Edward Alden

Edward Alden is the Bernard L. Schwartz senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. economic competitiveness. In addition, Mr. Alden is the director of the CFR Renewing America publication series and co-author of the recent CFR Working Paper Managing Illegal Immigration to the United States. The former Washington bureau chief of the Financial Times, his work focuses on immigration and visa policy, and on U.S. trade and international economic policy.

Mr. Alden was the project co-director of the 2011 Independent Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy, which was co-chaired by former White House chief of staff Andrew Card and former Senate majority leader Thomas Daschle. He was also the project director for the 2009 Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy.

Mr. Alden is the author of the book The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration, and Security Since 9/11 (HarperCollins), which was named a 2009 finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for nonfiction writing. The judges called it "a masterful job of comprehensive reporting, fair-minded analysis, and structurally sound argumentation." 

Mr. Alden was previously the Canadian bureau chief for the Financial Times based in Toronto, and before that was a reporter at the Vancouver Sun specializing in labor and employment issues. He also was the managing editor of the newsletter Inside U.S. Trade, widely recognized as the leading source of reporting on U.S. trade policies. He has won several national and international awards for his reporting. Mr. Alden has done numerous TV and radio appearances as an analyst on political and economic issues, includingNewsHour with Jim Lehrer, McLaughlin Group, NPR, the BBC, CNN, and MSNBC. His work has also appeared in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the Japan Times, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Toronto Globe and Mail. He is the coauthor, with Franz Schurmann, of Democratic Politics and World Order, a monograph published by Berkeley's Institute of International Studies in 1990.

Mr. Alden holds a master's degree in international relations from the University of California, Berkeley, and pursued doctoral studies before returning to a journalism career. He also has a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of British Columbia. He was the winner of numerous academic awards, including a Mellon fellowship in the humanities and a MacArthur Foundation graduate fellowship.

T.R. Reid

Reid, author of the critically acclaimed bestsellers “The Healing of America” and “The United States of Europe” has been received with unparalleled enthusiasm at his several previous appearances before the CFWAC. He will give us a preview of his new book, to be released later in 2015, comparing and contrasting the taxation systems of the world’s developed countries. His presentation is certain to be both controversial and entertaining. Watch for more information.

“Mr. Reid’s underlying message of hope does not preclude an intensely satisfying quotient of moral outrage at the worst casualties of our system as it stands.” New York Times Review of Books about “The Healing of America.”

TR Reid’s “The United States of Europe” nudges “… America Awake as a United Europe Takes the Stage”, New York Times

SPECIAL PROGRAM

FUNDRAISER TO SUPPORT THE COLORADO FOOTHILLS WORLD AFFAIRS ENTRY FOR THE ACADEMIC WORLD QUEST HIGH SCHOOL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

Dr. Christine Fair: Political Crisis in Pakistan: The Military, the Government, and the Opposition

C. Christine Fair is on the faculty of the Center for Peace and Security Studies (CPASS), within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She has served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation,[2] a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in Kabul, and as a senior research associate within the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at the United States Institute of Peace. Her research focuses upon political and military affairs in South Asia. She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books including Treading Softly on Sacred Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations on Sacred Space (OUP, 2008); The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), Fortifying Pakistan: The Role of U.S. Internal Security Assistance (USIP, 2006); among others and has written numerous peer-reviewed articles covering a range of security issues in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. She is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations and also a senior fellow with the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point.

She is a frequent commentator on television and radio including the CBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, CNN, Voice of America, Fox, Reuters, NPR among others. She has given extensive interviews to journalists with the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, Businessweek, The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and other print media outlets.

As it says on her webpage, “She can cause trouble in multiple languages.”

Joanne H. Cummings

Joanne H. Cummings is a career Foreign Service Officer in the Department of State and has served extensively in the Middle East and North Africa. Daughter of a Foreign Service family, she was raised in Lebanon, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.  She has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jerusalem, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, and Syria, and as well as regionally from Morocco through Pakistan.  Ms. Cummings has served in economic, political, military, and refugee affairs positions in Baghdad and elsewhere. She has twice served as POLAD (Foreign Policy Advisor) to military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan.  After serving as Economic Section Chief in Syria, she served a similar position in Yemen as Political/Economic Counselor. She has lived through, and served in, a variety of stress and conflict environments. She was evacuated from Syria. 

Ms. Cummings was born in Lincoln, Nebraska before moving overseas with her parents and sister when she was two years old.  She was graduated summa cum laude in History from the American University in Beirut.  She received her MA in Geography from the University of Texas at Austin. She speaks Arabic fluently (Lebanese, Egyptian, Saudi, and Iraqi dialects) and French. She is also familiar with Spanish, Hebrew, Farsi, and Kurdish.

Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth

Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is one of the United States’ most prominent researchers and authorities on climate. He was a leader in the project that received a Nobel Prize in 2007. Born in New Zealand, Dr. Trenberth obtained his Sc. D. in meteorology from MIT. He has been prominent in most of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessments of Climate Change and has also extensively served the World Climate Research Program (WCRP). He chaired the World Climate Research Program for Global Energy and Water Exchanges from 2010-13. He has published over 520 scientific articles or papers. He has received many international awards for his research.

Our speaker plans to provide a brief outline of the facts: how the global climate is changing with a focus of temperatures and more detail on the recent hiatus in the rise in global mean temperatures. He will explore the seasonality of the changes, and possible explanations of whether global warming has gone away or not. Changes in the oceans prove to be a key but are not as well-known as we would like because there is not yet enough good data. Dr. Trenberth contends that what we do about this is up to all of us and denial of climate change facts by some politicians ought to be called out. 

Dr. Kevin E. Trenberthis Distinguished Senior Scientist, Climate Analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research .

Dr. Schuyler Foerster

Often, as new hot spots develop around the world we focus on immediate issues and often lose sight of the greater global and historical context. Our October 21st speaker, renowned scholar and practitioner, Dr. Schuyler Foerster will help us explore how to connect the dots as we explore several key questions. Among them are:

• 1. Have the US and the other interdependent global actors sufficiently modified their world view following the end of the Cold War? 
• Last month's speaker, Dr. Ervin Rokke spoke convincingly that while circumstances have dramatically changed, our national response has lagged. 
• 2. As we entered the 21st Century and as America sat on the world's summit Henry Kissinger wondered if our position "…would gradually unite the world against the US…”. Can we stay at the top without world alienation?
• 3. What would and should America fight for? Actions by the US during the last four decades have many in the US and abroad asking this question. Can it be answered?

In the context of these and other critical questions, Dr. Foerster will examine "The Big Five"--Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iraq/Syria/ISIS(L), Russia and Ukraine, China, and Iran and North Korea.

Dr. Foerster is highly qualified to help the Colorado Foothills World Affairs Council members work through these difficult questions. He received his doctorate in politics and strategic studies at Oxford University and his Master's degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at The American University. His undergraduate work was done at the US Air Force Academy. Considered a dynamic speaker and scholar, he has lectured on international relations across the United States and abroad and published widely. He has been a senior advisor on security and arms control policy.

 He is intimately involved with the World Affairs Councils of America. He served as the full-time President and CEO of one of WACA's preeminent affiliates in Pittsburgh for nearly a decade and is now on the executive committee of the national board. Until recently he was President of the Colorado Springs World Affairs Council. Currently he is the Brent Scowcroft Professor of National Security Studies at the USAFA.

Dr. Ervin (Erv) Rokke

Dr. Ervin (Erv) Rokke is currently the Senior Scholar in Residence at the USAF Academy Center for Character and Leadership Development.  Before returning to the Academy in 2007, he served nine years as President of Moravian College and Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.  He was commissioned into the U.S. Air Force in 1962 and retired from active duty as a Lieutenant General in 1997.

Dr. Rokke is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and serves on the Chairman’s Advisory Council of the U. S. Institute of Peace.   In recent years he has spent time as a fellow at the Australian National Defense University and made substantial presentations at international conferences in Romania, Serbia-Montenegro, the Former Soviet Union and Germany.  In 2000, Erv was inducted into the Defense Intelligence Hall of Fame and, in 2006, was awarded the Jan Masaryk Silver Memorial Medal from the Czech Republic for his contributions toward U.S.-Czech Republic relations.

His 35-year military career was distinguished by operational, diplomatic, and academic leadership positions.  He served as a staff plans officer at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, as an intelligence officer with U.S. Forces Japan, as the National Security Agency’s associate director for support to military operations, and as Permanent Professor and Dean of Faculty at the U.S. Air Force Academy.  He was also assigned as Air Attaché at the American Embassy in London; as Defense Attaché in the former Soviet Union; as Director of Intelligence for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany; and as the Air Force’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence at the Pentagon.  Prior to assuming his duties as President of Moravian College in 1997, he served as the President of the National Defense University, Washington, DC.  

Rokke is a native of Warren, Minnesota.  He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science degree.  He later earned a master's degree and a doctorate in international relations from Harvard University. He and his wife Pam have two children, Lisa and Eric. 

Our previously scheduled speaker, Gen. Michelle Johnson, Superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, has been given a special assignment that prevents her from speaking on September 16th. Please note the program change.

John Hofmeister

John Hofmeister is former president of Shell Oil Company and now president of the non-profit Citizens for Affordable Energy whose mission is “…to educate citizens and government officials about pragmatic, non-partisan affordable energy solutions, environmental protection, energy alternatives, efficiency, infrastructure, public policy, competitiveness, social cohesion, and quality of life.” 

He is also a key member of the United States Energy Security Council. The Council, appointed by the President of the United States, consists of current and past CEOs of many Fortune 50 corporations. Its focus is national security through energy security with special attention given to a range of affordable energy supplies, increased efficiency and effective energy infrastructure in the context of sustainable environmental policies and public education.  

Hofmeister is also serves as Chairman of the National Urban League and the Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Advisory Committee. He is also the author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies: Straight Talk from an Energy Insider.

John earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at Kansas State University and is now a Wrigley Scholar/Executive in Residence in the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University.

Gregory Young

Throughout the cold war Turkey has been one of the US’s most stalwart allies. Sharing a strategic boundary with the former Soviet Union, it was one of the first signatories to NATO. Turkey, a historic bridge between Europe and Asia, has been on the geopolitical front lines for most of its history. Two critically important US Air Force installations are among the nearly two dozen NATO bases in Turkey. Their presence has allowed the NATO and the US to exert significant influence through much of the region.

The European Union’s reluctance to advance Turkey’s application to full membership beyond candidacy status has created disillusionment and even anger among many Turks. While Turkey is a constitutionally secular state, many believe the underlying reason for EU exclusion is that unlike the rest of Europe, Turkey is predominately Muslim.

Turkey’s Arab Spring uprising in 2012 was initially cited by some as a democratic example of political freedom. This initial optimistic reaction has been blunted by the deep concern raised by the crackdown on opposition political speech and a suppression of the press through mass arrests.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been credited with this heavy-handed response. He has been accused of corruption, accepting kickbacks on major building projects and attempting to cripple any police or judiciary trying to investigate any wrong doing.

Our speaker will address critical questions about contemporary Turkey: Where is Turkey headed? Will Erdogan uphold the modern secular democratic tradition established by Ataturk in the 1920’s and 30’s or will he pull a Putin-like switch with President Abdullah Gul to remain in power indefinitely and move to an increasingly authoritarian state? Are fears justified about a possible move by Turkey from that of a secular state to an Islamic state?  

Dr. Gregory Young is on the political science faculty at CU-Boulder specializing in the Middle East. He lived in Turkey as a child and is now a frequent visitor to that country. He is a retired naval officer with wide experience in military intelligence and reconnaissance. He earned his master’s degree from the Naval Postgraduate School where his research led to the discovery of a previously unknown mutiny on a Soviet Destroyer. This finding became the basis for Tom Clancy’s best seller The Hunt for Red October.  His Ph.D. in political science is from the University of Colorado. Hepreviously taught at the US Naval Academy (where we was also associate chair of the political science department) and the US Air Force Academy. He lives in Boulder with his wife, Dr. Mary Marlino, who is the Director of the Libraries and E-Science at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Larry Diamond

Larry Diamond is a professor of political science and sociology at Stanford University, where he teaches courses on democratic development. He is the 2013 recipient of Stanford's Richard W. Lyman Award for outstanding involvement in Stanford Alumni Association programming and continuing University stewardship. In 2007, he was named Teacher of the Year by the Associated Students of Stanford University for teaching that "transcends political and ideological barriers." That year he also received Stanford's Dinkelspiel Award for "his inspired teaching and commitment to undergraduate education" and "for the example he sets as a scholar and public intellectual." 

Mr. Diamond received all of his degrees from Stanford University, including a B.A. in 1974, an M.A. in 1978, and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1980. He taught Sociology at Vanderbilt University from 1980-85 before joining the Hoover Institution. Mr. Diamond is a leading expert on democracy around the world and has published multiple books on the subject.

Greg Dobbs: Putin’s Games: The Olympics as a political event

The Olympic Games are international celebrations of excellence in sport. They are also opportunities for host nations to make political statements that can have lasting legacies for leaders and political systems. One only has to remember the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and the Beijing Olympics of 2008 as examples.

The Games can also provide a stage for others seeking to make dramatic statements intended to shock host countries as well as the international community. We saw this happen with the Munich slaughter of 1972, and the 1996 bombing at Centennial Park during the Atlanta Olympics. 

The Sochi Olympics will have the highest level of security ever seen for the Games. Two recent bombings in south Russia carry threats of more terrorist attacks or other attempts to disrupt the Games themselves. In this context, the Colorado Foothills World Affairs Council is proud to present the celebrated and honored international journalist, Greg Dobbs.

