BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Ruth Bevan-Dunner
David W. Petegorsky Professor of Political Science, Yeshiva University, and Director (since 2004) of its Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center for International Affairs.
Professor Bevan specializes in political theory and European politics. She received her Ph.D. from New York University; her M.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and her B.A. from Grinnell College. As a fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Dr. Bevan completed two years of doctoral level studies at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Her research concerns have focused on problems of democratic community-building. Her current research emphasizes the European Union’s foreign policy approach to international community-building in a globalizing world, and its tensions with the United States in defining this world order.
She is a member of the European Union Studies Association and the Council of European Studies; and frequently delivers papers for the International Political Science Association and the International Studies Association. Recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Relm Foundation, the Earhart Foundation and IREX, she has also been a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Her published works include Burke and Marx: A Revisionist View, two edited volumes, a book chapter and journal articles.
Stephen Blank
As of 2013, Senior Fellow for Russia at the American Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.; previously Professor (since 1989) of Russian National Security Studies at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College.
In 1998-2001 Dr. Blank was the Douglas MacArthur Professor of Research at the War College. Prior to this appointment he was Associate Professor for Soviet Studies at the Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education of Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base. Dr. Blank's M.A. and Ph.D. are in Russian History from the University of Chicago. He has published over 750 articles and monographs on Soviet/Russian, U.S., Asian, and European military and foreign policies.
His most recent book is Russo-Chinese Energy Relations: Politics in Command (London: Global Markets Briefing, 2006). He has also edited and published, among many others: Prospects for US-Russian Security Cooperation (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2009), Natural Allies?: Regional Security in Asia and Prospects for Indo-American Strategic Cooperation (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2005). Dr. Blank is also the author of a study of the Soviet Commissariat of Nationalities, The Sorcerer as Apprentice: Stalin's Commissariat of Nationalities (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994) and co-editor of The Soviet Military and the Future (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992).
Marinko Bobić
Ph.D. student in International Studies at the University of Trento, Italy.
Areas of expertise are geopolitics, international relations, and international security. Fluent in Serbo-Croatian and English, Marinko received his prior education in the Netherlands and Canada, and, apart from academia, is a contributing analyst at Wikistrat Inc., an online geo-strategic analysis firm.
Guy Burton
Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Nottingham (Malaysia campus) in Kuala Lumpur.
Formerly Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Politics and International Relations at the University of Kurdistan-Hewler in northern Iraq, where he taught on the politics of development, US foreign policy and the politics and international relations of the Gulf states.
Guy’s previous research relates to Palestinian development and Latin American politics and public policy (especially that of Brazil), with publications featured inThird World Quarterly, Conflict, Security & Development,Latin American Perspectivesand theJournal of Policy Practice. Dr. Burton received his Ph.D. in politics from the London School of Economics in 2009.
Lena Dabova
PhD student at Saint Petersburg State University, School of International Relations and School of Law, where she worked briefly as an assistant to the Vice-Rector of Public Affairs.
Her areas of concentration are: American foreign policy; the history of territorial disputes in the Asia-Pacific region; energy and security politics in the Asia-Pacific region; Russia and Eurasia affairs; and American and European doctrines of international law. She currently resides in the United States and is working on her dissertation.
Tolga Demiryol
Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Administration in the School of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Istanbul Kemerburgaz University in Turkey.
Tolga Demiryol received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Virginia. He has taught courses on political science and international relations at the University of New Haven and Quinnipiac University. Dr. Demiryol specializes in foreign policy analysis, and his most recent research focuses on the geopolitics of energy.
Yoel Guzansky
Research Fellow in the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), nearTelAvivUniversity.
He joined the INSS after coordinating work on the Iraniannuclear challenge at the National Security Council in the Prime Minister's Office, where he was responsible for coordinating staff work and projects, preparing assessments, andmaking policy recommendations for decision makers. A graduate of the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, he is presently a doctoral candidate in international relations atHaifaUniversity.He has published peer-reviewed work in academic journals, and comments on international affairs in national and international media.
Mikhail Ilyin
Vice President for Russia, Central and South Asia and the Middle East of IPSA, the International Political Science Association, he heads the Center for Advanced Methods in Social Sciences and Humanities of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
After graduating from Moscow University as a philologist, Mikhail Ilyin shifted to political science and researched political discourse analysis, conceptual history, geopolitics, evolutionary morphology and comparative politics. His second Ph.D. (doctor of sciences by Russian nomination) was on the evolutionary typology of political systems. Currently he is professor of comparative politics at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (HSE) as well as on the faculty of Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO University), visiting professor at the Baltic Federal University (Kantiana), and editor of the yearbook “METHOD”, he served as President of the Russian Political Science Association in 1997 – 2001.
Aharon Klieman
Dr. Nahum Goldmann Professor Emeritus in Diplomatic Studies at Tel Aviv University and Founding Director of the Abba Eban Graduate Program in Diplomatic Studies.
He is senior editor of The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs and chair of the Research Committee on Geopolitics of The International Political Science Association. A member of Tel-Aviv University's Political Science Department since 1969, he has held visiting appointments in International Relations and Israel Studies at Georgetown University, The University of Chicago, The University of Denver, The University of Michigan, U.C.L.A, The Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, and Trinity College, Dublin. Areas of teaching and research interest include: Balance of Power Theory, Geopolitics, Foreign Policy Decision Making, the Middle East in World Affairs, Israeli Foreign Relations, the Arab-Israeli Conflict & Peace Process, and Traditions of Jewish Statecraft.
Artyom Lukin
Deputy Director for Research in the School of Regional and International Studies (SRIS) at the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), located in Vladivostok, Russia. He is also Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations.
Artyom Lukin holds a master’s degree in International Relations and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Far Eastern National University. His main research interests are international relations and international political economy in the Asia-Pacific and Northeast Asia; Russian foreign policy; Russia’s engagement with the Asia-Pacific; social, political and economic processes in the Russian Far East. The author or co-author of over 50 scholarly publications in Russian and English, he has been involved in numerous research and publication projects both in Russia and abroad.
David Newman
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.Honored in June, 2013 as Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.).
Originally from Great Britain, David Newman immigrated to Israel in 1982 and has been with Ben-Gurion University since 1987, first as a faculty member in the Department of Geography and later (from 1997) as the founder and first chairperson of the Department of Politics and Government. His degrees are from the University of London and the University of Durham, both in the UK.
Since 1998, Newman has been the chief editor ofthe international journal, Geopolitics, a quarterly academic peer-reviewed journal published by Taylor & Francis. Newman teaches political geography. His research and publications focus on the territorial dimensions of ethnic conflict and the contemporary significance and functions of borders.In recent years he has also been involved in the public debate concerning the role of politics in science and the nature of academic freedom. He has been involved in peace-related activities for the past 30 years.
Igor Okunev
Vice-Dean in the School of Political Science and Assistant Professor, the Department of Comparative Politics at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University).
Dr. Okunev has publications in Russian and English on political geography, geopolitics, federalism and comparative politics. He is an active participant in international conferences, and serves as Program Coordinator of the Research Committee on Geopolitics (RC-41) of the International Political Science Association.
Vânia Carvalho Pinto
Associate Professor of International Politics and International Relations at the University of Brasília in Brazil.
She has studied in Portugal (Coimbra), the Netherlands (Leiden), the United Kingdom (Exeter), and Germany (Hildesheim). She held a Visiting Researcher Position at the Supreme Council of Family Affairs in Sharjah from 2007-2008, and lectured at both the University of Exeter (UK) and at the University of Hildesheim (Germany). Professor Carvalho Pinto is the author of several book chapters on gender and domestic politics in the United Arab Emirates, as well as Nation, State, and Gender Framing of Women´s Rights in the United Arab Emirates (1971-2009), a book published in 2012 by Ithaca Press.
Her research interests include international relations of the Arabian Gulf, especially the United Arab Emirates: foreign policy and self-image; nation building and gender; as well as Gulf-Latin American relations. She is currently working on a project on Emirati international self-images and foreign policy, funded by the Brazilian National Council of Scientific Research (2012-2013).
Scott Nicholas Romaniuk
Affiliated with the University of Aberdeen, Department of Politics and International Relations, and the University of St. Andrews, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence.
He specializes in military and strategic studies and international security and politics. His most recent books include Global Arctic: Sovereignty and the Future of the North (2012), New Wars: Terrorism and Security of the State (2013), Sowing the Seeds: Development and the Politics of Human Rights (2013), and Beyond Borders: Democracy and Civil Society in a Global Era (2013).
Ziv Rubinovitz
Program for Peace and Conflict Management, University of Haifa.
A Research Fellow at the Centre for International Studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science during 2012-13, he obtained his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Haifa in Israel. His dissertation dealt with the geopolitics underlining America’s use of force since 1898. Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem during academic year 2011-12, his current research topics are American foreign policy and grand strategy, international security and the Israel-Egypt peace process.
Thomas S. Wilkins
Senior Lecturer in International Security at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Educated in the UK (Birmingham) and Australia (Sydney) -- and as an Exchange Visitor in the USA (Johns Hopkins) and Japan (Tokyo)) -- he holds degrees in History (BA), International Relations (MA), and Security Studies (Ph.D.). He coordinates the curriculum for the Master of International Security Program at Sydney, teaching graduate courses on ‘Strategy and Security in the Asia-Pacific’; ‘War and Strategy’; and ‘Alliances and Coalition Warfare’. His research focus is broad including questions of Asian regional security dynamics, security architecture, alliances and other partnerships. He also has worked upon taxonomies of alignment and middle power theory, publishing in journals such as the Review of International Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies and International Relations of the Asia Pacific. He has been a Visiting Professor/Researcher at Universities of Tokyo, British Columbia, Amsterdam, San Francisco, and Nanyang Technical, and National Taiwan universities.
Igor Zevelev
Director of the Moscow Office of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Igor Zevelev holds a Doctor of Sciences degree in political science from the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) in Moscow, where he served as Head of Department and Deputy Director at the Center for Developing Countries. He has published five books and numerous articles; has held visiting professorships at the University of Washington, the University of California at Berkeley, Macalester College, San Jose State University; and also taught for five years at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany. He also served as well as Washington Bureau Chief for the RIA Novosti Russian News and Information Agency for three years.
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