2018-2019 SPEAKERS
MAY MEETING
Date:
Tuesday May 28, 2019
Speaker: Khaled Elgindy
Topic: Prospects for Israeli-Palestinian Peace: Deal of the Century or End of the Road?
Khaled Elgindy , is a nonresident fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings and a founding board member of the Egyptian American Rule of Law Association. He previously served as an advisor to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations held throughout 2008. He is a co-author of "The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East" (Brookings Institution Press, 2011).
Prior to that, Elgindy spent nine years in various political and policy-related positions in Washington, D.C., both inside and outside the federal government, including as a professional staff member on the House International Relations Committee in 2002 and as a policy analyst for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom from 2000 to 2002. He served as the political action coordinator for the Arab American Institute from 1998 to 2000 and as Middle East program officer for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs from 1995 to 1997.
Elgindy holds a master’s in Arab studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s in political science from Indiana University, and he is a board member of the Egyptian-American Rule of Law Association.
APRIL MEETING
Date:
Tuesday April 30, 2019
Speaker: Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh
Topic: Radioactive Relations: American and Russia Edge Toward a Dangerous Arms Race
Carey Cavanaugh , came to the Patterson School following a Foreign Service career centered on conflict resolution, political-military affairs, and humanitarian issues. In addition to Washington assignments in the State Department, Pentagon, and on Capitol Hill, he served in Berlin, Moscow, Tbilisi, Rome, and Bern. In 1992, he led the team that established the first US Embassy to the new Republic of Georgia. Under Presidents Clinton and Bush, Cavanaugh spearheaded or helped advance peace efforts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Turkey. His final assignment was foreign policy advisor to Admiral Mike Mullen, later chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Upon leaving government service in 2006, Cavanaugh took a full professorship at the University of Kentucky and became director of the Patterson School. He led our program for a decade before going on sabbatical as a fellow at Cambridge’s Clare College and executive-in-residence at the Geneva Center for Security Policy. Cavanaugh’s teaching ranges from mediation and the diplomacy of nuclear weapons to US-Russian relations and ethics; his policy writing and research center on diplomacy, mediation and peace efforts in the South Caucasus.
Cavanaugh is currently Chairman of International Alert, a major independent peacebuilding NGO. Headquartered in London, Alert’s full-time staff of over 250 is mainly based in Africa, Asia and the Mideast, working directly with those affected by international conflict. They partner with 800+ organizations in more than 25 countries and territories on projects designed to prevent the outbreak of conflict, build support for approaches to peace, and facilitate reconciliation. Cavanaugh has been active in conflict resolution and peacebuilding activities, working with several leading British and European NGOs on civil society initiatives and Track II diplomatic efforts. From 2014-2018, he served as a director of Conciliation Resources (London).
Professor Cavanaugh earned his B.A. at the University of Florida, his M.A. at the University of Notre Dame, with four years additional graduate work at Notre Dame and the US Army Russian Institute in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. He was an APSA Congressional Fellow in 1991-1992 and a member of MIT’s Seminar XXI in 1994-1995. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (New York) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London).
MARCH MEETING
Date:
Wednesday March 20, 2019
Speaker: Blaise Misztal, Bipartisan Policy Center’s national security program director
Topic: U.S.-Turkey Relations
Blaise Misztal , is the director of BPC’s national security program. He previously served as the project’s associate director and senior policy analyst. At BPC, Misztal has researched a variety national security issues, including Iran and its nuclear program, Turkey, cybersecurity, stabilizing fragile states, and public diplomacy in the 21st century. He has testified before Congress and published op-eds in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and Roll Call. In addition, Misztal wrote and directed the 2009 “Cyber ShockWave” simulation that aired on CNN.
Prior to joining BPC, Misztal spent a year as a Nuffield Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford University. He was selected as a future leader by the Foreign Policy Initiative in 2010 and named as a national security fellow by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in 2011.
Misztal is currently completing his Ph.D. in political science at Yale University, where his research focuses on the relationship between democracy, liberalism, and social stability. He holds an M.Phil. in political science from Yale and an A.B. with honors from the University of Chicago.
FEBRUARY MEETING
Date:
Monday February 18, 2019
Speaker: Heather Hurlburt, Director, New Models of Policy Change
Topic: Women, Men and National Security - in the Age of #MeToo
Heather Hurlburt , is the director of the New Models of Policy Change project at New America's Political Reform program. Hurlburt leads research into how policy advocacy can adapt to be effective in our current environment of intense political polarization and guides advocates and funders seeking to navigate politics effectively on behalf of policy solutions on issues such as national security and climate change.
Hurlburt is a contributor to New York Magazine; has published articles in Politico, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, Fortune, Vox, and Time, among other publications. She co-hosts the Drezburt podcast and frequently appears in print and broadcast media.
Previously, she ran the National Security Network, a premier source for internationalist foreign policy messaging and advocacy, held senior positions in the White House and State Department under President Bill Clinton, and worked on Capitol Hill and for the International Crisis Group. She holds degrees from Brown and George Washington Universities.
JANUARY MEETING
Date: Thursday January 17, 2019
Speaker: Peter Yeo, President of the Better World CampaignTopic: The United States and the United Nations
Peter Yeo , is President of the Better World Campaign, and leads the Campaign’s strategic engagement with Congress and the Administration to promote a strong U.S.-UN relationship. Under Yeo’s leadership, the Better World Campaign has helped ensure multibillion dollar payments from the U.S. government to the UN. Yeo also serves as the Senior Vice President at the United Nations Foundation.
