Board of Directors
- Michele Dunne (Chairperson)
Director of the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC - Shadi Hamid
Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center and Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution - J. Scott Carpenter
Deputy Director at Google Ideas, Google - Stephen Grand
Former Fellow and Director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution - Jim Kolbe
Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Retired member of Congress - Lydia Khalil
specialist on terrorism and the Middle East and a non-resident fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute - James Williams
Director of Public Policy at the Trimpa Group - Andrew Albertson
Management Associate at Creative Associates
Michele Dunne (Chairperson)
Michele Dunne is the Director of the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. Dr. Dunne has served in the White House on the National Security Council staff, on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff and in its Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and as a diplomat in Cairo and Jerusalem. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, she was a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she edited the Arab Reform Bulletin and carried out research on Arab politics and US policies. She holds a doctorate in Arabic language and linguistics from Georgetown University, where she has served as a visiting professor of Arabic and Arab studies. Her research interests include Arab politics, political transitions, economic reform, Egypt, Israeli-Palestinian issues, and US and European policies in the Middle East. She co-chairs the Working Group on Egypt, a bipartisan group of experts established in February 2010 to mobilize US government attention to the forces of change in that country.
Shadi Hamid
Shadi Hamid is Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on Islamist political parties and democratic reform in the Arab world. Prior to joining Brookings, he was Director of Research at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He has also served as a program specialist on public diplomacy at the U.S. State Depart¬ment and a Legislative Fellow at the Office of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Hamid received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his PhD in political science from Oxford University. He is currently Vice-Chair of POMED, a member of the World Bank’s MENA Advisory Panel, and a correspondent for The Atlantic.
J. Scott Carpenter
J. Scott Carpenter is the Deputy Director at Google Ideas, Google. Previously, Carpenter was an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute. As the Institute’s Keston Family fellow from 2007-2011, Mr. Carpenter was the founding director of Project Fikra, which focuses on empowering Arab democrats in their struggle against extremism. Prior to his time at the the Washington Institute, Carpenter served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He was coordinator for the State Department’s Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiatives and was the director of the governance group for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Baghdad, guiding Iraq’s postwar political transition and initiated a wide array of democracy initiatives. Before this, he served as a key advisor to CPA administrator L. Paul Bremer, facilitating the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council and the first post-Saddam Hussein cabinet, the drafting and signing of Iraq’s interim constitution. Before serving in Iraq, Mr. Carpenter was deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor where he was the bureau’s point person on a number of countries critical to U.S. democracy promotion and human rights policy. Before joining the State Department, Mr. Carpenter worked with the International Republican Institute (IRI), he established and served as Co-director of IRI’s Central and Eastern Europe regional office. Mr. Carpenter also worked on the North American Free Trade Area desk at the International Trade Agency. On Capitol Hill, he worked as press secretary for Congressman Duncan Hunter of California and as a legislative assistant to Congressman Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania. Mr. Carpenter holds a graduate degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in economics and European studies. He received undergraduate degrees in political science and history from Hope College in Michigan.
Stephen Grand
Stephen Grand is a fellow and the director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, housed within the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. From 2004-2006, he was director of The Aspen Institute’s Middle East Strategy Group (MESG). He has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s School of International Service and Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.Grand earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Harvard University and a B.A. in Political Science from the Government Honors Program at the University of Virginia, where he was a Jefferson Scholar. He has been a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Henry Crown Fellow with The Aspen Institute.
Jim Kolbe
Jim Kolbe is a retired member of Congress and currently serves as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He advises on trade matters as well as issues of effectiveness of U.S. assistance to foreign countries, on U.S.-EU relationships, and on migration and its relationship to development. He is co-chair of the Transatlantic Taskforce on Development with Gunilla Carlsson, the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation. The Taskforce consists of experts from both sides of the Atlantic from governments, NGOs, foundations and corporations – it will make strategic recommendations on development for the new American administration as well as to European audiences. He also serves as an a strategic consultant with McLarty Associates, as a member of the Board of Directors of Freedom House and as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For 22 years, Jim Kolbe served in the United States House of Representatives, elected for eleven consecutive terms, from 1985 to 2007. Kolbe graduated from Northwestern University with a BA degree in Political Science and then from Stanford University with an MBA and a concentration in economics.
Lydia Khalil
Lydia Khalil is a specialist on terrorism and the Middle East and a non-resident fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Lydia Khalil is a recognised expert in international politics and security, specialising in Middle East affairs and counterterrorism. She has worked as a research associate for the Project on Middle East Democracy and at the highest levels of government and the private sector. She has worked in the United States and abroad for the U.S. government, international organizations, private companies and think tanks on a variety of international security issues. In various capacities she has also advised the US State Department, Department of Defense, and the Joint Staff. She is an analyst with the Jamestown Foundation, as a regular contributor to Terrorism Monitor and Terrorism Focus, as well as with the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. In addition, she is a contributing analyst to Freedom House, monitoring rights and freedoms in Arab countries. Previously, she worked in Iraq as a policy advisor for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, working closely with Iraqi politicians on political negotiations and constitutional drafting. For her service, she was awarded the Department of Defense Public Service Award, the highest civilian honor. Khalil holds a B.A. from Boston College and a Masters in International Security from Georgetown University, and is a native Arabic speaker.
James Williams
James Williams is the Director of Public Policy at the Trimpa Group, a Denver-based political consulting and government relations firm. Trimpa Group, LLC, is a leading consulting and government relations firm specializing in public policy advocacy and political strategy at the state and federal levels. Trimpa Group was founded with a commitment to an innovative and solutions-focused approach to public policy. Before joining Trimpa Group, Williams lead research and fundraising at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He also advises the New Leaders Council, a progressive youth leadership development non-profit.
Andrew Albertson
Andrew Albertson is a Management Associate at Creative Associates, a private a privately-owned non-governmental development firm based in the Washington, DC-area. He was the founding executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) serving from 2007-2010. Prior to that, he was a congressional fellow in the office of Congressman Steve Israel and directed the fellows program at the Truman National Security Project. Originally from Cincinnati, Albertson received a B.A. from Taylor University in Indiana. Alberston did his graduate studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he was the Huffington Fellow at Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy.