Ali Muhsin Ismaiel Al Alaq

Ali Muhsin Ismaiel Al Alaq is the Head of the Board of the Central Bank of Iraq and the Acting Governor at Central Bank of Iraq.

Hisham Al Hashimi

Hisham Al-Hashimi is an Iraqi journalist and analyst writing for Asharq Al-Aswat, among others. He is also a member of National Reconciliation Commission in the Iraqi Prime Minister's office and a researcher in Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies. Prior to that, he was the Security Adviser for the Iraqi Journalistic Freedom Observatory, and for the the Iraqi Journalists Union. Al-Hashimi has several publications including two books: entitled The World of ISIS and Inside Daesh Organization. 

Taher Al Masri

Taher Al Masri is a politician and diplomat who has served as Prime Minister, Minister of Defense, and Head of Parliament for Jordan.

Luay Al-Khatteeb

Luay Al-Khatteeb is Minister of Electricity of the Republic of Iraq. He is the founder of the Iraq Energy Institute (IEI) and was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. He previously served as senior advisor to the Federal Parliament of Iraq for energy policy and economic reform. His experiences in the private sector span more than 20 years, and has been a frequent commentator on issues related to energy security, economic, and politics in the Gulf region. Al-Khatteeb has served in an executive capacity with various international oil companies, including Shell E&P and Crescent Petroleum. 

Ayad Allawi

Deborah Amos

In 2003, Deborah Amos returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline.Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR including time overseas as the London Bureau Chief, and as an NPR foreign correspondent based in Amman, Jordan. Amos won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award, a Breakthru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She spent 1991-92 at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow, and in 2010 as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

Aslı Aydıntaşbaş

Asli Aydıntaşbaş is Senior Policy Fellow at ECFR, where she primarily works on Turkish foreign policy and external ramifications of its domestic politics. She has joined ECFR after a lengthy career in journalism, which last included being a columnist at Milliyet (2009-2015) and a commentator on regional issues in international publications and networks. Aydıntaşbaş has hosted a popular daily show, Karşı Gündem on CnnTurk during 2013-2014. Prior to joining Milliyet, she has served as a Washington correspondent and later the Ankara bureau chief for Sabah, one of Turkey’s leading newspapers. She covered the Clinton Administration, the United Nations, the Bush Administration, and the Iraq War in 1997-2004 as a Washington and New York correspondent for NTV and Radikal. 

Joseph Bahout

Joseph Bahout is a visiting scholar in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, and a member of the scientific board of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient. His research focuses on political developments in Lebanon and Syria, regional spillover from the Syrian crisis, and identity politics across the region. Previously, Bahout served as a permanent consultant for the Policy Planning Unit at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2009–2014). He was also a Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Sciences Po Paris (2005–2014) and a senior fellow at the Académie Diplomatique Internationale (2008–2014).He holds his Ph.D. in Political Sciences from the Sciences Po Paris.

Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin

Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin served as president of MEI from 2007 until 2018. She previously was UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees. A 29-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, she was ambassador to Pakistan from 2001 to 2002. She also served as director of global affairs and counter-terrorism at the National Security Council (1991-1993) and as deputy in the bureau of international counter-narcotics and law enforcement affairs (1999-2001). As assistant administrator in the Asia-Near East bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2002 to 2004, she oversaw civilian reconstruction programs in Iraq and Afghanistan and development assistance programs throughout the Middle East and East Asia. 

Bruce Walker Ferguson

Bruce Walker Ferguson is an educator, entrepreneur and investor with a lifelong interest in technology-based innovation. He joined the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) as president in 2016. Prior to joining AUIS, he served as Professor of Practice in the Department of Engineering Systems and Management, and as the founding Head of the Institute Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, at the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Ferguson is a co-founder and former chief operating officer of Orbital ATK, a space technology company listed on the New York Stock Exchange; a co-founder and former chief executive officer of Edenspace Systems Corporation, a biotechnology company developing innovative crops for energy and environmental applications; and an early-stage investor in more than a dozen technology companies. Currently vice chair of the Carnegie Institution for Science, he is a former Fellow at the George Washington University Center for International Science and Technology Policy and former vice chair of the Kansas State University Research Foundation. Ferguson received his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School

Ellie Geranmayeh

Ellie Geranmayeh is senior policy fellow at the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her work focuses on European foreign policy in relation to Iran, particularly on the nuclear and regional dossiers. Geranmayeh closely followed and advised governments and companies on the nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers from 2013-2015. Ellie previously worked at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP law firm working on sanctions policy and graduated with a BA in Law from the University of Cambridge.

Kawa Hassan

Kawa Hassan is director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the EastWest Institute’s Brussels office, where he leads track two initiatives focused on countering violent extremism. He is also a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, where his research focuses on Kurdish and Iraqi politics, civil society and democratization, donor assistance, and transition processes, especially in the Middle East. Prior to this, he has extensive experience working in development and humanitarian assistance programming. Kawa Hassan received an M.Sc. from the University of Amsterdam.

