R. Scott Appleby

Scott Appleby is Professor of History and Director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at Notre Dame University. He teaches courses in American religious history and comparative religious movements with special attention to the roots of religious violence as well as the potential of religious peacebuilding. From 1988 to 1993 Appleby was co-director of the Fundamentalism Project, an international public policy study led by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He previously chaired the Religious Studies department at St. Xavier College in Chicago. His writings include: The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (2000); editor of Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East (1997); co-editor of the five volumes issued by the Fundamentalism Project; and co-editor of Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America (1995)

Ambassador Philip C. Wilcox, Jr. (Ret.)

Phil Wilcox is President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, a Washington, D.C.-based foundation devoted to fostering peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 1997 after thirty-one years of service. After graduation from Stanford Law School, Wilcox taught in Sierra Leone before becoming a Foreign Service Officer in 1966. His overseas posts included Laos, Indonesia, and Bangladesh with a last assignment as Chief of Mission and U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem. Within the Department of State Wilcox served in many posts including Deputy Director of UN Political Affairs, Director of Regional Affairs for Middle East and South Asia, Director for Israel and Arab-Israel Affairs, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs. Late in his career, Wilcox served as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research as well as Ambassador at Large for Counter Terrorism. He also graduated from the National War College and has been awarded the Department of State’s Meritorious, Superior, and Presidential Honor Awards.

Rend al-Rahim Francke

Rend al-Rahim Francke (U.S. Institute of Peace) is expected to speak on “The Sunni/Shia Clash”

Rend al-Rahim Francke is Executive Director of the Iraq Foundation in Washington, D.C. She was born in a Shia family in Iraq and educated in Lebanon, at the Sorbonne in France, and at Cambridge University in Great Britain. Rend became an American citizen in 1987. In 1991 she established the Iraq Foundation in Washington, D.C. to lobby for democracy, human rights, and regime change in Iraq. As Executive Director she represented the Foundation with government and non-governmental institutions including testimony before Congressional committees. In 2003 Rend was appointed as Ambassador to the United States on behalf of the new government in Iraq. She co-authored with Graham Fuller The Arab Shia—The Forgotten Muslims (2000) and currently serves as a fellow at the United States Institute of Peace.

Katherine Marshall

Katherine Marshall is currently a Senior Fellow at the Berkeley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs as well as Visiting Professor at Georgetown University. She has worked for over three decades on issues of international development with a focus on concerns for the world’s poorest countries. From 1971 to 2006, Marshall served with the World Bank in a wide range of leadership assignments with special attention to Africa. Her long experience as a manager with the bank included many endeavors to address leadership issues, conflict resolution, the role of women, and the role of values. From 2000 to 2006, Marshall was Counselor to the bank’s President with a mandate to cover ethics, values, faith, and religious liaison in development work. She serves on Boards and as an advisor to leading non-governmental organizations including the World Faiths Development Dialogue, the Fez Forum, and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ellen Laipson

Ellen Laipson is President and CEO of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. She joined the Center in 2002 after 25 years of government service is such key positions as Vice Chairman of the National Intelligence Council (1997-2002) and Special Assistant to the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1995-1997). Laipson’s earlier service focused upon analysis and policymaking on Middle East and South Asian issues. She served as Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs for the National Security Council (1993-1995), National Intelligence Officer for Near East and South Asia (1990-1993), and a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff after being a specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs for the Congressional Research Service. Ellen Laipson is a frequent speaker and media interviewee on Middle East issues, U.S. foreign policy, and global trends. Her writings include: “Iraqi Kurds and Iraq’s Future” (2006), “Security Sector Reform: The Final Frontier” (2005), and Relating to the Muslim World: Maybe Less is More (2004).

Andrew Natsios

Andrew Natsios is Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and Advisor on International Development on the faculty of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. From 2001 to 2006 Natsios served as Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development including management of USAID’s reconstruction programs in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. He previously served in the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, as Special Coordinator for International Disaster Assistance and Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, and as Washington Office Director for World Vision. Natsios graduated from Georgetown University and earned an M.A. in Public Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1975 to 1987 and as chairman of the Republican State Committee. Natsios has written numerous articles on foreign policy and two books: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1997) and The Great North Korean Famine (2001).

Graham Phaup (moderator)

Graham Phaup is Executive Director at the Institute for Global Ethics – a U.S.-based think-tank with offices in Washington, D.C., London, Toronto and Camden, Maine. In that role he oversees all of the Institute’s work relating to programs—education, organizational services and public policy—and directs the funding of these activities.

Douglas M. Johnston

Douglas Johnston is President and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. He led the seven year study that produced the book, Religion--The Missing Dimension of Statecraft (Oxford Univ. Press--1994) which made clear the role that religion could play in dealing with identity-based conflicts. Johnston graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was the youngest officer in the service to qualify for command of a nuclear submarine. He went on to earn an M.A. in Public Administration as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University where he later taught at the Kennedy School. Johnston served in high positions in Federal government including Director of Policy Planning and Management in the Office of Secretary of Defense and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Also in Washington he was Chief Operating Officer at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Among his books are: Foreign Policy into the 21st Century: The U.S. Leadership Challenge (1996) and Faith-Based Diplomacy: Trumping Realpoliltik (2003).

Andrew Preston

Andrew Preston teaches History as a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge University in England. Preston is also a Fellow at the Cold War Studies Center of the London School of Economics. He received an Honors B.A. in History and Political Science from the University of Toronto, an M.Sc. in International History from the London School of Economics, and a Ph.D. in History from Cambridge University. He has taught at the University of Victoria and at Yale University where he was twice an Olin Fellow. Preston specializes in the history of American foreign relations. His current project is a study of the intersection between religion and politics and the resulting influences upon the course of American war and diplomacy from the Colonial period to the present. He published The War Council: McGeorge Bundy, the NSC, and Vietnam in 2006 (Harvard University Press). Preston co-edited Nixon in the World: American Foreign Relations, 1969-1977, which will soon be issued by Oxford University Press.