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The Muslim World and the United States: An Open Forum for Interns by Interns

Mark Ward, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Asia and the Near East Bureau, USAID; Haider Mullick, Research Intern, Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity , Woodrow Wilson Center; Research Intern, Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, Hudson Institute; Intern, India-South Asia Program, Brookings Institution; Reza Akbari, Scholar Intern, Woodrow Wilson Center and Iran Program Intern, Freedom House; Libby Hubbard, Staff Intern, Project on Leadership and State Capacity Building, Woodrow Wilson Center.

Date & Time

Wednesday
Aug. 22, 2007
12:30pm – 2:00pm ET

Overview

FIRST INTERNS' LEADERSHIP FORUM

The Interns' Leadership Forum will be a place for interns and young professionals to get together and discuss issues related to the world community through the lens of US foreign policy. It is not a traditional forum and as a result will not follow a traditional format. The main speakers are not panelists but moderators; more appropriately, they are participants in a dialogue. The participants are not only interns from all the major think thanks, policy institutes, or universities but also young and accomplished professionals, academics and policy implementers alike. The Interns' Leadership Forum organizes events that give voice to the aspirations of the young people involved in politics and policy in Washington DC, a place where we have access to the podium and can freely but professionally discuss our ideas.

Bring your Lunch. Sodas and Cookies Provided!

Speakers' Bios

Mark S. Ward is the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Bureau for Asia and Near East, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and a Career Minister in the Senior Foreign Service. He has principal responsibility for the USAID programs in the Middle East, South and East Asia. Between January and August 2005, he was also chair of the Agency's tsunami task force, and since December 2005, chaired the Agency's South Asia earthquake task force. Currently, Ward chairs USAID's Lebanon Reconstruction task force. Ward was the 2006 winner of the Service to America Medal for international affairs. Ward's most recent overseas post was in Pakistan as the Mission Director, serving from July 2002 through December 2003. Prior to that, he was the Director of USAID's Office of Procurement in Washington, D.C. Ward joined the Foreign Service in 1986 and has served in Pakistan (twice), Egypt, the Philippines, and Russia.

Haider Mullick is a native of Islamabad, Pakistan. He finished his undergraduate studies in Economics at the Robert E. Cook Honors College, Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2004, and a Masters of Arts in Public Policy in 2007. His Masters thesis is on madrassa education reform in Pakistan. He is currently interning at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Leadership and State Capacity Building, Brookings Institution's India-South Asia Program, and at the Hudson Institute's Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World. At the Woodrow Wilson Center he is editing a publication on Afghan's security and development situation; at Brookings he is working with Senior Fellow, Dr. Stephen P. Cohen; and at Hudson Haider is leading a project on education reform in the Muslim World. Recent publications include: Man and the Mob, The Nation, Pakistan and the Middle East Peace Process, The Nation, and Capturing Esfandiari but Losing Support: Iran's New Burden, Pakistan Link.

Reza Akbari is a native of Tehran, Iran. He completed a double major in Political Science and International Studies at the State University of New York in 2007. His bachelor's thesis is on the effects of national identity and "cultural confusion" among Muslims as one of the root causes of their continual failure of constructing a viable democratic political structure in the Middle East. He interns at the Woodrow Wilson Center under Dr. Athanasios Moulakis, former Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, University of Lugano, Switzerland. The project involves research on relations and economic potential between Greece and the Middle East/North Africa region vis-à-vis the European Union. His forthcoming op-ed is titled, Humor as the New Weapon against Muslim Extremisms.

Libby Hubbard is completing her bachelor's degree in political science at Davidson College. She has spent several months studying in the Balkans where she conducted research on the implementation of Bosnia's defense reform policies on the eve of Bosnia's acceptance into NATO's Partnership for Peace. She has also completed thesis research on Kosovo's transitional government. She is interning at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Project on Leadership and Building State Capacity. Libby has also worked in the non-profit sector with the ONE Campaign and Share Our Strength and is a co-founder of Davidson College's campus movement for social justice issues. She and looks forward to future research on civil society's impact on peace-building and reconstruction in post-conflict societies.

Moynihan Board Room, 6th floor
Woodrow Wilson Center,
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20004 -3027

Directions are available at our web site at http://www.wilsoncenter.org/directions. Please allow extra time for security; a picture ID is required. Admission to the discussion is free but seating is limited. Please RSVP to Reza.Akbari@wilsoncenter.org.

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