Yeo joined the Better World Campaign in 2009 with over twenty years of legislative, analytical, and management experience, including senior roles on Capitol Hill and in the State Department. Prior to arriving at UNF, Yeo served for ten years as the Deputy Staff Director at the House Foreign Affairs Committee chaired by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA). He has worked on a broad range of foreign policy and foreign aid issues. On behalf of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats, he led the successful negotiations for the landmark HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003, commonly known as PEPFAR, as well as the successful $50 billion reauthorization of the law in 2008.
He also shepherded into law several measures dealing with China, Tibet, Burma, and East Timor. Prior to his work with the Committee, he served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. State Department during the second Clinton Administration, where he led the negotiations around repayment of the U.S. arrears to the United Nations and was part of the U.S. delegation to the climate negotiations in Kyoto. Yeo holds a BA in East Asian Studies from Wesleyan University as well as a MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a leading independent nonpartisan foreign policy think tank, and a Board Member of the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition.
DECEMBER MEETING
Date: Thursday December 13, 2018
Speaker: Neils Marquardt, Former U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar, Cameroon, and Equatorial Guinea
Topic: The Fragility of African Democracy
R. Neils Marquardt , currently leads his own international consulting office in Portland -- Palms to Pines LLC. Before that he served four years as CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia. He spent decades as an American diplomat promoting international trade and investment. His final diplomatic assignment was as U.S. Consul General in Sydney, 2010-2013.
During his 33-year State Department career, he also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Madagascar and the Union of the Comoros (2007 - 2010), to the Republic of Cameroon (2004 – 2007), and to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea (2004 – 2006). In three of those countries, he helped to found and launch new AmChams.
Ambassador Marquardt also served as an economic officer in US Embassies in France, Germany, Thailand, and the Congo, and he was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Rwanda. A common thread through his career has been a love of foreign languages that enabled him to meet and interact with people of other cultures more comfortably on their own terms.
NOVEMBER MEETING
Date:
Monday November 19, 2018
Speaker: Ravit Baer, Deputy Consul General of Israel
Topic: U.S.-Israel Relations and the Middle East
Ravit Baer , an Israeli career diplomat, serves as Deputy Consul General of Israel in San Francisco for the Pacific Northwest. She also heads the political and public diplomacy departments of the Consulate.
Previously, she served in the Israeli Department for Multilateral European Organization where she was responsible for coordinating Israel’s relations with the European Union, NATO, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Prior to joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she served as a legal advisor in the Prime Minister’s office. She holds a bachelor and master’s degrees in law from the Hebrew University.
OCTOBER MEETING
Date:
Wednesday, October, 17 2018
(click above for information)
Topic: U.S. - Europe Relations
Ambassador Emily Margarethe Haber , has been German Ambassador to the United States since June 2018.
Immediately prior to this, Emily Haber, a career foreign service officer, was deployed to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, serving as State Secretary overseeing security and migration at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. In this capacity, she worked closely with the US administration on topics ranging from the fight against international terrorism to global cyberattacks and cybersecurity. In 2009, she was appointed Political Director and, in 2011, State Secretary at the Foreign Office, the first woman to hold either post. Earlier in her career, she served at the German Embassy in Ankara; in Berlin, she has served as Deputy Head of the Cabinet and Parliamentary Liaison Division, as Director of the OSCE Division, and as Deputy Director-General for the Western Balkans. Emily Haber has extensive knowledge of the Soviet Union and Russia, having worked both in the Soviet Union Division at the German Foreign Office and, on various occasions, at the German Embassy in Moscow, where she served as Head of the Economic Affairs Section and Head of the Political Affairs Department.
Emily Haber attended schools in New Delhi, Bonn, Paris, Brussels, Washington, and Athens. From 1975 to 1980, she studied history and ethnology in Cologne, earning her PhD with a dissertation on German foreign policy during the Morocco crisis on the eve of World War I.
Ambassador Hendrik Jan Jurriaan Schuwer , was born May 3, 1953, in The Hague, the Netherlands, in a family of 5. His parents met as journalists who worked for the Netherlands Press Agency. His father later became the director of public relations for Caltex (Benelux) and his mother a teacher.
After secondary school, Henne attended the University of Leiden, where he earned a master’s degree in law. Henne then started working for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1979, and has held positions in Vietnam, India, Belgium and the US.
He is married to Lena Boman from Sweden. Together, they have four adult children. His two daughters are psychologists and his two sons are engineers.
In his free time, Henne likes to play tennis and golf, and read about the history of the 20th century. But most of all, he enjoys spending time with his family.
Henne Schuwer has been with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for 36 years. Thanks to two previous assignments in the United States, one in Los Angeles and one in Washington, D.C., he has extensive knowledge of American politics and trade issues.
SEPTEMBER MEETING
Date:
Wednesday September, 19, 2018
Speaker: Earl Anthony Wayne, Former
US Ambassador to Mexico
Topic:
"U.S.-Mexico Relations"
Ambassador Wayne, is an accomplished diplomat and executive,. He has served in a wide variety of positions during his career, including as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and Argentina, Deputy Ambassador in Afghanistan, Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Europe. He left the State Department in late 2015 as a Career Ambassador, the most senior U.S. diplomatic rank.
Ambassador Wayne is currently engaged in a variety of activities. These include working as a Public Policy Fellow and Co-Chair of the Mexico Institute’s Board at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and as a Non-Executive Director on the Financial System Risk Advisory Committee of HSBC Latin America. Wayne serves as a non-resident advisor/fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Atlantic Council. Wayne is the Treasurer of the American Foreign Service Association and Treasurer of its PAC. He is a consultant and speaker on international and management Issues. In fall 2016, he taught at Hamilton College as the Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Affairs. He has writes and speaks frequently on international topics, including Mexico, NAFTA, Afghanistan, trans-Atlantic relations and trade.