Boise Committee on Foreign Relations upcoming events

October 2026 Meeting (20 Oct 2026)

Tue, 20 Oct 2026 23:30:00 GMT

Speaker: Ambassador Michelle Gavin

Topic: Demography Meets Democracy: How Young Africans Are Reshaping Politics

Bio: Michelle D. Gavin is the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She has over 25 years of experience in international affairs in government and non-profit roles. She was formerly the managing director of The Africa Center, a multidisciplinary institution dedicated to increasing understanding of contemporary Africa. From 2011 to 2014 she was the U.S. ambassador to Botswana and served concurrently as the U.S. representative to the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

During Ambassador Gavin’s tenure, the U.S. and Botswana launched the most ambitious HIV prevention study in the world; Botswana hosted Southern Accord, the 1,400-strong joint SADC-U.S. military exercise; and the U.S. embassy helped to found Botswana’s first American Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, she was a special assistant to President Obama and the senior director for Africa at the National Security Council, where she helped to originate the Young African Leaders Initiative and led major policy reviews of Sudan and Somalia.

Before joining the Obama administration, Gavin was an international affairs fellow and adjunct fellow for Africa at CFR. Earlier in her career she worked in the U.S. Senate, where she was the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on African affairs, director of international policy issues for Senator Russ Feingold, and legislative director for Senator Ken Salazar.

Gavin received an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar, and earned her BA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she was a Truman scholar. She serves on the board of directors of Points of Light.

November 2026 Meeting (19 Nov 2026)

Thu, 19 Nov 2026 19:00:00 GMT

Speaker: Dr. Ross Burkhart, BCFR Vice President and Professor of Political Science, Boise State University

Topic: U.S.-Canada Relations: At the Brink?

Bio: Dr. Ross Burkhart has taught courses on international relations, comparative politics, and research methods at Boise State since 1997. He has taught a Canadian Politics course at Boise State regularly since 2004, and has given talks on Canadian politics at the University of Alberta, University of Arkansas, Gonzaga University, and the Council of State Governments West conferences in Big Sky, Montana, and Boise. His scholarship includes articles and book chapters on Canadian politics and policy in a half-dozen academic journals and edited volumes.

Dr. Burkhart was also the long-time executive director of the Pacific Northwest Canadian Studies Consortium, consisting of two dozen regional academic institutions, governments, IGOs, and the Consul General of Canada in Seattle, all working together to promote the study of Canada.

He has been interviewed by media outlets on Canadian politics and economics, including Boise State Public Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, HuffPost, the Idaho Statesman, KTVB, and PolitiFact.

Dr. Burkhart has traveled numerous times to Canada and has visited among other places the Icefields Parkway in the Canadian Rockies and the Fort McMurray Oil Sands operation. He has experienced a minus 20-degree American Thanksgiving cold snap in Edmonton and a five-inch summer rainstorm on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Dr. Burkhart’s earliest memories of Canadians involved growing up along the New York State Thruway and watching many cars with Québec license plates whizzing past his.

March 2027 Meeting in Partnership with Frank Church Institute (24 Mar 2027)

Wed, 24 Mar 2027 23:30:00 GMT

Speaker: Steve Feldstein, Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Topic: TBA, related to his new book, Bytes and Bullets: Global Rivalry, Private Tech, and the New Shape of Modern Warfare

Bio: