Board of Directors

Joe R. Reeder (Chair)
Chairman, Panama Canal Commission and 14th US Army Undersecretary (1993–1997); Senior Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig LLP

Joe R. Reeder's distinguished career spans private law practice and public service. A shareholder of Greenberg, Traurig LLP, one of the largest US law firms, his practice, largely international, covers commercial litigation, government contracts, national security, legal ethics and professional liability, securities litigation, and regulatory investigations. As the 14th Undersecretary of the US Army (1993–1997), he was responsible for long-range planning, readiness, acquisition reform, infrastructure reduction, and financial management; and for military support to local, state and federal agencies relating to civilian law enforcement, disaster relief, and emergency planning. He also served as the Army’s focal point for international affairs, particularly for NATO, Panama and Latin America. As Chairman of the Panama Canal Commission’s Board of Directors he oversaw a multibillion-dollar infrastructure program. A frequent contributor to professional journals, Reeder serves on a number of public and private boards, including the International Advisory Board of the Panama Canal and a number of charities. He chairs the Ethics Committee of the Board of Governors of the National Defense Industry Association, holds degrees from Georgetown University (LL.M.), the University of Texas (J.D.), and West Point, and served in the 82nd Airborne Division. In 2004 Reeder was honored with the Theodor Herzl Award in Jerusalem.

(top)

David Beasley
Governor of South Carolina (1995–1999)

David Beasley was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives at age 21, and in 1994 he was elected Governor of the state. During his term in office, Beasley led economic development and trade missions to countries throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa.  His efforts resulted in the recruitment or expansion of more than 400 corporations in South Carolina, including BMW, Honda, Fuji, Bose, Michelin, and Bridgestone/Firestone. After he left the Governor’s office, Beasley was a Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard (1999). In 2003 he received the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. In 2005 Beasley and his former Chief Legal Counsel, Henry Deneen, incorporated the Center for Global Strategies, Ltd. CGS focuses on developmental initiatives in the non-integrated world. In recent years Beasley has traveled to war stricken regions such as Kosovo, Serbia, Darfur, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, to lead peacekeeping missions and goodwill conferences with foreign leaders. Involvement in charitable and humanitarian projects has brought him to Asia, Africa, South America, Europe and the Middle East. Beasley has been successful in the private sector, serving as senior advisor to companies such as Merrill Lynch and General Motors as well as working with his family’s banking business.  He holds a BA and a law degree from the University of South Carolina

(top)

Abigail E. Disney
Film producer; Co-founder and Co-president, Daphne Foundation

Abigail E. Disney is a filmmaker, philanthropist, and scholar. Her first film was the acclaimed Pray the Devil Back to Hell ( http://praythedevilbacktohell.com ),  about the Liberian women who led a successful nonviolent campaign to end the civil war in their country. In 2008 she launched Peace is Loud, an organization that supports female voices and international peacebuilding through nonviolent means. Most recently she has produced the mini-series Women, War & Peace ( womenwarandpeace.org ), about the unreported role of women in peace processes around the world. PBS broadcast this co-production of WNET and Fork Films in fall 2011. In 1991 Disney and her husband Pierre Hauser founded the Daphne Foundation, a social change foundation that makes grants to grassroots, community-based organizations working with low-income communities in New York City.  Her work in philanthropy, women’s engagement and leadership, and conflict resolution has been recognized through the Epic Award from the White House Project, the Changing the Landscape for Women Award from the Center for the Advancement of Women, and the prestigious International Advocate for Peace (IAP) Award from the Cardozo [Law School] Journal of Conflict Resolution. Abigail Disney holds degrees from Yale, Stanford, and Columbia.

(top)

Haleh Esfandiari
Director, Middle East Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Haleh Esfandiari is the director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. She is an expert on Iranian affairs and gender issues in the Middle East. She has taught Persian language and literature, and courses on the women's movement in Iran, at Princeton University. In Iran, she was Deputy Secretary General of the Women's Organization of Iran and deputy director of a cultural foundation with oversight for several museums and art and cultural centers. She also worked as a journalist. Esfandiari’s writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies, New Republic, Wilson Quarterly, Chronicle of Higher Education, Middle East Review and top newspapers and blogs. In 2008 she was awarded an honorary degree from Georgetown University Law Center, a Special American Red Cross Award and the Women's Equality Award from the National Council of Women's Organizations; she is also the first recipient of a yearly award in her name, created by the group of businesswomen and activists from the Middle East and North Africa. Her 2009 book, My Prison, My Home: One Woman's Story of Captivity in Iran, recounts her 2007 arrest by the Iranian security authorities and 105 days in solitary confinement in Tehran's Evin Prison.

(top)

James D. Fearon
Professor, School of Humanities and Sciences and Political Science Department, Stanford University

James D. Fearon is Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. He is also a Senior Fellow at Stanford's Freeman-Spogli Institute for International Studies. His research focuses on explanations for political violence, primarily in the forms of interstate war, civil war, and ethnic conflict. He has also conducted experimental evaluations of post-conflict reconstruction aid, and has written on the problem of building stable democracy in formerly autocratic countries. Fearon was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002, and is a Program Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Chair of the Department of Political Science at Stanford.

(top)

Karin Forseke
Chairman, Alliance Trust PLC 

Karin Forseke is currently active in a number of board positions, including Alliance Trust, the British Financial Services Authority, the European Council on Foreign Relations and Wallenius Lines. Forseke has 25 years of experience in the financial services industry in the US, UK and Sweden. Previous positions include Private Advisor to the Minister of Financial Markets and Local Government, Sweden, Chief Executive Officer of D. Carnegie & Co AB, a Nordic investment bank listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, Chief Operating Officer of the London International Financial Futures Exchange, LIFFE, Head of Distribution Westpac Banking Corporation’s Financial Markets Group in London, Director of Business Development in establishing the OMLX exchange in London, and Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Authority in the UK. Born in Sweden, Forseke spent 29 years in the US and UK before returning to Stockholm in 2003 in connection with being appointed Chief Executive of the Carnegie Group. She now divides her time between Stockholm and London.

(top)

James Davison Hunter
Director, Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Professor of Religion, and Labrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory, University of Virginia

James Davison Hunter is the Labrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and Executive Director of the Institut e for Advanced Studies in Culture . His doctorate is from Rutgers University. In 1995 Hunter founded the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, a university-based, interdisciplinary center concerned with understanding contemporary cultural change and the implications for individuals, institutions, and society. Hunter has written numerous works on meaning and moral order in times of change, most recently Is There a Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life (with Alan Wolfe, 2006) and To Change the World (2010). In 1988 he received the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion for Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation and in 1991 he received the Gustavus Myers Award for the Study of Human Rights for Articles of Faith; Articles of Peace. He has presented on NPR and C-Span, at the National Endowment for the Arts, and at Columbia, Harvard, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, and the New School for Social Research. In 2004 Hunter was appointed to the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has been a consultant to the White House, the Bicentennial Commission for the US Constitution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Commission on Civic Renewal.

(top)

Edward Martin
President and CEO, Blue Clay Ventures

In addition to serving as President and CEO of Blue Clay Ventures, Mr. Martin serves as Chief Marketing Officer at Zaycon Foods and Chief Marketing Officer for Look To The Stars. He is also the founder of Nexus Capital, a private impact investment firm. Mr. Martin provides strategic direction as an Advisory Board member to the Global Management Challenge which is focused on market based simulation technologies driving the largest positive impact for business and the community. He is also on the advisory board to The Pack Shack, a hunger relief and nutrition company, as well as an advisor to a number of other organizations serving critical social cause issues. Mr. Martin has held key positions in top Fortune 500 organizations including The Kellogg Company helping to lead new products innovation, Coca-Cola running insights for all youth brands, Citigroup heading the Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty Research Process connecting all consumer metrics to in-market financial results, Ford Motor Company as Director of Global Consumer Insights, and the Hershey Company as head of Mobile Marketing. He was Chair Emeritus to the Association of National Advertisers Research and Measurement Council, has served as an Executive in Residence at Georgetown University and has been an advisor to the Millennium Project and to the Ambassador from Uganda to the United States. He has served on many advisory boards and in a number of advisory roles over the years, including the Health Store Foundation, Malaria Foundation, Health People in the South Bronx, Harvard AIDS Prevention Project, Chamber of Commerce BCLC, and Co-chair of the Parade All American Volunteering Initiative at the White House. Mr. Martin also served as an advisor to the State Department and USAID on the Global Diaspora Initiative and on the Executive Board of the Congressional Coalition For Adoption Institute working with members of the Congress and Senate to shape policy to best fulfill the needs of children around the world for “forever families.” Mr. Martin is perhaps best known for pioneering global "business to cause" win/win models which drive profit and growth for companies in ways that also support initiatives around poverty, health, education and the environment.

(top)

Steven Pinker
Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology, Harvard University

Steven Pinker is Harvard College Professor and Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He has also taught at Stanford and MIT. Pinker is an experimental psychologist who is interested in all aspects of language and mind. His research on visual cognition and the psychology of language has won prizes from the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Institution of Great Britain, the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, and the American Psychological Association. He has also received six honorary doctorates, several teaching awards, and numerous prizes for his books The Language Instinct, How the Mind Works, and The Blank Slate. He is the Chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary, and writes frequently for The New Republic, The New York Times, and other publications on subjects such as language and politics, the neural basis of consciousness, and the genetic enhancement of human beings. Pinker is on the editorial boards of over two dozen scholarly journals. He has been named Humanist of the Year for his contributions to public understanding of human evolution, and is listed in Foreign Policy and Prospect magazine's "The World's Top 100 Public Intellectuals" and in Time magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World Today." His latest book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

(top)

Gregory M. Reichberg (Executive Committee)
Research Professor, Peace Research Institute Oslo and Director, PRIO Cyprus Centre, Nicosia

Gregory M. Reichberg is Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and Director of PRIO’s Cyprus Centre in Nicosia.  A specialist in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Reichberg has published widely on the ethics of war and peace. He has also been actively engaged in inter-religious dialogue on political and social issues, especially within an Abrahamic framework. As PRIO Cyprus Centre Director he coordinates research and dialogue activities on the search for a political settlement to the island’s division. Reichberg is co-editor of several volumes: Religion, War, and Ethics: A Sourcebook (Cambridge University Press, 2013); World Religions and Norms of War (2009);  Ethics, Nationalism, and Just War: Medieval and Contemporary Perspectives (2007); and The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings (2006). Among his most cited essays are “Just War and Regular War: Competing Paradigms,” in Just and Unjust Warriors (2008); “Jus ad Bellum,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy (2008) and “Preventive War in Classical Just War Theory” in Journal of the History of International Law (2007).  Several of his recent articles will appear in a Cambridge University Press monograph, Peace and War in the Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Reichberg is an adjunct professor in philosophical ethics at the Norwegian School of Theology and was previously a faculty member at Fordham University and the Catholic University of America.

(top)

Cynthia P. Schneider (Executive Committee)
Professor of Diplomacy, Georgetown University & Co-director, Muslims on Screen and Television Initiative and Senior Nonresident Fellow, Brookings Institution; US Ambassador to the Netherlands (1998–2001)

Cynthia P. Schneider teaches, publishes, and organizes initiatives in the field of cultural diplomacy. She is a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University.  For the Brookings Institution, she leads the Arts and Culture Initiative within the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. The Initiative has catalyzed projects such as Muslims on Screen and Television (MOST), which provides accurate information on Islam and Muslims for the US entertainment community. Her writings range from blogs for the Huffington Post and CNN.com to policy papers for the Brookings Institution. She held a Research Fellowship from the USC Center on Public Diplomacy to write a policy paper on diplomacy and culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Her talks include a TED presentation on the global impact of American Idol and speeches in venues from Kurdistan to Cairo. In 1998–2001 she served as US Ambassador to the Netherlands, leading initiatives in public and cultural diplomacy, biotechnology, cyber security, and military affairs. Before that she was on the art history faculty of Georgetown University, specializing in 17th-century Dutch art. During the 1980s Schneider curated exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the National Gallery in Washington. She serves on the boards of the Wesley Theological Seminary, Books without Borders and Singapore Technologies Telemedia, among others. Schneider received her BA and PhD from Harvard University.

(top)

Inger Skjelsbæk
Senior Researcher and Deputy Director, Peace Research Institute Oslo

Inger Skjelsbaek is a Senior Researcher and Deputy Director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and holds a doctorate in psychology from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Her research interests include gender studies, political psychology, peace and conflict research and research methodology. She has extensive field work experience in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Skjelsbaek is the author of the monograph The Political Psychology of War Rape (Routledge, 2011) and has published numerous articles in international peer-reviewed journals. She is on the editorial board of the International Feminist Journal of Politics. She has also edited two books and has written several book chapters. In addition, she has published a number of reports and press commentaries, and is used as a media commentator and lecturer, both domestically and internationally. Skjelsbaek has also been a visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley and in in 2011 and 2012 she will be a guest researcher at the Human Rights Centre there. She maintains strong links with the University of Oslo, where she supervises MA students and gives regular guest lectures. Skjelsbaek has received research grants from, among others, the Fulbright Foundation, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Research Council of Norway.

(top)

Elisabeth Jean Wood
Professor of Political Science, International and Area Studies, Yale University

Elisabeth Jean Wood is Professor of Political Science, International and Area Studies at Yale University. She is currently writing a book on sexual violence during war, drawing on field research in several countries. Her earlier books are Forging Democracy from Below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador and Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador. Among her recent articles are “Sexual Violence during War: Toward an Understanding of Variation,” “Armed groups and sexual violence: when is wartime rape rare?” “Sexual Violence during War: Variation and Accountability,” and “The Social Processes of Civil War: The Wartime Transformation of Social Networks.”  Wood is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, serves on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review and several leading social science journals, and has extensive experience on research evaluation and selection committees. She serves on the Steering Committee of the UNICEF and OCHA project “Strengthening Prevention of Sexual Violence in Conflict with Members of State and Non-state Armed Groups” and other policy related organizations.

(top)