Joost Hiltermann

Joost Hiltermann is the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Program Director at the International Crisis Group (ICG).He has been with ICG since 2002, serving as Project Director, Middle East, Deputy MENA Program Director, and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining the organization, Hiltermann worked as the Executive Director of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch, the Director of Iraq Documents at Human Rights Watch, and the Research Director and analyst at Al-Haq. Hiltermann has also been an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University (1990-2002) and a Professorial Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies (2001)He is the author of two books: A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (2007) and Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women’s Movements in the Occupied Territories (1991). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Michael Knights

Michael Knights is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, specializing in the military and security affairs of Iraq,Iran, Yemen, and the Gulf Arab states. Knights has published widely on security issues for major media outlets such as Jane's IHS, and regularly briefs U.S. government policymakers and U.S. military officers on regional security affairs. Knights worked as the head of analysis and assessments for a range of security and oil companies, directing information collection teams in Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. He earned his doctorate at King's College London.

Amre Moussa

Amre Moussa was the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States (2001-2011) and Egypt’s Minister for Foreign Affairs (1991-2001). In 2013, he was elected Chairman of the 50-member Constituent Assembly tasked with amending Egypt’s 2012 Constitution. Throughout his career, Moussa served on numerous diplomatic missions, including as Egypt’s Ambassador to Switzerland and the United Nations. He also served as an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1974-1977), Director of the Department of International Organizations at the of Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1977-1981 and 1983-1990), Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York (1981-1983) and Egypt’s Ambassador to India (1983-1986). 
 

Vitaly Naumkin

Dr. Vitaly Naumkin is the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Chair at the Faculty of World Politics, Moscow State University. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Vostok-ORIENS Journal of the RAS and President, Center for Strategic and Political Studies. He speaks English, Arabic and French. Dr. Naumkin is a columnist for Al-Monitor. He is also the director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, as well as a professor and chair at the faculty of world politics, Moscow State University, and the president of the Moscow-based Center for Strategic and Political Studies.

Yousif Mohammed Sadiq

Dr. Yousif Mohammed Sadiq is a Minister of Parliament of the Government of Iraq. He is a member of the Gorran Movement, an opposition party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Prior to his political career, he was the Head of the Political and Social Sciences Department at Sulaimani University, from 2008 to 2010. He was awarded a Ph.D. in International Science Philosophy for his dissertation on vital factors for the Iraqi Kurdish Region's political future. 

Zaab Sethna

Based in Baghdad for the last ten years, Zaab Sethna has worked for the Government of Iraq on financial, trade, and energy policies from 2003 to 2007. Since then, Sethna has represented a number of international companies involved in Iraqi oil and gas, banking, insurance, aviation, and construction projects among others. His assignments in Iraq have included: acting as strategic business adviser to Iraq's leading bank; public affairs and government relations consultancy for the world's largest insurance group; business development and government relations for various international oil companies; market entry advice for a Fortune 500 telecoms equipment maker; an in-depth study of the Iraqi oil sector for a European market researcher; and strategic advisory and relationship management for one of the world's leading alternative-investment managers.

Fuad Siniora

Edith Szanto

Edith Szanto is an Assistant Professor at American University of Iraq, Sulaimani, where she teaches Middle Eastern History, Western Civilization, and Comparative World Religions. Dr. Szanto received her PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Toronto. She spent three years in Syria as a Fulbright scholar researching popular Islamic practices and working for the UN.

Qubad Talabani

Qubad Talabani was sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s eighth Cabinet in June 2014. In the seventh Cabinet, Mr. Talabani served as Minister and Head of the Department of Coordination and Follow-up, a newly formed governmental department designated as the KRG’s principal policy unit. From 2006 to 2012 Deputy Prime Minister Talabani was the KRG representative to the United States of America, advocating the government’s position on a wide array of political and economic matters and promoting coordination and partnership between the Kurdistan Region and the United States. Prior to the KRG cabinet unification, Mr. Talabani served as the representative of the KRG–Slemani administration to Washington. 
 

Ben Van Heuvelen

Ben Van Heuvelen is the managing editor of Iraq Oil Report and a contributor to the Washington Post and Foreign Policy. He has written freelance for The Atlantic online, Salon, and Killing the Buddha and has appeared as a guest on CNN, Al-Jazeera English, and NPR. He writes about Iraq, oil, and the geopolitics of energy, American foreign policy, politics and culture, and religion. He also worked at the New American Foundation as a research fellow.

Robin Wright

Robin Wright is an American foreign affairs analyst, journalist and author. She currently is a joint fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center. Wright has reported from more than 140 countries on six continents for the most notable outlets. She won the National Magazine Award for her work with The New Yorker. Her book, Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion across the Islamic World, won the 2012 Overseas Press Club award for best book on international affairs. She also won the United Nations Correspondents Association Gold Medal for coverage of foreign affairs, the Overseas Press Club Award, and the National Press Club Award. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of Humane Letters from her alma mater.