Alexander Corbeil is a Senior Middle East Analyst with The Atlantic Council of Canada. He holds a Master’s Degree in Political Science with a focus on the Arab world from the University of Toronto and has studied conflict management at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Alexander’s focuses include: dynamics of authoritarian government, conflict management and post-conflict reconciliation. Blog posts focus on Syria and Lebanon. You can follow Alexander @alex_corbeil

Alireza Ahmadian is an Iranian Canadian political commentator with a Master’s of Arts in international studies and diplomacy from SOAS University of London. Ahmadian is also a commentator on BBC World News, BBC Persian TV and Radio, and has been published by various media. He blogs in Persian for BBC’s Nazeran Migooyand [Observers say].
You can follow him on Twitter: @ahmadianalireza

Anshuman Rawat is an India-based author, filmmaker, journalist and a serial media entrepreneur who aims at playing an active role in the development and spread of society-oriented media convergence. Founder-Director of a media company, he spends much of his professional calendar as an editorial, management and communications consultant. He is also the founder of ‘League of India’, a foundation for promotion of center-right liberal governance, a free economy and open society in India.

Calvin Dark is an international policy and strategic communications professional based in Washington, DC. For more than 10 years, he has advised US and international bodies and organizations, primarily focusing on political, economic and cultural relations with Latin America, Western Europe and the Middle East and North Africa. Calvin is also a social media enthusiast trying to connect the world one tweet, post and #hashtag at a time.

Calvin was a Fulbright Scholar to Morocco where he conducted research on civil society’s role in increasing transparency and public confidence in Morocco’s government institutions and services. Calvin received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and French from Duke University and has studied abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Paris, France. He speaks French, Spanish, Arabic and English (North Carolina’s special dialect.)

Calvin is also passionate about Southern storytelling and oral histories and is the author of Tales From My Dark Side [www.talesfrommydarkside.wordpress.com], a collection of stories about the Darks, a central North Carolina family and their unique ways of reconciling the complex notions of race, community and family.

Anything else? Oh yea, he loves to spin and is a spin instructor. http://www.expressnightout.com/2012/01/just-ask-for-directions/

Contact Calvin at [email protected]

Cate works as an editor in Zürich, Switzerland. She holds an MA in Comparative and International Studies from ETH Zurich, and a BA (Hons) in International Studies with Political Science from the University of Birmingham (UK).

She has previously lived and worked in Fiji and the US.

Damien Tomkins works at the East-West Center office in Washington, D.C. on matters pertaining to the Asia-Pacific region. After traveling overland from Cape Town to Cairo in the 1990s he received a BA First Class Honours from the University of Wales in Anthropology and Religious Studies. He then lived and worked in China for two years teaching English with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). He subsequently received his MA degree in Asian international affairs from the School of International Service, American University. He enjoys working and learning about Asia and would like to further develop his career within the field of promoting a closer US-China relationship supported by mutual understanding and respect. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and not of any organization with which he is affiliated. Follow on Twitter: @tomkinsd

Daniel is a recent Master’s degree graduate in International Relations with an emphasis on conflict resolution and peace building in Africa. Coupled with his extensive previous financial background, Daniel now currently works as a research assistant for an upstart think-tank in the United Arab Emirates. Daniel also co-edits two scholarly journals on humanitarian issues and global security, while being a regular contributor to the International Policy Digest publication. He currently resides in Washington, DC.

David J. Karl is president of the Asia Strategy Initiative, an analysis and advisory firm that has a particular focus on South Asia. He serves on the board of counselors of Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and previously on the Executive Committee of the Southern California chapter of TiE (formerly The Indus Entrepreneurs), the world’s largest not-for-profit organization dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship.