Greg Dobbs has been a keen observer and analyst of international affairs for four decades, giving special attention to the Soviet Union, and then after its collapse, to the turbulent evolution of the Russian Republic. As the Sochi Olympic Games put Russian President Vladimir Putin’s legacy on center stage, Greg will give us a progress report.

A highly respected journalist for ABC News, World News Tonight, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, and others, Dobbs’s excellence in global reporting and analysis have earned him two national Emmys. In addition to his international work he has covered national elections with Dan Rather and anchored HDNet’s coverage of every space shuttle launch since Columbia. 

Greg recently authored Life in the Wrong Lane and has written a university-level textbook on journalism. His newspaper opinion columns are regularly seen in The Denver Post.

Kurt Shaw: The end of the street

Kurt G. Shaw, Executive Director of Shine a Light, graduated summa cum laude from Williams College and then won a Fulbright fellowship to spend almost two years working with grassroots groups in El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia. He has worked as a Visiting Scholar at the Departamento Ecuménico de Investigaciones, Latin America's premier institute for Liberation Theology, and as a Research Associate at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, where he addressed US-Cuba relations and governance issues in Chile. After earning a Master's Degree in Religion from Harvard University, Kurt counseled homeless teenagers in New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then went on to found Shine a Light, which would become the largest network of NGOs serving street children in Latin America.  

Twenty years ago, throughout Latin America, street children were ubiquitous--their numbers were estimated to be in the tens of millions. Today they are rarely encountered. Shaw has been a participant and eyewitness to this extraordinary and positive social change. 

As the number of children living on the streets of Latin America has dropped precipitously, Shaw moved Shine a Light into work on using digital media to win visibility for excluded children, including gang members, ex-child soldiers, and indigenous children.  He has won the Harvard First Decade Award as the graduate who has contributed most to social justice in his first ten years of work, and he coordinated the work of two finalists and one winner of the "Freedom to Create Award", given to the youth art group that has done most to promote human rights in the world. This past summer "The Good" an organization funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recognized Shaw and Shine a Light as one of the major actors for positive social change.

In addition to writing half a dozen books on youth homelessness, Latin American gangs, child soldiers, and children and media, Shaw has also produced several hip-hop albums with marginalized children, a fictional feature film with child soldiers, and several documentaries that have been shown at important film festivals in Latin America and Europe.  He lives in Florianópolis, Brazil, with his wife (and Shine a Light co-director) Rita da Silva and their young daughter, Helena.

Michael Wahid Hanna

Michael Wahid Hanna is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. He works on issues of international security, international law, and U.S. foreign policy in the broader Middle East and South Asia. He recently served as a co-director of The Century Foundation's International Task Force on Afghanistan, co-chaired by Thomas Pickering and Lakhdar Brahimi. He has published widely on U.S. foreign policy in newspapers and journals, including articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, the New Republic, and World Policy Journal, among other publications, and is a frequent contributor to Foreign Policy. He appears regularly on NPR, BBC, and al-Jazeera. He served as a consultant for Human Rights Watch in Baghdad in 2008. Prior to joining The Century Foundation, Hanna was a senior fellow at the International Human Rights Law Institute.  From 1999 to 2004, Hanna practiced corporate law with the New York law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton.  Fluent in Arabic, he was a Fulbright Scholar at Cairo University.  He received a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where he was an editor of the Law Review. Hanna is a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Nader Hashemi

Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He obtained his doctorate from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and previously was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA Global Institute. His intellectual and research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and political theory, in particular debates on religion and democracy, secularism and its discontents, Middle East and Islamic politics, democratic and human rights struggles in non-Western societies and Islam-West relations. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (Melville House, 2011) and the newly released book The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013). He is frequently interviewed by PBS, NPR, CNN, Pacifica Radio, Al Jazeera and the BBC, among other media outlets

Reza Aslan

Dr. Reza Aslan will return to the podium of the Colorado Foothills World Affairs by popular demand. Dr. Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar on the Middle East, enthralled our membership a few years ago . 

After his death and resurrection, Jesus has become the most international figure in world history.  Reza Aslan writes about Jesus in the context of the times in which Jesus lived. 

Aslan has degrees in religion from Santa Clara University, Harvard University, and the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as a Master of Fine Arts from the Univ. of Iowa, where he was named the Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He serves on the boards of directors of the Ploughshares Fund (which gives grants for peace and security issues), Narrative Four (which connects people through the exchange of stories), PEN USA (which champions the rights of writers under siege around the world), and the Levantine Cultural Center (which builds bridges between Americans and the Arab/Muslim world through the arts).

Aslan's first book the International Bestseller, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into thirteen languages, and was named one of the 100 most important books of the last decade. He is also the author of How to Win a Cosmic War (published in paperback as Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in a Globalized Age), as well as editor of two volumes: Tablet and Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East, and Muslims and Jews in America: Commonalties, Contentions, and Complexities. His most recent book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth published this July immediately leaped to the #1 spot in the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list. 

In addition to Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, Reza Aslan's books No god, but God and Beyond Fundamentalism: Confronting Religious Extremism in the Age of Globalization will be for sale at the event."

Chris Finan

Chris Finan recently served as the Director for Cybersecurity Legislation and Policy on the National Security Staff in the White House. Prior to this assignment he oversaw technology development for the Plan X cyberwarfare program at Defense Advances Research Project Agency (DARPA).  While Mr. Finan was on the White House staff he was responsible for assisting in the development of the administration’s cybersecurity legislation proposals, and led the executive branch negotiations with Congress.  Mr. Finan also helped draft the recent Cybersecurity Executive Order.  

Previously, Mr. Finan founded a technology start-up specializing in big data analytics, and developed non-profit programs to train veterans for careers in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors.  Mr. Finan served seven years in the U.S. Air Force as a pilot and intelligence officer, including a combat tour in Iraq where he worked as an intelligence officer and counterterrorism liaison to the Iraqi government.  After attending public schools in northeastern Pennsylvania, Mr. Finan studied Political Science and Arabic at the United States Air Force Academy.  Mr. Finan is a Truman National Security Project Fellow and has written on Internet freedom, privacy and security issues.  His proposal for a military cyber-assistance campaign to establish a digital safe haven in Syria was recently featured in the New York Times.

Lawrence J. Korb

Dr. Lawrence J. Korb is a Senior Fellow at American Progress. He is also a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Prior to joining American Progress, he was a senior fellow and director of national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. From July 1998 to October 2002 he was council vice president, director of studies, and holder of the Maurice Greenberg Chair.

Prior to joining the council, Dr. Korb served as director of the Center for Public Policy Education and senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution; dean of the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh; vice president of corporate operations at the Raytheon Company; and director of defense studies at the American Enterprise Institute.

Dr. Korb served as assistant secretary of defense from 1981 through 1985. In that position, he administered about 70 percent of the defense budget. For his service in that position, he was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service. Dr. Korb served on active duty for four years as Naval Flight Officer, and retired from the Naval Reserve with the rank of captain. He received his Ph.D. in political science from the State University of New York at Albany and has held full-time teaching positions at the University of Dayton, the Coast Guard Academy, and the Naval War College.

Dr. Korb has authored, co-authored, edited, or contributed to more than 20 books and written more than 100 articles on national security issues. His books include The Joint Chiefs of Staff: The First Twenty-five Years; The Fall and Rise of the Pentagon; American National Security: Policy and Process, Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy; Reshaping America’s Military; A New National Security Strategy in an Age of Terrorists, Tyrants, and Weapons of Mass Destruction; Serving America’s Veterans; and Military Reform.

His articles have appeared in such journals as Foreign Affairs, Public Administration Review and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Over the past decade Mr. Korb has made over 2,000 appearances as a commentator on such shows as “The Today Show,” “The Early Show,” “Good Morning America,” “Face the Nation,” “This Week,” “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” “60 Minutes,” “Larry King Live,” “The O’Reilly Factor,” and “Hannity and Colmes.” His more than 100 op-ed pieces have appeared in such major newspapers as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Baltimore Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Christian Science Monitor.

Elizabeth Economy

Dr. Elizabeth Economy will present a timely discussion on Chinese domestic and foreign policy issues, as well as U.S.-China relations. Dr. Economy is the C.V. Starr senior fellow and director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.  An award-winning author of The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China’s Future (Cornell University Press, 2004; Second Edition, 2010), Dr. Economy, has published articles in foreign policy and scholarly journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Harvard Business Review; and op-eds in the New York Times and Washington Post, among others. She frequently testifies before Congress and appears on television and radio. Dr. Economy is vice chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of China and serves on the board of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development. She is currently writing two books: one on China's rise and its geopolitical and strategic implications and another on China’s global quest for resources with Michael Levi. She blogs on CFR’s Asia Unbound (www.blogs.cfr.org/asia).

Dr. Economy received her PhD from the University of Michigan, her AM from Stanford University and her BA with honors from Swarthmore College. In 2008, she received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Vermont Law School. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.