Forum Agenda and Participant Biographies - Brookings Institution

(CIES) and Vice President of the Institute of International
Education (IIE) from 1997 to 2007. CIES, a
division of IIE, coordinates international educational
exchange with 150 nations and assists the U.S. government
with the administration of the Fulbright
Scholar Program. Previously, Peterson was Senior Fellow
at Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs,
where her work focused on the nonprofit sector and
its role in shaping public policy in the United States
and abroad. She has served as Chair of the U.S.-Canada
Commission for Educational Exchange, National
Women’s College Coalition, Salzburg Seminar on International
Academic Mobility, American Council on
Education’s Commission on Governmental Affairs,
Public Leadership Education Network, and is a past
president of the Association of Colleges and Universities
of the State of New York. Peterson has a B.A.
from Pennsylvania State University and master’s and
doctorate degrees from the University of Wisconsin,
and did post-graduate study at Harvard University.
William plater
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William Plater is Chancellor’s
Professor Emeritus of Public
Policy and Philanthropic Studies
at Indiana University. Prior to
his appointment as Chancellor’s
Professor in 2006, Plater was Executive
Vice Chancellor and Dean of the Faculties for
19 years. He joined Indiana University as Professor
of English and Dean of the School of Liberal Arts at
Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis
in 1983. Plater co-founded the Muslim Philanthropy
Network, where he has worked with universities and
nonprofits in Muslim-majority societies across the
world. International civic engagement has been the
focus of Plater’s work for the past five years. He also
serves as senior consultant on educational strategies
for Epsilen, a learning technologies company. Plater
earned his Ph.D. in American literature at the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was
also Associate Director of the School of Humanities.
2011 U.S.-ISLAMIC WORLD FORUM
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Kenneth M. pollack
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Kenneth M. Pollack is Director
of the Saban Center for Middle
East Policy at Brookings and a Senior
Fellow at the Center. He has
served as Director of Persian Gulf
Affairs and Near East and South
Asian Affairs at the National Security Council, Senior
Research Professor at the National Defense University,
and Iran-Iraq military analyst for the Central Intelligence
Agency. Pollack’s most recent book is Unfinished
Business: An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward.
He is also the author of A Path Out of the Desert:
A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (2008)
and was the lead author of Which Path to Persia? Options
for a New American Strategy toward Iran (2009)
with several other Brookings Senior Fellows. Pollack
received a B.A. from Yale University and a Ph.D. from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
aziz poonawalla
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Aziz Poonawalla holds an honorary
fellowship at the University of
Wisconsin and is an adjunct Assistant
Professor at the University
of Texas at Houston. A medical
physicist specializing in diagnostic
imaging, Dr. Poonawalla’s has published his scientific
research in academic journals including Radiology,
Multiple Sclerosis, and the Journal of Magnetic
Resonance Imaging. He has authored the City of Brass
blog for over eight years and co-founded the annual
Brass Crescent Awards for Muslim blogs and bloggers.
He also administers the Talk Islam global forum.
Saafir Rabb
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Saafir Rabb is Chief Executive Officer
of InterCulture Inc., a consulting
firm that provides business
solutions and capacity building
to socially-oriented organizations
and companies. Over the past decade,
Rabb has developed strong contacts with individuals
and companies that share a vision for a more
equitable, inclusive world and, toward that end, has
generated millions of dollars toward joint community
development, education, and business initiatives.