Forum Agenda and Participant Biographies - Brookings Institution

Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War (2007;
co-authored with Kenneth M. Pollack); and Deadly
Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (2005).
His next book is A High Price: The Triumphs and
Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (May 2011). He
received a B.A. from Amherst and a Ph.D. from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mustafa Ceric
Bosnia
Mustafa Ceric has been the Grand
Mufti of Bosnia and Herzegovina
since 1993. He has served as an
imam and professor in Croatia,
Bosnia, Malaysia, and the United
States and has authored several
books. He was co-recipient of the UNESCO Félix
Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize for contribution to
world peace, the Theodor-Heuss “Religion and Integration
in Europe” Award, and the King Abdullah I
Bin Al-Hussein International Award. He also received
the International Council of Christians and Jews Annual
Sir Sternberg Award, the Lifetime Achievement
Award from AMSS UK, and the Eugen Biser Award.
He was a signatory of the 2007 Open Letter which
founded the initiative, “A Common Word Between
Us and You.” Ceric graduated from the Faculty of Arabic
Language and Literature at Al-Azhar University
in Cairo and earned a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from
the University of Chicago.
Gail Chalef
United states
Gail Chalef is the Director of
Communications for Foreign Policy
Studies at Brookings and for
the U.S.-Islamic World Forum.
Chalef joined Brookings in 2007,
after a 17-year career with CNN
and CNN International. During her years at CNN,
Chalef was centrally involved in CNN’s coverage of
the major news events of the past two decades—the
first Gulf War, the Bosnian War, the election of Nelson
Mandela, the first Russian Presidential election,
the 9/11 attacks, and the death of Pope John Paul,
to name a few. Chalef received an Emmy Award for
CNN’s 9/11 coverage, a Peabody Award for CNN’s
Hurricane Katrina coverage, and an Emmy nomination
for Christiane Amanpour’s interview with Palestinian
President Yassir Arafat. In 1987 and 1993
2011 U.S.-ISLAMIC WORLD FORUM
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respectively, Chalef received fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the RIAS Berlin
Commission.
Wendy Chamberlin
United states
Wendy Chamberlin is President of
the Middle East Institute. She previously
served as U.S. Ambassador
to Pakistan (2001-2002) and to
Laos (1996-99) during her twenty-seven
years in the U.S. Foreign
Service. She also served as Deputy High Commissioner
for the UN High Commission for Refugees (2004-
2007) and Assistant Administrator in the Asia-Near
East Bureau for the U.S. Agency for International Development
(USAID) from 2002 to 2004. A graduate
of Northwestern University, Chamberlin earned an
M.S. in Education from Boston University and holds
an honorary Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
Sandra Charles
United states
Sandra Charles is President and Chief Executive Officer
of C&O Resources, Inc. After sixteen years of
government service, she joined the International Planning
and Analysis Center as Vice President for International
and Governmental Affairs, departing the
following year to establish C&O Resources. Charles
served as a member of the National Security Council
staff of the White House and in the Office of the Secretary
of Defense, International Security Affairs. As
the National Security Council staff Director for Near
Eastern and South Asian Affairs from 1988 to 1991,
Charles was responsible for advising Presidents Reagan
and Bush and their national security advisors and
deputies on political and military issues and programs
in countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as
well as Southwest and South Asia. In 1988 she was
presented with the Secretary of Defense Medal of
Meritorious Civilian Service. She received a B.A. in
English and the Dramatic Arts from the University of
Virginia and a master’s degree in International Public
Policy from John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
International Studies.