David previously served as director of studies at the Pacific Council on International Policy, in charge of the Council’s think tank focused on foreign policy issues of special resonance to the U.S West Coast, and was project director of the Bi-national Task Force on Enhancing India-U.S. Cooperation in the Global Innovation Economy that was jointly organized by the Pacific Council and the Federation of Indian Chambers & Industry. He received his doctorate in international relations at the University of Southern California, writing his dissertation on the India-Pakistan strategic rivalry, and took his masters degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

Derek Catsam is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, the Freedom Rides, and South African resistance politics in the 1980s. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He is also a lifelong sports fan, with the Boston Red Sox as his first true love. He was one of about three dozen people to write books about the 2004 World Champion Red Sox, and the result is Bleeding Red: A Red Sox Fan’s Diary of the 2004 Season. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

Contact

Dustin Dye is the author of the Yakuza Dynasty series, available through the Amazon Kindle. He lived in Okayama, Japan, where he taught English at a junior high school through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program for three years. He is a graduate from the University of Kansas, where he received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. His interest in Japan began in elementary school after seeing Godzilla fight Ghidorah, the three-headed monster. But it wasn’t until he discovered Akira Kurosawa’s films through their spaghetti Western remakes that he truly became fascinated in the people and culture of Japan. He lives in Kansas with his wife, daughter and guinea pig.

Faheem Haider is a political analyst, writer and artist. He holds advanced research degrees in political economy, political theory and the political economy of development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and New York University. He also studied political psychology at Columbia University. During long stints away from his beloved Washington Square Park, he studied peace and conflict resolution and French history and European politics at the American University in Washington DC and the University of Paris, respectively.

Faheem has research expertise in democratic theory and the political economy of democracy in South Asia. In whatever time he has to spare, Faheem paints, writes, and edits his own blog on the photographic image and its relationship to the political narrative of fascist, liberal and progressivist art.

That work and associated writing can be found at the following link: http://blackandwhiteandthings.wordpress.com

Franz-Stefan Gady is a foreign policy analyst and world affairs commentator. Franz-Stefan has written for the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy Magazine, Foreign Policy Journal, Der Standard, American Diplomacy Quarterly, The National Interest, Small Wars Journal, and New Europe. Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/hoanssolo

Gary Sands has run his own private equity financial advisory in Shanghai since 2006, and contributed a number of opinion pieces as a columnist for the Global Times, Shanghai Star Business Journal, Caijing, South China Morning Post, The China Inbox, and Shanghai Talk. He was previously employed in lending and advisory roles at Shell Capital, ABB Structured Finance, and the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation. He earned his Masters of Business Administration in International Business from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and a Bachelor of Science in Finance at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. He has also lived in Zurich, London, Adelaide and Rio de Janeiro and visited more than 80 countries.

Jason has development project experience in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Most recently he has been training US civilians and soldiers to work alongside host country counterparts in Afghanistan, and collaborating with Afghan ministerial advisors on National Priority Program (NPP) funding proposals in Kabul. Jason speaks Russian and holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University.

Joe Gurowsky focuses on energy, environment and climate related issues. At World Energy Forum, Joe was an assistant editor of “World Energy Monitor.” Joe has traveled to Costa Rica, Ghana, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and Alberta, Canada to learn various aspects of energy and environmental policy. He holds a Master’s of Science in Global Affairs from New York University.

Justin Finkelstein recently received a Master’s degree from New York University in Near Eastern Studies. He has spent most of his academic career and thereafter studying the Arab-Israeli conflict. His Master’s thesis explored and analyzed the competing histories of the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem (1947-1949) and the potential for its solution.

He is currently an intern at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) in Philadelphia and does some editorial consulting work as well. He has traveled to both Israel and Morocco and has attended the Middlebury Arabic School program.

Kathleen Millar began her career in public affairs working for Lyn Nofziger, White House Communications Director. She has gone on to write about a wide range of enforcement and security issues for DHS, for the US Department of the Treasury (Customs & Border Patrol), for Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), then a Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and for top law enforcement officials in the United States and abroad.

A Founding Member of the Department of Homeland Security, Millar was also the deputy spokesperson-senior writer for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna, Austria. She has authored numerous speeches, articles and opeds under her own and client bylines, and her work, focusing on trafficking, terrorism, border and national security, has appeared in both national and international outlets, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times, and Vital Speeches of the Day.

Kathleen Millar holds an MA from Georgetown University and was the recipient of a United Nations Fellowship, International Affairs, Oxford. She is a member of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, Women in International Security (GU), the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, and the American News Women’s Club in Washington, DC. Kathleen Millar is currently teaching and writing about efforts to combat transnational organized crime.

Marc C. Gorrie holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, a JD from Indiana University Maurer School of Law – Bloomington, and an LLM in international human rights law with a specialization in international labor rights law from Lund University (Sweden). He is a port welfare worker and ship visitor for the Seamen’s Church Institute in Ports Newark and Elizabeth, NJ, where he also collaborates on an educational program on the Maritime Labour Convention directed at port chaplains and welfare workers. He recently contributed to an EU project on legal education and law school curricula in the Gambia, and has held a research fellowship in legal ethics, lectured on federal Indian law and American legal ethics, and worked as a disability advocate.

Maxime Larivé holds a Ph.D. in International Relations and European Politics from the University of Miami (USA). He is currently working at the EU Center of Excellence at the University of Miami as a Jean Monnet Postdoctoral Fellow as well as a Lecturer in International Relations at UM. His research focus on the questions of the European Union, foreign policy analysis, security studies, and European security and defense policy. Maxime published several articles in the Journal of European Security, Perceptions, and European Union Miami Analysis.

Melissa Lockhart Fortner is Senior External Affairs Officer at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles, having served previously as Senior Programs Officer for the Council. From 2007-2009, she held a research position at the University of Southern California (USC) School of International Relations, where she closely followed economic and political developments in Mexico and in Cuba, and analyzed broader Latin American trends. Her research considered the rise and relative successes of Latin American multinationals (multilatinas); economic, social and political changes in Central America since the civil wars in the region; and Wal-Mart’s role in Latin America, among other topics. Melissa is a graduate of Pomona College, and currently resides in Pasadena, California, with her husband, Jeff Fortner.

Follow her on Twitter @LockhartFortner.

Mia Bennett is pursuing an MPhil in Polar Studies at the University of Cambridge’s Scott Polar Research Institute as a Gates Scholar. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Los Angeles with degrees in Political Science and European Studies and minors in Geospatial Information Systems & Technology, Scandinavian, and French. As an undergraduate, she studied abroad at Lund University in Sweden and Sciences Po in Paris, France. Mia also interned for the U.S. Embassy in Oslo, Norway.

She examines how climate change is reshaping the geopolitics of the Arctic through an investigation of transportation and trade networks, governance, and natural resource development. Her masters dissertation will investigate the extent of an Asian-Arctic region. Mia’s work has appeared in ReNew Canada, Water Canada, FACTA, and Baltic Rim Economies, among other publications.

She speaks French, Swedish, and is learning Russian.

Follow her on Twitter @miageografia

Mike Crowley received his MA with distinction from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in American Foreign Policy and European Studies. He’s worked at the Center for Strategic International Studies, Akin Gump, and The Pew Charitable Trusts. He’s also an acting student at The Studio Theatre and a volunteer at the National Gallery of Art, and he may look for ways to work both into the blog occasionally.

Murat Onur completed his Master’s degree in Security Policy Studies with a concentration in development and Middle East Studies at the George Washington University. He is the recipient of several awards including the British Chevening and HSBC Scholarships, International Peace and Security Institute Scholarship, and the GW Career Development Fellowship. He has previously worked in entry and mid-level positions in Washington-area on defense and security analysis and has written on Turkish politics, foreign affairs and Turkey’s defense and security policies.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/muratfonur

Born in Tehran Iran and based in Toronto, Canada, Reza Akhlaghi is a senior blogger at the FPA Blogs and editor of its Middle East page. Reza also produces FPA’s ‘Candid Discussion Series’; interviews with influential policy makers, writers, and media personalities in the field of foreign policy.

Reza holds a Double Major BA Honors in English Literature and Communication Studies from York University in Toronto; an MA degree in Communication Studies from University of Calgary in Alberta; and an MBA from Schulich School of Business at York University.

