policy, and the role of the American presidency. He also served as visiting instructor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond. Dr. Sedgwick is the author of Law Enforcement Planning: The Limits of an Economic Approach (1984) and Deterring Criminals: Policymaking and the American Political Tradition (1980). He has directed and participated in several international programs, teaching and lecturing in Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Trinidad and Tobago, and other countries. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Kenyon College, a master’s degree in public administration and public policy from the University of Virginia (UVA), and a Ph.D. in government and public affairs, also from UVA.
LATIN AMERICA Mr. Neil Levine Mr. Neil Levine is the Director of the Center of Excellence on Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG Center) within the Bureau of Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance at USAID. Neil has just returned to USAID from an assignment as Assistant Professor of Strategic Leadership at the National Defense University Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, honing his passion for leadership, teaching and unlocking excellence. Neil brings with him a long history and deep knowledge of democracy, human rights and governance programming. He served as Director of the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation from 2008-2013 and as Chief of the Governance Division in the then Global Bureau Democracy and Governance Center from 2000-2007. A veteran Latin Americanist, Neil was deputy director for USAID’s Office of Central American Affairs from 1995-2000, and worked on Latin America issues on Capitol Hill for over a decade. He has Masters degrees from the National War College and Columbia University and a B.A. in International Studies from Earlham College.
Dr. Rebecca Root Rebecca Root is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey. She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research focus is on human rights in Latin America. Her first book, Transitional Justice in Peru, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2012.
EUROPE Ambassador Lawrence Butler Ambassador Lawrence Butler retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1976. He was a member of the Senior Foreign Service with the personal rank of Minister Counselor. As a senior Defense and Foreign Policy consultant, he currently supports command training exercises for U.S. Army divisions and brigades. Ambassador Butler devoted most of his 37 years as a diplomat to crisis management, conflict prevention and promotion of human rights and democracy in Europe, the Middle East and Afghanistan. He served on and behind the front lines of Cold War diplomacy before playing pivotal roles in ending conflicts in the Balkans and Northern Ireland. He was the chief American diplomat in Belgrade, Yugoslavia during the Dayton/Bosnia peace process, coordinated President Clinton’s involvement in the 1998 Northern Irish peace accord while NSC Director for Europe, implemented Macedonia’s 2001 peace agreement as U.S. Ambassador, led the “civilian surge” for Iraq in 2007 as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, and in Sarajevo during 2005-2007 advanced implementation of the Dayton Accords as the Deputy High Representative. 1993 he opened a conflict prevention and human rights monitoring office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission to the former Yugoslavia in Kosovo. Ambassador Butler’s other leadership assignments include tours as Deputy Chief of Mission in Copenhagen and Dublin, and embassy section chief postings in Finland and Bulgaria. In Washington at the State Department, he worked on European Union affairs and served as an Operations Center Senior Watch Officer. Ambassador Butler has received numerous Defense and State Department honors, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Joint Civilian Service Award, 2010, the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award, 2013, the Department of the Army Outstanding Civilian Service Medal, 2011, the Secretary of State’s Career Achievement, 2013, as well as multiple State Department Superior, Meritorious and Senior Pay awards. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College (Maine) and did graduate work in Business Administration and Public Policy at Michigan and Princeton Universities.
Dr. Margaret Crosby-Arnold Dr. Margaret Crosby-Arnold is presently Adjunct Associate Research Scholar with the European Institute at Columbia University. After completing a PhD. in Modern German, Modern European and Nineteenth Century American histories at Brown University in 2001, she began her career with joint appointments at King’s College-London and the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt, Germany. Returning to the United States in 2004, she taught briefly at SUNY-Old Westbury before joining the Department of History at Howard University in Washington, DC, where she was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2009. In 2011, the unmatched research resources of Columbia University encouraged Dr. CrosbyArnold to accept first a visiting appointment in the Department of History and, then, her current research appointment with the European Institute, where she has been able to concentrate her energies on developing the history of diversity as a new approach to historical analysis. The history of diversity is a fieldchanging intervention that seeks to move beyond the cultural-anthropological “ethnohistory” synthesis developed by the Boasian anthropologist, Melville Herskovits in the mid-twentieth century and allows for more effective engagement across various subfields of historical research. Her forthcoming book, Hannibals at the Gates: Diversity, Prosperity, Economic Dislocation and Social Crisis in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Europe, 1750—1815, explores the shift from early—modern diversity management driven by religious ideology to modern diversity management, resting on the dubious ideology of race. Although it remains understudied by historians, diversity management was amongst the most important quaternary-sector functions of empire and, indeed, success or failure, here could make for break an empire. Dr. Crosby-Arnold developed international standing as an early pioneer of law and society history, and her work continues to be concerned the critical legal moment of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Era across time, space and in global perspective. Her first book, The Making of a German Constitution: A Slow Revolution (2008) indicates this, and she has published internationally and given numerous lectures and presentations globally. She is also an Army Brat and grew-up on US military bases in between the United States, Germany and Japan. This formative experience continues to play an important and enlightening role in her scholarship.
