MIDDLE EAST INSTITUTE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of Iran Program and Senior Fellow, Black Sea Program
Alex Vatanka (الکس وطن خواه) specializes in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran. From 2006 to 2010, he was the managing editor of Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst. From 2001 to 2006, he was a senior political analyst at Jane's in London (UK) where he mainly covered the Middle East. Alex is also a senior fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and teaches as an adjunct professor at DISAM at Wright-Patterson AFB.
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- Managing Director and Leader of the Middle East & North Africa Practice at McLarty Associates
Mr. Tulbah is Managing Director and leader of the Middle East & North Africa practice at McLarty Associates. He joined McLarty after serving as Associate Director for Cabinet Affairs in the George W. Bush White House for most of the 2001-2005 term, where he coordinated the activities of foreign policy and national security agencies. While in the Office of Cabinet Affairs, Mr. Tulbah also served as President Bush's liaison to the Arab- and Muslim-American communities and performed a broad advisory role to the administration's public diplomacy efforts to the Muslim world. During his tenure at the White House, Mr. Tulbah accepted assignment to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad where he spent the majority of 2003 as Chief of Staff of its international coordination council.
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- Development Administrator
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Vice President of Finance and Administration
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- Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Defense and Security Program
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Vice President of Policy
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- Senior Fellow, Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism Programs
Lister is the author of "The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency" (Oxford University Press, 2016). His research focuses on terrorism and insurgency across the Levant. As a senior consultant to the Syria Track II Dialogue Initiative, he managed nearly three years of intensive face-to-face engagement with the leaderships of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups.
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- Chief Development Officer
- Member of the Leadership Team
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- Founder of CID Consulting
Dalia Wahba is an entrepreneur and co¬founder of CID Consulting, a management and development consulting firm in Egypt, with work across the MENA region, North America and Europe. She is currently serving as the Executive Vice President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. She is also the Co-Chair of the Dean's Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) at the American University in Cairo.
Job Titles:
- Advisory Council
- Chairman of the Presidential
Dr. Abla Abdel Latif is currently the Chair of the Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development; and the Executive Director and Director of Research of The Egyptian Center for Economic Studies (ECES). She is also a Member of the Central Bank of Egypt's Coordinating Council and has been a Board Member of the National Bank of Egypt - the first female in this position, for over six years. In 2013, she was honored with membership of the Committee of Fifty, whose mission was to draft Egypt's Constitution following June 30, 2013. She is also a cofounder and Board Member of BASEERA (the Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research), and "El Nidaa" Foundation for job creation for women and youth. In addition to her teaching career as Professor of Economics at the American University in Cairo (AUC) for over twenty years, she has been selected to be a Life Time Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and member of the Advisory Board for (Femise).
Dr. Laila Iskandar was the Minister of State for Urban Renewal and Informal Settlements in Egypt from July 2014-September 2015 and before that served as Minister of State for Environmental Affairs in the two cabinets following the June 30th Revolution. Prior to holding public office, she was a leading member of civil society both nationally and internationally, working with youth, women and children in livelihood programs in informal urban settlements and deprived villages in Upper Egypt. She was Chairperson of CID Consulting from 1995 - 2013, which was awarded the "Social Entrepreneur of the Year" award in 2006 at the World Economic Forum by the Schwab Foundation for the sustainable recycling school established in partnership with Unesco.
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- Communications & Technology Officer
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- Lebanon Fellow
- U.S. - Lebanon Fellow
Fadi Nicholas Nassar is the U.S.-Lebanon Fellow at MEI and an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the Institute for Social Justice and Conflict Resolution at the Lebanese American University.
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- Non - Resident Senior Fellow
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Director of Strategic Outreach, Senior Fellow
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- Assistant Manager of Events & Programs
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- Distinguished Sr. Fellow on U.S. Diplomacy Director, Arabian Peninsula Affairs
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- Director of Turkey Program and Senior Fellow, Black Sea Program
- Founding Director of MEI 's Turkish Studies
Tol is the founding director of MEI's Turkish Studies program and an adjunct professor at George Washington University's Institute for Middle East Studies. She has written extensively on Turkey-U.S. relations, Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy, and the Kurdish issue.
