Speakers
Speakers
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Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats was appointed to serve as the Deputy President of Bar-Ilan University in May 2010. In this capacity, she oversees the university's fundraising, public relations and communications operations, and brings to this function a keen understanding of the strategic importance of positioning Bar-Ilan University in the Israeli and international communities. Prof. Zilbershats' work focuses as well on tapping the potential and excellence of academic programs – existing and new -- a model which she perfected during her tenure as Dean of the Faculty of Law between 2004 – 2007. As a specialist in international, human rights and constitutional law, and incumbent of the Raul Wallenberg Chair in Human Rights, Prof. Yaffa Zilbershats is a brilliant legal teacher and scholar whose body of work includes writing and editing several books and chapters, many academic articles and presentations at prestigious conferences around the world. She is an alumna of Bar-Ilan University's Faculty of Law, where she earned her LL.B and Ph.D. Her LL.M degree in International Legal Studies was received from New York University, where she also served as a Visiting Scholar. She currently serves as the Vice President of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists and is a board member of the Israel Democracy Institute and of the Jewish Agency – positions she has held for many years.
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Prof. Eytan Gilboa is Professor of Political Science and Communication, Director of the School of Communication, Director of the Center for International Communication and Senior Researcher at the BESA Center for Strategic Studies, all at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He is a Visiting Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California (USC).
Prof. Gilboa is a world renowned expert on international communication, public diplomacy and US policy in the Middle East. He has published several books and numerous articles, and has won several significant international fellowships and awards. His most recent book is US-Israel Relations in a New Era: Issues and Challenges after 9/11(Routledge, 2009). Prof. Gilboa received his B.A. degree in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Government from Harvard University. He has taught at the Hebrew University and has been a visiting professor in leading American and European universities including Harvard, UCLA, Georgetown, Tufts, the American University in Washington DC and the University of Hamburg. He has also been a senior research fellow at the Rand Corporation, the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington DC, the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. He was a consultant to the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs, Academic Director of International Studies at the National Defense College, and Chair of the Foreign Service Selection Committee. He contributes op-ed articles to Israeli and international newspapers, and serves as a commentator on both television and radio networks.
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Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig teaches at Bar-Ilan University, specializing in New Media, with particular emphasis on their social and political ramifications. His courses include "Internet Revolution", "New Media: Technology & Society", "The Life Cycle of New Media", and "The Information Age". He has published numerous scholarly articles in the field of communications, including such topics as Public Relations in the Future, Machine Translation, and The End of Print Newspapers. He has also just completed a book-length study of virtuality throughout human history, entitled "Virtuality & Humanity".
Prof. Lehman-Wilzig has published 32 academic articles, 17 book chapters, two academic books in English (one translated to Hebrew), and a popular textbook: Handbook of Mass Communications. Prof. Lehman-Wilzig received his B.A. degree in Political Science from CCNY, graduating Summa Cum Laude and his Ph.D. degree in Government from Harvard University. He was the founder of BIU's Communications Program, originally within the Department of Political Studies where he served as Department Chairman (and also as Chairman of the Israeli Political Science Association). During his sabbaticals, Prof. Lehman-Wilzig taught at San Diego State University as a Lipinsky Institute Visiting Scholar, as well as a Schusterman Visiting Israeli Scholar at Brown University.
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Dr. Charles Lipson teaches international relations at the University of Chicago, where he is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor in Political Science and the College. His research deals with international cooperation and conflict and with political aspects of the world economy.
His most recent book on international relations, Reliable Partners: How Democracies Have Made a Separate Peace,explains one of the most striking features in world politics: why democracies do not fight wars against each other. (Princeton University Press, 2003). Dr. Lipson has also written extensively on international trade, debt, and investment. His book, Standing Guard: Protecting Foreign Capital in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, has been widely praised for combining politics and economics. It is concerned with the problems faced by successful corporations when they operate in difficult political environments around the world. |
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Prof. Tom Ginsburg focuses on comparative and international law from an interdisciplinary perspective. He holds BA, JD, and PhD degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. One of his books, Judicial Review in New Democracies (Cambridge University Press 2003) won the C. Herman Pritchett Award from the American Political Science Association for best book on law and courts.
He has served as a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo, Kyushu University, Seoul National University, the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Trento. He currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an effort funded by the National Science Foundation to gather and analyze the constitutions of all independent nation-states since 1789. Before entering law teaching, he served as a legal adviser at the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, The Hague, Netherlands, and consulted with numerous international development agencies and foreign governments on legal and constitutional reform.
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Prof. Guy J. Golan is an associate professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication's Public Diplomacy graduate program at Syracuse University. His research focuses on International political communication and public diplomacy examining such topics as issue management, mediated public diplomacy and global public opinion.
Golan has published more than two dozen academic journal articles in such noted journals as Communication Golan received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, his M.A. in Media Ecology from New York University and his Ph.D. from the University of Florida. Golan is a former political communication professional who worked
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Dr. Shai Har-El founded in Chicago in 1990 the Middle East Peace Network (MEPN), an independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit NGO that uses private diplomacy to complement the activities of the Middle Eastern governments in their pursuit of conflict resolution and lasting peace, primarily between Arabs and Israelis. He led the organization from 1990 to 1996 and reactivated it in 2011, when the Arab Spring has erupted.
Dr. Har-El earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University, where from 1971 to 1976 he gained his initial academic experience as a Research Fellow at the Shiloah Institute (precursor of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where he received extensive interdisciplinary Middle Eastern studies.
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Endy’s Zemenides is an attorney and sits on the board of the Coordinated Effort of Hellenes, the most significant Greek-American political advocacy group in the United States, and the National Hellenic Society
He serves on the editorial board of the National Strategy Forum, a Chicago-based foreign policy research organization, and serves as pro-bono counsel for the National Hellenic Museum. Endy has lectured in International Relations and American Foreign Policy in DePaul University’s Political Science Department Endy graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center in 2000, where he was an editor of the Georgetown Journal of Law and Policy in International Business and a student-fellow in the Harrison Institute’s Public Policy Clinic.
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David Benson is a PhD. Candidate in the Political Science Department. He is also Program Coordinator for The Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security (PIPES), a research fellow at the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST) and associate editor of the international events Website RealClearWorld.com.
Prior to coming to the University of Chicago David served six and a half years in the U.S. Army, including a tour in Iraq in 2006, followed by a year and a half as an intelligence analyst and instructor for the Joint-IED Defeat Organization (JIEDDO) in the U.S. Department of Defense. |