RUSSIA & POST-SOVIET SPACE Dr. Stacy Closson Dr. Stacy Closson is an Assistant Professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. Her areas of research cover comparative politics, foreign policy, and energy security. She just returned from Taipei, Taiwan where she was a Fulbright Scholar at National Chengchi University, teaching in the Department of Diplomacy. She received her PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in International Relations and her MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies. She came to Patterson from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C. Dr. Closson was also a Transatlantic Post-Doctoral Fellow in think tanks in Switzerland and Germany researching Eurasian energy politics. From 1996-2002 she worked in the US Department of Defense as a political-military analyst on the Middle East and Eurasia, entering as a Presidential Management Fellow. Dr. Closson was named an “Emerging Leader in Environmental and Energy Policy” by the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. Dr. Closson was most recently named a Global Fellow by the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C. Her latest book with MIT Press is entitled Energy, Economic Growth, and Geopolitical Futures.
Brigadier General (Ret.) Peter Zwack From 2012 – 2014, BG (r) Peter Zwack served as the United States Senior Defense Official and Attache to the Russian Federation. By interacting with Russians at multiple levels since 1989, including defense, security, academia, policy, veterans, and private citizens, BG Zwack developed a unique hands-on perspective on Russia and Eurasian security affairs during a turbulent period that included the recent strife in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. BG Zwack enlisted in the US Army in 1980 and received his commission via Officer Candidate School (OCS). He subsequently served 34 years as a Military Intelligence and Eurasian Foreign Area Officer serving in diverse and challenging duty and deployment locations including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Russia, South Korea and West Germany. During his career he commanded at multiple echelons including the 66th MI Group and was the intelligence chief (G2) for US Army Europe from 2006-8, and the senior Army intelligence officer (SIO) in Afghanistan from 2008-9. Inducted into the OCS Hall of Fame in 2015, BG Zwack is a recipient of the Bronze Star, Distinguished Service Medal, Legion of Merit, Defense Superior Service Medal, and many other awards and citations including the Afghan Service Medal and NATO/Kosovo Medal. He was also honored as the Joint Chiefs of Staff "Action Officer of the Year" for 1999. He proudly wore the Ranger Tab and Airborne Wings. Recently retired, he is the Senior Russia Eurasia Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies within National Defense University. As such he regularly consults and lectures within the defense department, interagency, think tanks, academic institutions and private industry on contemporary Russian and Eurasian security issues, and leadership lessons learned. BG Zwack speaks Russian, German, Italian, and some French. His home with family is Newport, Rhode Island from which he commutes to work in Washington DC. Diversions include military history and writing, travel, scuba diving and lacrosse.
MIDDLE EAST Dr. Trevor Johnston Dr. Trevor Johnston is an associate at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and an Associate Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. He is broadly interested in the political economy of development and conflict, with a focus on the Middle East. He has published on labor and welfare policies in the Persian Gulf, worked on conflict mediation and structural reform in North Africa, and designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for programs on investment and refugees in Iraq. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Michigan.
