Salti, Soraya
Jordan

Soraya Salti is Senior Vice-President of MENA for Junior Achievement Worldwide, an organization which works to mobilize private sectors and ministries of education across the Arab World to create a new generation of business-oriented youth and entrepreneurs. The program has grown from a small NGO project with 2000 students in 2001 to an independent Jordanian organization that reaches 50,000 students and is staffed by nearly 1,500 volunteer teachers from the private sector. Previously, Ms.Salti worked with the Jordan’s Ministry of Planning on the Innovative Competitiveness Team, an initiative that worked in conjunction with Harvard University’s Michael Porter to strengthen the country’s economic development. She also ran the monitoring and evaluation unit of a $15 million program that strengthened small and medium-sized industries at Jordan U.S. Business Partnership, before which she was an economic researcher in ESCWA, the UN Economic & Social Commission for Western Asia. She is on the board of Young Arab Leaders Jordan, Queen Rania’s Awards for Excellence in Education, and the Business Development Center, and is the winner for the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur of Jordan. Salti holds an MBA from Northwestern University.

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Samore, Gary
United States

Gary Samore is vice president, director of studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg chair at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an expert on nuclear proliferation and arms control, especially in the Middle East and Asia. Before joining the Council, Samore was vice president for global security and sustainability at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where he was responsible for international grant-making. From 2001 to 2005, he was director of studies and senior fellow for nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Samore served at the National Security Council from 1995 to 2001. He began his career there as the director for nonproliferation and export controls and then became the special assistant to the president and senior director for nonproliferation and export controls. Before his career led him to the National Security Council, Samore spent seventeen years working at the Department of State, where he served as special assistant to the ambassador-at-large for nonproliferation and nuclear energy policy. He later served as the acting director and deputy director at the Office of Regional Nonproliferation, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, and then as the deputy to Ambassador-at-Large Robert Gallucci. Samore holds a B.A. in sociology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

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Schneider, Cynthia P.
United States

Cynthia P. Schneider teaches, publishes, and organizes initiatives in the field of cultural diplomacy, with a focus on relations with the global Muslim community. For the Brookings Institution she leads the Arts and Culture Initiative within the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Schneider teaches courses in Diplomacy and Culture at Georgetown University, where, from 1984-2005, she was a member of the art history faculty. From 1998-2001 she served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands. 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 Directors of Wesley Theological Seminary and the Institute of Cultural Diplomacy. Schneider received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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Shikaki, Khalil
Palestine

Khalil Shikaki is Director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. In his career, he has taught at several universities including Bir Zeit University, al-Najah National University, the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and the University of South Florida (Tampa). Previously, he served as Dean of Scientific Research at al Najah National University. He spent the summer of 2002 as a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Between the years 1998 and 1999, Dr. Shikaki led a group of more than twenty five Palestinian and foreign experts on Palestinian institution building in a study of Palestinian public institutions which was ultimately published in a Council on Foreign Relations’ report. Since then, Dr. Shikaki has continued to work with the sponsors of the report, advising them on Palestinian reform and annually updating the 1999 report. Shikaki has also conducted more than 100 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1993, as well as three comprehensive surveys among Palestinian refugees in the West Bank-Gaza Strip, Jordan, and Lebanon. He finished his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1985, and his BA and MA in Political Science from the American University in Beirut.

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Singer, Peter W.
USA

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Stedman, Stephen J.
United States

Stephen J. Stedman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and ooperation (CISAC) and Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI), and is director of the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at Stanford University. In 2003-2004 Professor Stedman was Research Director of the United Nations High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. In 2005 he served as Assistant Secretary General and Special Advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, with responsibility for working with governments to adopt the Panel’s recommendations on strengthening collective security and for implementing key changes within the United Nations Secretariat, including the creation of a Peacebuilding Support Office, a Counter Terrorism Task Force, and a Policy Committee that acts as a cabinet to the Secretary General. Professor Stedman is a leading expert on civil wars and conflict management. His recent books include Ending Civil Wars, which examines the determinants of successful implementation of peace agreements, and Refugee Manipulation, which studies how warring parties and states attempt to manipulate the international refugee regime.

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Syamsuddin, M. Din
Indonesia

M. Din Syamsuddin is president of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s largest modernist Muslim social and educational organization, as well as Vice General Chair of the Indonesian Ulama Council. He also serves as a professor of Islamic political thought at the National Islamic University in Jakarta, and is president of the Asian Conference on Religion for Peace, based in Tokyo. He is author of Islam and Politics in the New Order Era and Religious Ethics to Build Civil Society.

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