Reza is fluent in Persian, Turkish, and English, and has working knowledge of Korean.
Follow Reza on Twitter: @RezaAkhlaghi

Richard Basas, a Canadian Masters Level Law student educated in Spain, England, and Canada (U of London MA 2003 LL.M., 2007), has worked researching for CSIS and as a Reporter for the Latin America Advisor. He went on to study his MA in Latin American Political Economy in London with the University of London and LSE. Subsequently, Rich followed his career into Law focusing mostly on International Commerce and EU-Americas issues. He has worked for many commercial and legal organisations as well as within the Refugee Protection Community in Toronto, Canada, representing detained non-status indivduals residing in Canada. Rich will go on to study his PhD in International Law.

Areas of Focus:
Law; Economics and Commerce; Americas; Europe; Refugees; Immigration

Contact

Sahar has obtained her Master of Laws degree from The George Washington University Law School and currently works as a corporate lawyer in Lahore, Pakistan. She periodically contributes articles on Islamic Jurisprudence and Finance to the American Bar Association International Law News digest.

Sahar can be followed on Twitter @sahar_said.

Sara Chupein-Soroka is a former Program Associate at the Foreign Policy Association. She holds an M.S. in Global Affairs from New York University with a focus on U.S.-European relations, and a B.A. in Political Science from Hunter College. Her graduate thesis examined U.S.-UK bilateral security relations (an ongoing project) and she undertook an in-field intensive at The Hague, Bosnia and Serbia examining transitional justice in the former Yugoslavia in 2011. Sara works with the Envision Peace Museum in Philadelphia.

Dr. Scott Firsing, an American residing in South Africa, is an expert on US-Africa relations. He is the current head of International Studies at Monash University, South Africa and CEO of LINK Advisory, a consultancy helping American businesses enter Africa. Also a founder of the African NGO Young People in International Affairs, Scott is a former employee of the United Nations, Department for Disarmament Affairs, and a former fellow at the South African Institute of International Affairs.

Sean H. Goforth is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His research focuses on Latin American political economy and international trade. Sean is a contributor to Mexico Today. Sean is the author of Axis of Unity: Venezuela, Iran & the Threat to America.

Tim LaRocco is an adjunct professor of political science at St. Joseph’s College and a freelance journalist. His articles have appeared in the Southeast Asia Globe, The Diplomat Magazine, the New Internationalist, Thailand Business News, and Dissent Magazine. Tim splits his time between Long Island, New York and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Follow on Twitter @TheRealMrTim.

Tom Squitieri has spent more than three decades as a journalist, reporting overseas for the Lowell (Mass.) Sun, the Boston Herald and USA TODAY. He won three Overseas Press Club awards and three White House Correspondents’ Association awards for his reporting from Haiti, Bosnia, and Burundi. He is a newly-elected board member of the Overseas Press Club.

In academics, Squitieri was invited to create and then teach a unique college course that combines journalism, public affairs, ethics, philosophy, current affairs and war zone survival skills into a practical application to broaden thinking and day-to-day success. The class “Your 15 Minutes: Navigating the Checkpoints in Life” has a waiting list each year.

Born in Pittsburgh and raised in western Pennsylvania, Squitieri has been on all seven continents and in dozens of places he intends to keep secret.

Vadim Nikitin was born in Murmansk, Russia and grew up there and in Britain. He graduated from Harvard University with a thesis on American democracy promotion in Russia. Vadim’s articles about Russia have appeared in The Nation, Dissent Magazine, and The Moscow Times. He is currently researching a comparative study of post-Soviet and post-Apartheid nostalgia.
Areas of Focus:
USSR; US-Russia Relations; Culture and Society; Media; Civil Society; Politics; Espionage; Oligarchs

Contact

Zach has a B.A. from Indiana University and a M.A. from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service with a concentration in refugee and humanitarian emergencies. He has served as a Project Manager for a variety of organizations, managing initiatives ranging from refugee resettlement in the United States to disaster risk reduction in Afghanistan. He recently co-authored a chapter on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine and its implications for Darfur. He lives in New York.