Focus: Academia
Debra Shushan
Debra Shushan is Director of Government Affairs at J Street, where she manages the advocacy operations and activities of the Government Affairs team. As an analyst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and US foreign policy, Debra honed her expertise as the director of policy and government relations at Americans for Peace Now. Prior to that, Debra was an assistant professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA, where she focused on the comparative politics and international relations of the Middle East, including the Gulf states. She was also a research fellow at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Doha, Qatar. Debra's research and language…
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Ann Thomas
Ann Thomas is Senior Advisor, Sanitation and Hygiene at UNICEF. She is an environmental engineer with over two decades of development experience, within the UN system and aid organizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. Her passion is driving strategic policy decisions in the WASH sector – an often-overlooked investment-multiplier in emerging economies – that translate directly to improved health and economic development outcomes. Ann has served as advisor to national governments across Africa and Asia, aligning national strategies for water and sanitation with global best practice, climate change considerations, and innovative financing opportunities. Ann’s work is motivated by front line experiences in disasters and cholera outbreaks, witnessing the disproportionate…
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Emilia Sičáková Beblavá
Emilia Sičáková Beblavá is Professor at the Institute of Public Policy and Economics at Comenius University in Bratislava where she conducts research and teaches courses on anti-corruption strategies and multilevel governance. Emilia also works with The World Bank, the Open Society Institute, the European Commission, and the British Department for International Development and many other international institutions to help them understand corruption in formerly communist countries. As President and a board member of Transparency International Slovakia, Emilia created publicity campaigns and led fundraising and lobbying efforts to fight institutional corruption.
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Emran Razaghi
Emran M. Razaghi is the Founder and Director of the Iranian National Center for Addiction Studies and Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran. Emran is also the Co-Founder of the Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association. Emran previously served as Director, Bureau for Psycho-social Health and the Health of Youth, Department of Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran. This bureau includes the Office for Mental Health, the Office for Drug Demand Reduction, and the Office for School Health. From 1995 to 2001, Emran was Deputy for Prevention and Cultural Affairs, State Welfare Organization, Tehran.
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Vusi Gumede
Vusi Gumede is a professor at the University of South Africa and at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute where he teaches courses on political economy and development. He was previously an associate professor at the University of Johannesburg and has lectured public policy at the School of Government at the University of Witwatersrand. Vusi has published two books on South Africa and edited several books focusing on Africa’s political economy of development, as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters, editorials, and blogs. He is Editor-in-Chief for Africanus (Journal of Development Studies) and of Africa Insight and is a member of various academic editorial boards and committees. Vusi…
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Sang-Jo Kim
Sang-Jo Kim is the Chief Presidential Secretary for Policy for the Republic of Korea. Previously, he was Chairman of the Korea Fair Trade Commission. He has played a key role in building consensus for economic reform following South Korea's financial crisis in the late 1990s. Sang-Jo is also a professor of economics at Hansung University and chairs 'Solidarity for Economic Reform' (SER), a civil organization dedicated to enhancing the corporate governance system through minority shareholder campaigning. Under his leadership, the group won several landmark lawsuits including the one against the directors of Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motors. The cases have become the cornerstone for more clearly defining the fiduciary duties…
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Hoda Elsadda
Hoda Elsadda is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University. She previously held a Chair in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World at Manchester University, and was Co-Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World in the UK. She was Carnegie Visiting Scholar at Georgetown University in 2014-2015. In 1992, she co-founded and co-edited Hagar, an interdisciplinary journal in women’s studies published in Arabic. In 1997, she co-founded and is currently Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the Women and Memory Forum (www.wmf.org.eg), a research organization which focuses on reading Arab cultural history from a gender-sensitive perspective. She is a member of the…
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Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera is a political performance artist who explores the relationship between art, activism, social change, and political and economic power. Born and raised in Havana, several of her exhibitions have interrogated and “re-presented” events in Cuban history. Tania explores both the promise and failings of the Cuban Revolution through performances that provoke viewers to consider political realities masked by government propaganda and mass-media interpretation. In 2011, Tania started Immigrant Movement International, a multi-part artwork that will ran through 2015. She spent a year living in a small apartment in Corona, Queens, with five undocumented immigrants and their children. Engaging both local and international communities, as well as working with…
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Vinicius Marques de Carvalho
Vinicius Marques de Carvalho is a lawyer with deep experience in competition law, public policy, and economic regulation. He is currently in charge of the anti-corruption agenda as the Minister of the Office of the Comptroller General for the government of Brazil. Vinicius previously served as president of CADE, the Brazilian antitrust authority. Vinicius successfully led the transition from the previous to the current Brazilian system for competition defense, which raised the bar for competition enforcement in Brazil, resulting in CADE's recognition by the Global Competition Review as the Agency of the Year in 2014. Vinicius was also the vice-chair of implementation at the International Competition Network and a professor of…
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