YALE UNIVERSITY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Head of Mission in Aden / International Committee of the Red Cross
Abdi Ismail has been working in the humanitarian field for 12 years in various management capacity with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Currently, he is the Head of Mission for ICRC in Aden, Yemen, where he leads the protection and humanitarian assistance response in Southern Yemen and is in charge of managing the security of ICRC staff, assets, and operations in a very volatile security environment.
Abdi's interests are understanding current conflicts and their broader security implications for the greater Middle East and Horn of Africa. He has been invited to share his knowledge and experience of Yemen at the think tank ISPI, the Centre for Public Leadership, Harvard School of Public Health, and at the United Nations Security Council Experts on Yemen.
As an Edward S. Mason fellow at Harvard University, Abdi obtained a master's in Public Administration at the Kennedy School of Government, where he has been an Emirates Leadership Initiative Fellow at the School's Centre for Public Leadership (CPL); member of the Carr Center's Emerging Human Right Leaders, as well as co-editor for the Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy. Abdi continues his engagement with Harvard Kennedy School as Alumni Council Member at the CPL.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director / African Studies Association
- Executive Director of the African Studies Association
Abdul Tejan-Cole is Executive Director of the African Studies Association (ASA), an association of scholars and professionals in the United States and Canada with an interest in the continent of Africa. Prior to joining ASA, he was Senior Campaign Director of Waxman Strategies, focused on ending deforestation in Africa across all industrial agriculture and on fighting for the rights of workers and communities. A noted human rights lawyer and activist, he has over 25 years of experience fomenting progressive development of human rights, anti-corruption, environmental and social justice, post-conflict reconstruction, transitional justice, and the rule of law.
As head of the Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, he worked on and prosecuted a number of high-level corruption cases and prioritized fighting corruption especially in the fishing and maritime sector in Sierra Leone.
He also served as Deputy Director of the International Center for Transitional Justice's Cape Town office, and as Executive Director of the Open Society Initiative for West Africa. Abdul has worked with, founded, and been on the board of a number of organizations that work on a broad range of environmental issues including land tenure, land grabbing, and food security and climate change. He was Board Chair of West Africa Democracy Radio and Timap for Justice.
He is a strong advocate for the prosecution of the destruction of the environment, the illegal exploitation of natural resources or the illegal dispossession of land as a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute. He served as Secretary General, Vice President, and President of the Sierra Leone Bar Association, as well as president of the West Africa Bar Association. Abdul was a war crimes prosecutor in the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
He taught land law and the environment at the University of Sierra Leone and holds a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) Degree from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, a Master of Laws from University College London, and a post-graduate diploma in International Trade Law from the University Institute of European Studies. He was a Human Rights Teaching Fellow at Columbia University in New York, was a recipient of the 2001 Human Rights Watch Annual Award, and is a member of the Africa Group for Justice and Accountability. He has published widely on human rights and international justice issues.
Job Titles:
- Programs Manager
- Journalist
Abdul-Rehman Malik is an award winning London-based journalist, educator, and cultural organizer. He is Programs Manager for the Radical Middle Way, which offers powerful, faith-inspired guidance and tools to enable change, combat exclusion and violence and promote social justice for all. His work has spanned the UK, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sudan, Mali, Morocco, Singapore, Canada and Malaysia.
In January 2015, he became director of the Insight Film Festival, a unique year-round festival that celebrates the intersection between faith and film. Abdul-Rehman is a regular contributor to BBC Radio, offering contemporary perspectives on spirituality and presenting documentaries and programs for Radio 4, Radio 2 and the World Service. His recent documentary work includes the "The Muhammadan Bean: The Secret History of Islam and Coffee".
A trustee of the Sandford St Martins Trust, which promotes excellence in broadcasting about religion in the UK, Abdul-Rehman has a keen interest in harnessing cultural production for social change. He has recently trained over 150 young civil society leaders in Indonesia to use the power of storytelling to bridge interfaith and intercultural divides against the backdrop of violence and discrimination.
In addition to providing content guidance to a variety of cultural and literary institutions, Abdul-Rehman is also working with colleagues from around the world to establish a global network of Muslim cultural leaders committed to building cultural capital and supporting cutting-edge artistic production.
Abdul-Rehman Malik reflects on the joy and inspiration he finds in Islam. He explains why some Muslims may chose the path of fundamentalism and salafism; whereas others go towards spirituality and Sufism. He also discusses the work he has been involved in to bridge cultures and divides.
Job Titles:
- Founder and Managing Director / AM Communications Ltd.
- Founder and Managing Director of AM Communications
Adamu Musa is Founder and Managing Director of AM Communications, an international consultancy in strategic and crisis communications, governance, and investment guidance in public policy and management. He is a well-known media and communications figure in Cameroon, where for more than 25 years he anchored the national prime time news broadcast by the Cameroon Radio Television Corporation (CRTV) and created and anchored two high-profile investigative news magazine programs, X-TRA MILE and CRTV CLUB. He also carried out authoritative investigations on corruption, human rights abuses, governance lapses and other societal ills.