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- Senior Fellow and Director of Program on North Africa and the Sahel
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- Director, Black Sea Program
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- Editor of the Middle East Journal
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- Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
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- Senior Fellow and Book Review Editor, MEJ
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- Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
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- Associate Editor & Multimedia Producer
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- Non - Resident Senior Fellow and Chair of the Economics and Energy Program Advisory Council
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- Member of the Leadership Team
- Senior Vice President
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- Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
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- Senior Fellow, Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian - Israeli Affairs
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- Director, Arts & Culture Program
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- Director, Afghanistan and Pakistan Studies
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- Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
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- Non - Resident Senior Fellow and Co - Director of the Yemen Steering Initiative
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- Senior Fellow and Founding Director of the Egypt Program
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- Senior Fellow and Director of the Climate and Water Program
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- Director, Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program
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- Will New Members Alter the Strategic Direction of BRICS
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- HR Specialist and Internship Coordinator
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- Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs
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- Chairman of Prometeon Tyre Egypt Co
Mohanna is Chairman of Prometeon Tyre Egypt Co., the largest tyre producer in Egypt, and a subsidiary of the multinational tyre manufacturer Pirelli. He is also Chairman of Chubb Insurance Egypt, and Chairman of Chubb Life Insurance Co. Egypt. Both companies are subsidiaries of the US multinational insurance group Chubb. Mohanna is also member of the Board of Directors of the investment banking Firm CI Capital and of Corplease Egypt, the leading leasing company in Egypt. He is also a board member of B Investments, a private equity holding company and of Palm Hills Developments, a real estate development company. Mohanna is former Chairman of Suez Cement Group of Companies (SCGC), one of the largest cement producers in Egypt and a subsidiary of the German Multinational Group Heidelberg Cement AG, a world leading cement producer.
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- CEO
- Member of the Leadership Team
- President
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- Deputy Director of Communications
- Media Relations Manager, at
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- Senior Fellow and Director of Conflict Resolution and Track II Dialogues Program
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- Member of the National Council for Women for Foreign Relations
Rawya Mansour is a member of the National Council for Women for Foreign Relations and the Rural Committee and represented Egypt in Romania in the Francophone countries for the empowerment of women. She is also a member in the Arab Businesswomen Council, the Clinton Global Initiative, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and the Information and Decision Support Centre in the Council of Ministers for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Mansour has established several companies, including OASIS in 2012, RAMSCO Company for Trading and Distribution in 2011, RAMSCO Foundation for Sustainable Agricultural Development in 2009, and RAMSCO for Refined Architecture and Interior Design in 1999.
Job Titles:
- Senior Fellow and Book Series Editor
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- Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
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- Director of Education Programs
Sherif H. Kamel is a professor of management, dean of the school of business at The American University in Cairo, and president of the board of governors of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. Before joining AUC, he was director of the Regional Information Technology Institute. Before that, he managed the training department of the Cabinet of Egypt Information and Decision Support Center. He started his career as a research assistant at the Cabinet of Egypt Information and Decision Support Center. He is an Eisenhower Fellow. He is the co-chair of the board of stewards of the African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative, a founding member of the Internet Society in Egypt and a member of the Egypt-U.S. Business Council.
Job Titles:
- Director, Strategic Foresight Initiative
As Vice Chairman & Managing Director of the International Company for Agricultural Production & Processing, Tawfik is in charge of overseeing land reclamation, farming, food-processing and poultry divisions at the Americana Group in Egypt. He is also a member of the Business Contact Group with the Prime Minister of Egypt, the Export Development Agency (Ministry of Trade and Industry), and the Poultry Committee (Prime Minister's Office). He is a member of the board of the General Authority for Investments and Free Zones (GAFI), and a Board Member of the Egyptian Countryside Development Company.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations