Speakers

Ghanya al-naqeb

Ghanya Al-Naqeb
Research fellowship holder
Centre Agriculture Food Environment
Speaker: Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Dr. Ghanya Al-Naqeb, is an Associate Professor of Nutritional Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Sana`a, Yemen. Currently, she is a research fellowship holder at the Centre Agriculture Food Environment , University of Trento, Italy (Scholar at Risk-University of Trento Protection Project).

Anna Bosbach

Anna Bosbach
Graduate student, Gender Studies
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Speaker: Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Anna Bosbach is a graduate student of the Gender Studies Master Program at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. After successfully completing the Student at Risk Advocacy Seminar (at the RUB in 2021), she now works as a research assistant for the Scholars at Risk Program at the International Office of the Ruhr-University Bochum. In addition to her graduate studies and her work for SAR, Anna is a trained social worker and bespoke tailor. Last but not least, Anna is a feminist and mother of a two-year-old.

Alena Buinskaya

Alena Buinskaya
Ph.D. student
California Institute of Technology
Speaker: Session 3: Protecting expression in Belarus

Alena Buinskaya is a third-year Ph.D. student in Social Sciences at Caltech. She holds a B.Sc. degree in applied mathematics from Kyung Hee University (Seoul, South Korea) and an M.A. in economics from Seoul National University (Seoul, South Korea). Her research focuses on institutional design, and she hopes to use her expertise to help Belarus build stronger government and civil institutions. Alena is particularly passionate about environmental justice and equal access to education. She also volunteers with Belarus Freedom Forum, a U.S.-based advocacy group.

Sumi Cho

Sumi Cho
Director of Strategic Initiatives, The African American Policy Forum
Speaker for Session 4: Legislative attacks on academic freedom in the United States

Sumi Cho serves as the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the African American Policy Forum, leading the #TruthBeTold campaign. Prior to joining AAPF, she taught Critical Race Theory and Race, Racism & U.S. Law for twenty-five years along with other traditional law classes at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago. In 2017, she was awarded the university’s highest excellence in teaching award. She was also the inaugural recipient of the Derrick A. Bell Distinguished Service award from the Association of American Law Schools’ Minority Section. She speaks nationally on issues of affirmative action, sexual harassment, intersectionality, multiracial politics and coalitions and critical theory and holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies as well as a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Tatsiana Chulitskaya

Tatsiana Chulitskaya
Senior Researcher
Vytautas Magnus University.
Lecturer in Political Science
European Humanities University
Speaker for Session 3: Protecting expression in Belarus

Tatsiana Chulitskaya is Senior researcher, Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy, Vytautas Magnus University and academic director of the School of Young Managers in Public Administration (SYMPA), Belarus. Tatsiana has a profound experience in different Belarusian civil society related projects. Her research interests are public policy analysis, civil society in non-democratic regimes, reforms in the post-Soviet states, Belarusian studies, welfare state and social policy of the post-Soviet states.

Emily Houh

Emily Houh
Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts at the University of Cincinnati College of Law
Speaker for Session 4: Legislative attacks on academic freedom in the United States

Emily Houh is the Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts at the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she has been teaching contracts, commercial law, and critical race theory since 2003, and is a co-founder of the Nathaniel R. Jones Center for Race, Gender, and Social Justice.

Nyi Nyi Kyaw

Nyi Nyi Kyaw
Fellow, Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI)Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen, Germany
Speaker for Session 1: Protesting military rule in Myanmar

A Myanmar national, Nyi Nyi Kyaw is a political scientist. He is interested in contentious politics, identity, religion and constitutional politics, among other topics. He was in Myanmar from December 2020 until June 2021, bearing witness to the February 1 coup and the oppression that followed and is still ongoing. He is now based in Germany as Fellow at Kulturwissenschaftliches Institut Essen (KWI)/Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities. He is currently working on a manuscript on the Spring Revolution in Myanmar.

Lance Leibman

Lance Leibman
Professor of Law Emeritus and Dean Emeritus
Columbia Law School
Speaker for Session 2: Responding to the crisis in Afghanistan

Lance Liebman is a SAR Board member. He taught law for 50 years at Harvard and Columbia. For 15 years he was Director of the American Law Institute, which seeks to improve American law and works with similar institutions in other countries. His legal subjects include Property Law, Employment Law, and Social Welfare law.

Metra Mehran

Metra Mehran
Cofounder
Feminine Perspectives Campaign
Speaker for Session 2: Responding to the crisis in Afghanistan

Metra Mehran is a social entrepreneur with an interest in women’s empowerment and education. She is a Fulbright scholar, currently working with Women Scholarship Endowment Program, and fellow with the National Center for Dialogue and Peace. She also co-founded the Feminine Perspectives Movement and previously worked with UNDP, World Bank and DFID.

Vida Mehrannia

Vida Mehrannia
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Vida Mehrannia is the wife of Dr. Ahmadreza Djalali. She is accepting the SAR Courage to Think award on behalf of her husband Ahmadreza who is unjustly detained in Iran. She is honored to be here and thankful to Scholars at Risk for this award and for your constant fight for Ahmadreza and other scholars.

Maksimas Milta

Maksimas Milta
Associate Analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center; ReThink.CEE Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States
Speaker for Session 3: Protecting expression in Belarus

Maksimas Milta is an Associate Analyst at the Eastern Europe Studies Center and a ReThink.CEE Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US. He is a frequent commentator on Belarus affairs and a host of the documentary series about the role of women in the 2020 Belarusian protest, broadcasted via the Lithuanian National TV. For the last 8 years, Maksimas led communications and development at the European Humanities University, a Belarusian University-in-Exile in Vilnius, Lithuania. Currently, Maksimas is a graduate student in European & Russian Studies at Yale.

Alex Kaung Myat Ahkar

Alex Kaung Myat Ahkar
Lawyer & Head of Spring University Myanmar Law School
Speaker for Session 1: Protesting military rule in Myanmar

Kaung Myat Ahkar is a Higher Grade Pleader from Myanmar currently based in Washington DC, USA. He is a Fulbright Scholar graduated with an LLM from Georgetown University. Alex is the head of Law School at Spring University Myanmar; an education institution established during the Spring Revolution to support students with continuous quality legal education. He is also a part of an advocacy group called Students for Free Burma, advocating for US's support for pro-democracy movements in Myanmar.

Claudia Padovani

Claudia Padovani
Associate Professor
University of Padova
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Claudia Padovani is Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Padua (Italy). Padovani is one of the 3 co-coordinators of the SAR Italy national section, which comprises 30 universities. She co-chairs the SAR Italy Working Group on Advocacy and co-directs the Padua Students’ Advocacy Seminar; and is the SAR Italy representative in the European Coordinating Committee for Academic Freedom Advocacy.

Jen Peterson

Jen Peterson
Faculty Lead
Student Advocacy Seminar/Day
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Dr. Jenny Peterson is an Associate Professor of Teaching at the University of British Columbia's Department of Political Science. She has run SAR Student Advocacy Seminars since 2018, guiding student projects and advocacy on several scholars in prison. She is the co-founder of the UBC Scholars at Risk and Human Rights Collective.

Ole Petter Ottersen

Ole Petter Ottersen
President
Karolinska Institutet
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Ole Petter Otterson is president of Karolinska Institutet which has worked closely with Scholars at Risk to advocate for the release of imprisoned researcher and KI alumnus Ahmadreza Djalali. He took office as president of Karolinska Institutet on August 1, 2017 after having served eight years (2009-2017) as president of the University of Oslo (UiO). From 2002 to 2009 he was director of Centre for Molecular Biology and Neuroscience - one of Norway's Centres of Excellence. He has served as chief editor of Neuroscience (2006-2009) and as panel leader in the European research Council (ERC Advanced Grants) from the start to 2012. He was founding chair (2016 - 2017) of a newly established European university network (the Guild of Research Intensive Universities) and chaired the Lancet Commission that studied the political determinants of global health inequalities.

Robert Quinn

Robert Quinn
Executive Director
Scholars at Risk
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Robert Quinn is the founding Executive Director of the Scholars at Risk Network and host of the Free to Think podcast. Mr. Quinn formerly served as a member of the Council of the Magna Charta Observatory and Executive Director of the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund.

Clare Robinson

Clare Robinson
Advocacy Director
Scholars at Risk
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Clare Robinson is Advocacy Director at Scholars at Risk, where she leads efforts to identify, report on and respond to attacks on higher education communities worldwide.

Denise Roche

Denise Roche
Advocacy Manager
Scholars at Risk Europe
Speaker for Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Denise is Advocacy Manager at SAR Europe, leading the European Action for Academic Freedom project to expand, coordinate and support advocacy in Europe to promote academic freedom.

Omar Sharifi

Omar Sharifi
Country Director, American Institute of Afghanistan Studies
Speaker for Session 2: Responding to the crisis in Afghanistan

Omar Sharifi is Assistant Professor at the American University of Afghanistan and Senior Research Fellow and Kabul Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies. He is a Asia Society Fellow and member of Afghan 21 Young Leaders Forum. He graduated from Kabul Medical Institute in 2003. Following his medical studies, he worked as Head of research and publications for the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society in Kabul, and as Director of the Open Media Fund for Afghanistan. From 2006 to 2008, he studied Cultural Anthropology at Columbia University in New York under a Fulbright Fellowship. He also received a fellowship, through the Rumsfeld Foundation at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He completed his PhD in anthropology from Boston University in 2019.

Oleksandr Shtokvych

Oleksandr Shtokvych
Head of OSUN Secretariat
Speaker for Session 1: Protesting military rule in Myanmar

Oleksandr Shtokvych is a Senior Program Manager at the Yehuda Elkana Center for Higher Education, where he leads the Secretariat of the Open Society University Network (OSUN). He is Co-Director of the OSUN Threatened Scholars Integration Initiative. He also manages CEU's research and outreach in support of higher education in Myanmar.

Catharine Stimpson

Catherine Stimpson
University Professor and Dean Emerita
New York University
Free to Think 2021 report launch & Courage to Think Award presentation

Catherine R. Stimpson is University Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at New York University