Adamu also anchored a popular CRTV flagship weekly radio program, CAMEROON CALLING. He managed a news service of both English and French speaking journalists and reporters and worked to advance press freedom in his country through new information and communication technologies. From 2004-2008, he managed communications and outreach for the World Bank country office for Cameroon and Central Africa.
He earned a MPA in Public Policy and Management from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2010.
Job Titles:
- Founder / Canaan Partners Israel
- Founder of Canaan Partners Israel
Adi Pundak-Mintz is Founder of Canaan Partners Israel, a venture capital fund in Israel, which is one of the world's largest venture capital markets. An expert in seed investment and entrepreneurship, he has overseen transactions totaling over $1 billion.
Adi has also helped finance socially responsible start-up businesses including Galil Software, a Nazareth-based company with over 100 employees that creates career opportunities for Israeli Arabs who might otherwise encounter difficulties finding employment in their field. Adi is also an Advisory Board Member of Tzeva, a non-profit organization providing access to quality education to all children, attempting to eliminate social gaps. He is an entrepreneur, angel investor, and mentor to startups in the social and for-profit sectors. He is part of Hasadna, a public knowledge workshop to make government more transparent, and University of the People, the world's first tuition-free online university.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Founding Partner / Saleem, Alam & Co.
Ahmad "Rafay" Alam is a Pakistani environmental lawyer and activist. In 2013, after over a decade of practicing corporate and constitutional law, Rafay co-founded Saleem, Alam & Co., a firm that specializes in the energy, water, natural resources, and urban infrastructure sectors. As one of Pakistan's leading environment lawyers, Rafay regularly advises the federal and provincial governments, the World Bank, ADB, IFC and a number of INGOs on issues of policy and strategy in these sectors, and he provides corporate clients strategic sustainability insights.
Familiar with how government functions in Pakistan, Rafay has served as Chairman of the Board of two public sector utilities: the Lahore Electric Supply Company and the Lahore Waste Management Company; and as founding Vice-President of the Urban Unit he over saw the growth of the Punjab's only public sector urban think-tank. Rafay also serves as a Member of the Pakistan Climate Change Council, the Punjab Environment Protection Council, the Hisaar Foundation's Tank on the Rational Use of Water, and as Advisor to Air Quality Asia.
He is a passionate advocate for climate action, air quality improvement, and food sovereignty, and he works with a number of local, regional and international civil society organizations to carry this agenda forward. In September 2019, he and his family helped organize #ClimateStrike marches in over 45 cities throughout Pakistan.
Job Titles:
- Public Policy Maker and Member
Ala Qasem is a public policy maker and member of the Economic Team advising the Presidential Leadership Council and senior cabinet members in the Republic of Yemen. Ala is also CEO of DeepRoot Consulting, a prominent social enterprise that is focused on Yemen's development. He previously served as Managing Director of Yemen's delivery bureau where he led government negotiation efforts to develop a rapid stabilization program for the interim capital Aden, secure debt relief from the IMF, and participate in the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative. In 2013, Yemen went through its largest ever political dialogue exercise which included 556 delegates from all political parties and factions. Ala served as the Technical Advisor for the Consensus Committee of the National Dialogue Conference where he helped members of the committee negotiate and reach agreements on disputed issues. Ala has founded and sits on the board of a number of civil society organizations in Yemen, including Resonate Yemen, the Civil Alliance for Peacebuilding, and Yemen Youth Observatory. He has an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Alberto de Belaunde is a former congressman from the Republic of Peru. He chaired the Congressional Climate Change Committee and was part of the Justice and Human Rights Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee.
Alberto was the second openly LGBTQ+ congressman in Peru's history. In 2019, he received the Victory Institute Tammy Baldwin Breakthrough Award for his work for equality.
Alberto is a lawyer and teaches Legal Ethics at Pacific University. He has a master's degree in Environmental Management and completed an executive program in Economics of Sustainable Development and Climate Change. He was part of the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program at Georgetown University and part of the Global Shapers Community. He is part of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader Community.
He has published two books: "Beyond the Rainbow" (2017) and "I do not withdraw anything!" (2019). He writes a weekly column on the website jugodecaigua.pe.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Resident Representative / United Nations Development Programme
Alejandro Pacheco is currently the Deputy Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Colombia. Previously, he served as Strategic Adviser for Latin America and the Caribbean, after having led the poverty and inequality area of UNDP Haiti and managed the Government's flagship early recovery and reconstruction program.
Alejandro served as Private Sector Specialist for UNDP El Salvador and Belize, as well as Country Adviser for Argentina, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Venezuela for the same organization. He has supported the creation and implementation of public policies in developing countries with impact on thousands of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises.
Previously, Alejandro worked as a consultant for the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade from 2003 to 2006, coordinating investment portfolios for Spanish companies in Chile, Mexico, Turkey, Brazil, China, and India. Originally from Spain, he's lived in more than ten countries on four continents and speaks five languages.
Alejandro has a business degree from the University of Madrid and Masters or Specialist degrees in Finance (Universidad Carlos III) and Humanitarian Aid (Universidad de Comillas).
Job Titles:
- National Geographic 's Pristine Seas Director for Latin America
- Pristine Seas Director for Latin America / National Geographic
Alex Muñoz Wilson is National Geographic's Pristine Seas Director for Latin America. He has been the driving force behind the creation of the seven largest fully-protected marine reserves in Latin America, covering 1.2 million square kilometers of ocean. He has also led many important ocean policy changes in Chile, including making it the first country in the world to legally protect all of its seamounts from destructive fishing; reforming Chile's fisheries law to require science-based quotas and reduce incidental mortality of species; stopping coal-fired power plants from destroying marine habitats and fishers' livelihoods; protecting vast areas of Patagonia from salmon farming; establishing the first regulations to reduce antibiotic use and salmon escapes in Chilean salmon aquaculture; and banning shark finning in the country.
Alex also put together the first Latin American fellowship course on transparency, accountability, and anti-corruption. He was the first Chilean to win a case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, resulting in the Court's first ruling on freedom of expression in the Americas.
Alex received a law degree from the University of Chile and a Master's degree in international and comparative law from George Washington University.
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator
- WORLD FELLOWS STAFF Member
Job Titles:
- Vice - President of Global Economy and Development, the Brookings Institution
Job Titles:
- Fellow at Harvard University
Job Titles:
- Director
- WORLD FELLOWS STAFF Member
Evans Hall is a striking modern architectural landmark with innovative classrooms and signature spaces such as a central courtyard, that signal its strong ties to Yale and the global community.
Job Titles:
- Delegate at the International Committee of the Red Cross
Federica Du Pasquier is a delegate at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), most recently coordinating its humanitarian diplomacy globally around the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Federica previously advised the ICRC President on digitalization, the institutional strategy, and roll-out of key diplomatic initiatives, with a focus on advancing the ICRC's role as a neutral intermediary. In parallel, she spearheaded a partnership with the Swiss Polytechnic Schools to develop innovative solutions for more impactful humanitarian action. Prior to this, Federica contributed to ICRC's protection activities and dialog with authorities in Ethiopia, Syria and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and to its legal and diplomatic outreach at the UN…
Job Titles:
- Director of Emergency Management
Goodluck Jonathan is the former president of The Federal Republic of Nigeria (2010-2015). As president, he promoted democratization through the observance of the rule of law, enactment of the Freedom of Information Act, electoral reforms, and non-interference in electoral outcomes. He is committed to continuing to promote peace, democracy, and development in Africa through the Goodluck Jonathan Foundation where he serves as Chairman. This talk will be moderated by Ambassador Harry K. Thomas, Jr. and is sponsored by the Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program at the Jackson School of Global Affairs. This event is open only to members of the Yale community. A Yale ID will be required for…
Join 2023 World Fellow Guy Disney as he leads a book discussion with Leon McCarron, the author of Wounded Tigris: A River Journey Through the Cradle of Civilization. Leon McCarron is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and explorer from Northern Ireland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia's Explorer of the Year, and is known for long-distance expeditions and immersive multimedia storytelling. In the past decade he has travelled over 50,000km by human power, and is currently based in Iraq. Guy Disney is a military veteran, disability advocate, explorer, and horse jockey. He served two tours in Afghanistan, with his second tour served as…
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director
- WORLD FELLOWS STAFF Member
Named in honor of former Yale men's ice hockey captains David S. Ingalls '20 and David S. Ingalls Jr. '56, the rink - known informally as the "Yale Whale" for its distinctive shape - was designed by famed architect Eero Saarinen '34 and built in 1959.
Job Titles:
- Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Emergency Management
Job Titles:
- Manager of Business Continuity and Planning
Job Titles:
- VP and Partner, Social Alpha
Smita Rakesh, VP and Partner, Social Alpha, 2023 Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow and Hussain Nadim, Founder, Nerve Analytics, 2023 Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow. Dinner will be provided after the talk.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director
- WORLD FELLOWS STAFF Member
Job Titles:
- Senior Director of the Office of Institutional Equity
Woolsey Hall, built in 1901 to commemorate Yale's bicentennial, has a seating capacity of 2,650. It is used for performances by the Philharmonia Orchestra of Yale and for university events like Baccalaureate.