Mr. Michael Sims Michael Sims is a PhD candidate in the Interdisciplinary Program in Near and Middle Eastern Studies Program at the University of Washington. His dissertation research focuses on the roles of religious institutions, education and local political engagement in the formation of national identity, communal boundaries and sectarianism in Late Ottoman Kurdistan. His research interests started during an Army deployment to Northern Iraq, where he served as a Combat Engineer in a unit tasked with Route Clearance and EOD Support. During this deployment, his unit often worked in Yezidi, Kurdish and Assyrian regions. He received his BA in History and Religious Studies in 2009 from Virginia Commonwealth University in his native city of Richmond, Virginia. During his undergraduate years he studied in Ankara, Turkey as a Critical Languages Scholar, and later in Ankara and Istanbul as a Boren Scholar. He received his MALS in Religious Studies from Georgetown University in 2013. His Master’s Thesis explored the reception and impact of American and British missionary activity among Syriac Christians of Southeast Anatolia during the mid-19th century. While living in Washington, DC, he worked as an Administrative Officer for the National Institute of Justice, and as a liaison for religious minority affairs for the Kurdistan Regional Government’s representation office. He has studied Arabic in Rabat, Morocco with the Critical Languages Scholarship and twice as a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellow in Amman, Jordan. He has also studied Classical Syriac in Mardin, Turkey and speaks Turkish and Kurmanji Kurdish. He has presented academic papers on topics related to interfaith relations, religious minorities of the Middle East and Late Ottoman history, and is asked to give talks on topics such as Kurdistan and Yezidism. He is currently working on a project on 19th century Christian sources on the Yezidis.
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Dr. Ken Opalo Ken Opalo is an Assistant Professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His research interests include the political economy of development; legislative development; and electoral politics in emerging democracies. Ken’s current book project examines the evolution of legislatures in emerging democracies, with a focus on explaining the observed variation in the institutionalization and strength of African legislatures. Ken’s work has been published in both academic journals and the popular press, including the Journal of Democracy, the Journal of Eastern African Studies, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post’s MonkeyCage blog, Al Jazeera, among others. He is a weekly columnist with the Standard Newspaper in Kenya and blogs at www.kenopalo.com.
Dr. Laura E. Seay Dr. Laura Seay an assistant professor of Government at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. Her research is centered around the study of community responses to conflict and U.S. foreign policy in Africa’s Great Lakes region. She is currently finishing a book, Substituting for the State, about the role non-state actors play in governing the eastern DRC in response to the Congolese state’s weakness in North Kivu, South Kivu, and Ituri. She is also engaged in a new project on the effects of U.S. legislation designed to mitigate conflict in central Africa, which examines two cases: the fight against the use of conflict minerals in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and efforts to capture or eliminate warlord Joseph Kony and the remnants of his Lord’s Resistance Army in the Central African Republic. Her research and teaching interests include qualitative and mixed methods, African politics and development, and post-conflict state reconstruction. She has also worked with the World Bank in Nigeria on efforts to improve the national primary health care system through evaluating the implementation of a results-based finance system, with particular attention to reducing instances of maternal, infant, and child mortality by removing demand-side barriers to system access. At Colby, Laura teaches African politics, conflict, and research methods. She blogs about African politics, development, and security at Texas in Africa and is an associate editor of The Monkey Cage, the political science blog of the Washington Post.
EAST ASIA Dr. Qin Gao Dr. Qin Gao is an Associate Professor at Columbia University School of Social Work and a Faculty Affiliate of the Columbia Population Research Center and Weatherhead East Asian Institute. She is also an Academic Board Member of the China Institute for Income Distribution and Institute of National Accounts, both at Beijing Normal University, and a Public Intellectual Fellow of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Before joining the faculty of Columbia, she was a Professor and Coordinator of International Initiatives at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. Dr. Gao’s research examines poverty, inequality, and social and economic policies in China and their international comparisons. Her forthcoming book, entitled “Welfare, Work and Poverty: Social Assistance in China” (Oxford University Press), provides a comprehensive examination of the effectiveness and impacts of China’s primary safety net program, Dibao. Dr. Gao is a prolific scholar and has published in a wide range of leading interdisciplinary academic journals such as the China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Social Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Review of Income and Wealth, Social Service Review, and World Development. Dr. Gao’s current research examines the following topics: 1) the Chinese welfare state in transition: size, structure, and redistributive effects; 2) China’s Precision Anti-Poverty Campaign, including Dibao and other anti-poverty policies and programs; 3) gender inequality in time use in China and beyond; 4) social protection for rural-to-urban migrants in China and Asian American immigrants; and 5) cross-national comparative social policies and programs. Dr. Gao’s work has been supported by multiple national and international funding sources such as the National Social Science Fund of China, UNICEF, and the World Bank.
Mr. Lonnie Henley Lonnie Henley was appointed Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for East Asia in May 2016. He is the senior advisor to the Director, DIA, on East Asia intelligence issues, and the Director’s representative to senior Defense officials, combatant commanders, foreign counterparts, and the Intelligence Community. Mr. Henley was appointed to the Defense Intelligence Senior Level in 2000 and to the Senior National Intelligence Service in 2006. Previous positions include National Intelligence Collection Officer for East Asia; Senior Defense Intelligence Analyst for China; Deputy National Intelligence Officer for East Asia; Senior Defense Intelligence Expert for Strategic Warning; and a previous term as DIO for East Asia in 2000-2003. He spent two years in the private sector 2004-2006. Mr. Henley retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the U.S. Army in 2000, having served 22 years as a military intelligence officer and China foreign area officer. During his Army career he served two tours in DIA, three in U.S. Forces Korea, and one in Army G2, and taught Chinese history and world history at West Point. Mr. Henley holds a Bachelor’s degree in engineering and Chinese studies from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and Master’s degrees in Chinese language from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar; in Chinese history from Columbia University; and in strategic intelligence from the National Defense Intelligence College. He speaks Mandarin Chinese and French. Mr. Henley is also an adjunct professor of Security Policy Studies in the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. His wife Sara Hanks is a corporate securities attorney and CEO specializing in early-stage capitalization. They live in Alexandria, Virginia.
IRAN, ITS NEIGHBORS, AND THE U.S. Mr. Matthew McInnis J. Matthew McInnis is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the former Senior Expert on Iran at the US Central Command from 2010 to 2013. At AEI he focuses on Iran’s intentions, strategic culture, and military posture as well as regional security issues in the Persian Gulf (Iran, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula) and Syria. He also works on US defense and regional security issues in the Persian Gulf, and on the effectiveness of the US intelligence community. Before joining AEI, McInnis served for fifteen years as a senior analyst and in other leadership positions for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Defense. Prior to his time at US Central Command, McInnis was Chief of the Iran Division at DIA and Senior Intelligence Officer for Iraq analysis at the agency. In 2007, McInnis served as the Senior Defense Intelligence Advisor to Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) Commander Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno following a tour in 2006 leading strategic intelligence analysis for Multi-National Force–Iraq (MNF-I) under General George W. Casey Jr. He also worked larger Middle East, counter proliferation, and East Asian security issues during his time at DIA. McInnis has a master’s degree in international relations from the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University and another master’s degree in European studies from New York University. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in international studies from Eckerd College in Florida.
Colonel (Ret.) Bill Raymond, Ph.D. Dr. Bill Raymond is a husband, father, retired Army officer, and an educator. Bill was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Field Artillery following his graduation from the United States Military Academy as a Distinguished Military Graduate on 25 May 1983 and retired after a distinguished career on 1 June 2013. He is the sixth generation of his family to attend West Point and serve their country for 30 years. He served in a wide variety of command and leadership positions while serving at Fort Lewis, WA; Fort Sill, OK; Nurnberg, Germany; West Point, NY, and Fort Leavenworth, KS. His last three assignments at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth was serving as the Director of the Command & General Staff School from 2007-2010, where he was responsible for 400 faculty and 7,000 students; the Director of the Army Leader Development Division at the Center for Army Leadership, responsible for the Army’s Leader Development Strategy; and the Director of the School of Advanced Leadership and Tactics, responsible for captains’ education. Bill is also an educator. In addition to his Bachelor of Science Degree in Engineering from West Point, he holds both a Master of Arts and Doctorate of Philosophy in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Military Art and Science (MMAS) from the School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). His military education includes the Field Artillery Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Combined Arms Services Staff School, the CGSC, and a War College Fellowship. He served as an instructor and assistant professor of politics in the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy from 1993-1996, teaching courses on Advanced American Government, Executive Politics, Public Policy, and War Powers. After a year as a War College Fellow in the Advanced Operational Arts Studies Fellowship at SAMS at the CGSC at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, he served as a SAMS seminar leader/professor from 2005-2006. From, 2006-2013, he taught an MMAS research graduate seminar each semester for majors earning their master’s degree while at CGSC. Bill was also an adjunct professor at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS for 18 months, teaching courses on American Government, the American Presidency, Critical Analysis and Understanding, and U.S. Military History. He started full-time there in the Department of Political Science in the fall of 2013 as an associate professor teaching courses on American Government, Comparative Politics, and other subjects.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Mr. Colin Buckley Colin H.P. Buckley is a Democracy Specialist at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Colin began his 7+ years with the US Government as a Presidential Management Fellow after graduating from Georgetown University with a masters in public policy. While at USAID, he has worked predominantly with issues of economic policy and rule of law, taking on varied projects, such as media freedom in Mozambique, labor rights in Mexico, and most recently justice reform in Sri Lanka. Prior to joining the federal government, Colin worked for a number of non-profit and social justice causes such as Habitat for Humanity, the Service Employees International Union, and various political campaigns. In his spare time he enjoys writing and photography.
Dr. Darius Ornston Darius Ornston is an Assistant Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, where he teaches courses on global innovation, social policy, international trade and local economic development. Dr. Ornston’s research focuses on the political economy of cooperation in Western Europe. His first book, When Small States Make Big Leaps (Cornell University Press), described how Denmark, Finland and Ireland leveraged tightknit networks to enter new, high-technology markets. His research on Nordic Europe and the politics of high-technology competition has also been published by Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Governance, Review of Policy Research, Socio-Economic Review, West European Politics, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the World Bank. Dr. Ornston is currently drafting a second book manuscript, “Good Governance Gone Bad,” which explains how the same cohesive networks that enabled the Nordic countries to engineer big leaps into new industries can also lead to groupthink, policy overshooting and economic crises. He is also involved in several projects in Western Europe, East Central Europe and Canada on the effectiveness of innovation agencies, the role of the state in late industrializers, the impact of EU structural funds on innovation and the politics of cooperation in cities. Before arriving at the Munk School, Dr. Ornston worked at the University of Georgia and the Georgia Institute of Technology. He received a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in Political Science in 2009.
TECHNOLOGY Dr. Chris Bronk Christopher Bronk, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of computer and information systems and associate director of the Center for Information Security Research and Education. He holds additional appointments in Rice University's Department of Computer Science and the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. His research is focused in the area of cyber geopolitics with additional work in organizational innovation, knowledge management, and intelligence studies. Prior to arriving at the University of Houston, Bronk was the fellow for information technology policy at Rice University's Baker Institute. Previously, he was a software developer in a technology startup and then spent time as a Foreign Service Officer, finishing his tenure at the U.S. State Department's Office of eDiplomacy. In addition to significant work in the cyber security area he has published on issues including: broadband and wifi policy; IT sector energy consumption; intelligence and information sharing issues; and the area of computer security in the energy industry. Bronk has provided commentary and opinion for a variety of news outlets, including the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Der Spiegel, Scientific American, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, the BBC and the Houston Chronicle. Holding a Ph.D. from The Maxwell School of Syracuse University, Bronk also studied international relations at Oxford University and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Paul Mihailides Paul Mihailidis is an Associate professor in the school of communication at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Paul Mihailidis's research explores the nexus of media literacy, young people and engagement in civic life. He is the Director of the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, a program that annually gathers scholars and students from around the world to investigate media and global citizenship. His book Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen: Youth, Engagement and Participation in Digital Culture (Peter Lang 2014) explores the competencies young citizens need to thrive in the digital age. Mihailidis has published widely on media literacy, global media, and digital citizenship. In addition to Media Literacy and the Emerging Citizen, he has edited three books: Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice (w/Eric Gordon, MIT Press, 2016), Media Literacy Education in Action: Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspectives (w/Belinha DeAbreu, Routledge 2013) and News Literacy: Global Perspectives for the Newsroom and the Classroom (Peter Lang 2012). He is co-editing the forthcoming anthology, the International Encyclopedia of Media Literacy (Wiley, with Renee Hobbs), and his next book, to be published by Routledge (2018) is titled “Civic Persistence: Media Literacy, Everyday Activism & the future of democratic engagement in digital culture.” Mihailidis is the co-editor for the Journal of Media Literacy Education (JMLE), and the Co-Director of the Engagement Lab at Emerson College, where he also Directors the Masters in Civic Media: Art & Practice. Mihailidis sat on the board of directors for the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) from 2007 – 2015. He has presented his research to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN), UNESCO, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and traveled to China to join the board of the Academy for Global Media in Chongqing. As Director of the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, Mihailidis oversees a program that gathers over 60 students and a dozen faculty from five continents for three weeks every summer to create multimedia media literacy products that are used in over 100 countries around the world. At Emerson, Mihailidis teaches Civic Media, Media Literacy, Interactive Communication, and Digital Media and Culture.
SECURITY Dr. Takako Hikotani Takako Hikotani is the Gerald L. Curtis Visiting Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy at Columbia University for the academic year 2016-2017. She is on leave from the National Defense Academy of Japan, where she, as Associate Professor at the Department of Public Policy and Graduate School of Security Studies, has taught since 1999. Takako also lectures at the Ground Self Defense Force and Air Self Defense Force Staff Colleges, and the National Institute for Defense Studies. Her research focus on civil-military relations and Japanese domestic politics, Japanese foreign policy, and comparative civil-military relations. Dr. Hikotani’s publications (in English) include, “Japan’s New Executive Leadership: How Electoral Rules Make Japanese Security Policy (with Margarita Estevez-Abe and Toshio Nagahisa), in Francis Rosenbluth and Masaru Kohno eds, Japan in the World (Yale University Press, 2009) and “Civilian Control and Civil-Military Gaps in the United States, Japan, and China” (with Peter Feaver and Shaun Narine), Asian Perspective 29:1, March 2006. She advised and appeared in PBS Wide Angle Program, “Japan’s About Face,” July 8, 2008. Dr. Hikotani was a Visiting Professional Specialist at Princeton University as Social Science Research Council/Abe Fellow (2010-2011), as well as a Suntory Foundation Torii Fellow (2000-2001), and Fellow of the US-Japan Leadership Program, US-Japan Foundation (2000- ). Takako received her B.A. from Keio University, M.A. from Keio University and Stanford University, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, where she was a President’s Fellow.
Prof. Marybeth Ulrich Marybeth Ulrich is Professor of Government in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the U.S. Army War College. She was among the first wave of women to attend the service academies and was a Distinguished Graduate in 1984. Colonel Ulrich’s active duty Air Force career spanned 15 years. She logged more than 1900 hours in Strategic Air Command as a navigator, instructor navigator, and standardization and evaluation navigator on KC-135Q refueling planes. Her last nine years on active duty were spent earning a Ph.D. and teaching political science to cadets at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. In 1999 she transferred her commission to the USAF reserve where she served an additional 15 years retiring as a Colonel in 2014. As a reservist, she was assigned as an IMA to the Undersecretary of the Air Force for International Affairs (SAF/IA) where she provided political-military analysis to the USAF senior leadership. In 2008 Colonel Ulrich was selected for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) reserve attaché program. In that role she supported embassies in Eurasia and Europe with primary support to US Defense Attaché Office (USDAO) Prague (2008-20011), USDAO Moscow (2011-2014), and USDAO Athens (2014). She has also served as an Air Force Academy Admissions Liaison Officer since 1999. Dr. Ulrich’s research interests are focused on strategic studies with a special emphasis on civil-military relations, European security, and national security democratization issues. She has extensive research and practical experience in the area of security cooperation and defense reform. She is also expert on developing policy and strategy expertise in strategic partners. She has more than 30 publications and has delivered more than 100 conference presentations and visiting lectures at forums throughout the world. Among her numerous publications is a book, Democratizing Communist Militaries: The Cases of the Czech and Russian Armed Forces, University of Michigan Press. Dr. Ulrich received a B.S. from the U.S. Air Force Academy, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Illinois.
POLITICAL RADICALISM Dr. Lionel Beehner Dr. Lionel Beehner is an assistant professor at the Modern War Institute at West Point and teaches courses on military innovation and research methods. He holds a Ph.D. in political science at Yale University and is formerly a fellow at the Truman National Security Project, a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, and a Term Member with the Council on Foreign Relations, where from 2005 to 2007 he worked as a senior staff writer for its award-winning website, CFR.org. He holds an M.A. in international affairs from Columbia University. His research examines the transnational nature of conflict and combat, civil-military relations, and limited military interventions. His writing has appeared in Orbis, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The National Interest, and The New Republic, among other publications. He lives in Tarrytown, NY, with his wife, dog, and two children.
MAJ Christina Bembenek MAJ Christina Bembenek graduated from West Point in 2000 with a degree in international relations and a concentration in the Chinese language. Commissioned as a military intelligence officer, her first assignment was as the Battalion S2 for 1-1 Aviation in Ansbach, Germany. She deployed to Kosovo for KFOR 4B as the Aviation Task Force S2. Her next assignment was as the Assistant Brigade S2 for 2nd Brigade, 101st Infantry Division at Ft. Campbell, Ky., which included a 12-month deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Southern Baghdad, Iraq. She then served as the Assistant S3 for the 525 Battlefield Surveillance Brigade (BfSB) at Ft. Bragg and commanded A Company (SIGINT), 319th Military Intelligence Battalion during a 15month deployment to Iraq. MAJ Bembenek was selected to be an Olmsted Scholar in 2009 and studied at Mohammad V University in Rabat, Morocco, in a master’s program in Public Law and Political Science, in Arabic. After completing her Olmsted studies, she attended the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kans. She was then assigned to the 704th Military Intelligence Brigade at Ft. Meade, Md., where she served as the Chief of the Global Operations Center-SIGINT, 742nd Battalion Operations Officer (S3), and 704th Brigade Operations Officer (S3). She is currently serving at Central Command (CENTCOM) at Macdill Air Force Base as the Branch Chief for the Operational Assessments Group where her team conducts strategic intelligence analysis to support a range of military operations in the Middle East.
ETHNO-RELIGIOUS CONFLICT Dr. Catherine Kelly Catherine Lena Kelly currently serves as a Monitoring and Evaluations Analyst in the Rule of Law Initiative at the American Bar Association in Washington, D.C. Dr. Kelly joined ABA ROLI in September 2015 as a Mellon Foundation / American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellow. Fluent in French and proficient in Wolof, she holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and has consulted or worked for organizations including Freedom House, the University of Cape Town’s African Legislatures Project, the International Budget Partnership, and the U.S. Department of State. She has conducted nearly two years of field research for academic projects in Senegal, Ghana, and Burkina Faso and has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Free University of Brussels, where she published research about foreign intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She offers expertise on research and program design, as well as on issues related to governance, democratization, civil society, political party systems, and the interaction of religion and politics. Dr. Kelly also has program evaluation experience in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa.
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Lehenbauer LTC Mark Lehenbauer is an active duty Special Forces officer that resides with his family in Northern Virginia. His operational and combat experience combined with his study as a scholar and wide travels have earned him a unique understanding of Middle Eastern history, culture, politics, and the interconnectedness of many of its societal and security issues. He began his military career in 1999 with a commission through Texas A&M University ROTC as a Distinguished Military Graduate after having led their Ranger Challenge Team to a championship. Over his career, he has worked alongside multiple US Government entities as well as international special operations forces on issues of national defense, internal security, counter-terrorism, and sensitive activities throughout the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility (20 countries ranging from Egypt across the Middle East to the Central Asian States). His military career encompasses a diverse balance of experience as Infantry Rifle Platoon Leader and Company Executive Officer, Special Forces Detachment and Company Commander, Special Forces Battalion Operations Officer, Olmsted and Art of War Scholar, Partner Forces’ trainer and advisor, program manager of a sensitive joint DoD-interagency program, and Special Operations Forces liaison officer to the interagency where he is currently assigned with duty in the National Capitol Region.
DEMOCRACY PROMOTION Mr. Larry Garber Larry Garber is on detail from USAID to the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy, a primary component college of the National Defense University. Since joining the faculty in January 2015, he has taught classes on National Security Strategy and Policy, Africa Regional Studies, and Fragile States and Development, and has been part of faculty teams leading the Agile and Adaptive Leadership Network concentration and the Reconstruction Industry Study. With USAID, Mr. Garber has served as a senior manager and policy adviser for more than 15 years, including five years as Mission Director for USAID/ West Bank-Gaza, one of the Agency's largest and most politically sensitive posts, and two separate stints as the acting head of USAID’s policy bureau. He also has more than 15 years of experience in the non-profit sector, including five years as CEO of a multi-national, non-profit organization dealing with civil rights and social justice in Israel. From October 2010-July 2011, Mr. Garber was detailed to the Africa Bureau, where he served as the Agency point person for the Referendum on Southern Sudan independence. And from March-August 2011, Mr. Garber led an intra-agency Middle East Strategic Planning Group, which recommended a reframing of Agency programmatic approaches in response to developments in the Middle East and North Africa region. Before rejoining USAID in November 2009, Mr. Garber served as the Chief Executive Officer of the New Israel Fund, which aims to strengthen Israel’s democracy by supporting programs that safeguard civil and human rights. From 1982-93, Mr. Garber worked with the National Democratic Institute, the International Human Rights Law Group, and Steptoe and Johnson law firm. He also has served as a consultant on election-related matters for the Organization of American States, United Nations, and Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe. Mr. Garber has taught as an adjunct at the Washington College of Law and has written extensively on issues relating to human rights, democratization, election monitoring, and Palestinian political and economic development. He is the author of the 1984 publication, Guidelines for international Election Observing, and co-editor of The New Democratic Frontier: A Country-by-Country Assessment of the 1990 Elections in Central and Eastern Europe. During 2007-08, Mr. Garber was a member of a six-person National Academies of Science expert panel, which prepared the publication Improving Democracy Assistance: Building Knowledge Through Evaluations and Research. Mr. Garber received a bachelor’s degree from Queens College in 1976 and a joint law degree and master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University in 1980.
Dr. Lincoln Mitchell Lincoln Mitchell is a writer and specialist in political development. Lincoln has worked on democracy and governance related issues in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He also works with businesses and NGOs globally, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Lincoln writes about US politics as well, and was the national political correspondent for The New York Observer from 2014-2016. Lincoln also was on the faculty of Columbia University's School of International Affairs from 2006-2013 and worked for years as a political consultant in New York City advising and managing domestic political campaigns. Lincoln's current and recent clients include the United Nations Democracy Fund, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, Freedom House, Democracy International, ARD/Tetratech, the Albright Stonebridge Group, the UNDP and DFID. Dr. Mitchell is an accomplished scholar whose current research includes US-Georgia relations, political development in the former Soviet Union, the role of democracy promotion in American foreign policy and the future of baseball. His first book, Uncertain Democracy: US Foreign Policy and Georgia’s Rose Revolution, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2008. His second book, The Color Revolutions, also from the University of Pennsylvania Press was published in June of 2012. His third book, The Democracy Promotion Paradox, was published by Brookings in 2016. Will Big League Baseball Survive will be published by Temple University Press in 2016 as well. MItchell has written articles on these topics in The National Interest, Orbis, The Moscow Times, the Washington Quarterly, The American Interest, Survival, the Central Asian Survey, World Affairs Journal, The New York Daily News and Current History as well as for numerous online publications including the online sections of The Washington Post and The New York Times and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Eurasianet, and Transitions Online. Lincoln has been quoted extensively in most major American, Georgian and Russian newspapers and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and podcasts including Fox and Friends, All Things Considered, Lou Dobbs, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera America, the Jim Lehrer Newshour, ABC Nightline, the Diane Rehm Show, Up and In: The Baseball Prospectus Podcast, The BBC as well as in Russian and Georgian television. Lincoln is also a frequent blogger on The Huffington Post where he writes primarily about US Politics and the host of Painting the Corners: The Baseball and International Affairs Podcast. Lincoln earned his Ph.D from Columbia University’s department of political science in 1996.
DEMOCRACY: NOT THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN Dr. Iona Emy Matesan Ioana Emy Matesan is an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. Her research focuses on contentious politics and politics of the Middle East, with a particular interest in political violence, democratization and Islamist movements. Matesan has conducted NSF-supported fieldwork in Egypt and in Indonesia, which explores why groups adopt or abandon violent tactics, and how tactical and ideological change happens within Islamist movements. She has also researched and published on Hamas and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, new security challenges in the Middle East and North Africa, and the dynamics of resistance to foreign rule. Matesan holds a BA in Political Science and Economics from Monmouth College, a Master’s degree from Arizona State University, and a PhD from Syracuse University. At Wesleyan she is excited to teach courses in comparative politics, Middle East politics and terrorism and film.
Mr. Arch Puddington Arch Puddington is the senior vice president for research at Freedom House. He is responsible for the publication of Freedom in the World and other research publications, and for the development of new research and advocacy programs. He previously worked as research director for the A. Philip Randolph Institute, as executive director for the League for Industrial Democracy, and as a bureau manager for Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty. He writes frequently on international affairs, race relations, organized labor, and the Cold War. His writings have appeared in Commentary, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Washington Post, National Interest, and Journal of Democracy. He is the author of three books: Failed Utopias: Methods of Coercion in Communist Societies (ICS, 1989), Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty (University Press of Kentucky, 2000), and Lane Kirkland: Champion of American Labor (Wiley, 2005). He attended the University of Missouri, Columbia and received a B.A. in English Literature.
