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Leaders In International Higher Education
2012 Annual Conference Speakers
AIEA is pleased to announce the following keynote speakers at the 2012 AIEA Conference:
EBOO PATEL
Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core
The Faith Line
One hundred years ago, the great scholar W.E.B. DuBois famously said that the problem of the 20th century would be the problem of the color line. While the challenge of engaging racial and ethnic differences remains with us, the issue of religious conflict dominates our headlines. While we typically see faith presented in the media as a barrier of division or a bomb of destruction, religion has also been a bridge of cooperation. What role can higher education play in positively addressing the challenge of the faith line, and how can international education and partnerships inspire our students to build interfaith bridges?
Named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Eboo Patel is the Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a Chicago-based organization building the global interfaith youth movement. Author of the award-winning book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, Eboo is also a regular contributor to The Washington Post, USA Today and CNN. He served on President Obama’s inaugural Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship.
UNITY DOW
Lawyer, activist and writer
Unity Dow is a lawyer, human rights activist and writer from
Botswana who was the first female high court judge in Botswana’s history.
She is the author of four novels and Saturday is for Funerals, a
non-fiction book about the Botswana AIDS crisis co-authored with
Harvard researcher Max Essex. As a lawyer, Dow earned acclaim for her
stances on women’s human rights and made a name for herself in the
landmark Attorney General of Botswana vs. Dow case that effectively
overturned a law banning women from passing their nationality over to
their children. She worked as a partner in Botswana’s first all-female
law firm and was the first woman to serve as a judge on the Botswana
High Court. Currently serving her second term as Commissioner of the
International Commission of Jurists, she has been appointed the chair of
its Executive Committee. She was one of the three international judges
on the Kenya Court that oversaw the passage of its constitution.
ABIODUN WILLIAMS
Vice President, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention
United States Institute for Peace
Abiodun Williams 2012 AIEA Conference Speech (330 KB)
Williams began his career as an academic and taught international relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, University of Rochester, and Tufts University. In 1990 he was awarded the Constantine E. Maguire Medal for outstanding service to the School of Foreign Service and its students, and in 1992, he won the School’s teaching award. He was the recipient of a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs in 1990.
Williams has served on the boards of the Academic Council on the U.N. System, the United World Colleges, Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific, Jesuit International Volunteers, and QSI International School of Skopje. He holds an M.A. (Hons) from Edinburgh University, and M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has published widely on conflict prevention, international peacekeeping and multilateral negotiations.
JORGE ALMEIDA GUIMARÃES
President, CAPES
Jorge Almeida Guimarães, President of CAPES, the Brazilian Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education, holds a Ph.D. from Federal University of São Paulo and a post-doctoral in Biochemistry at the National Institute of Health, USA. He has held teaching and research positions in several Brazilian Universities and has worked as Visiting Research Fellow at Henry Ford Hospital, Cornell University Medical College and at the University of Arizona. He was CEO of the Science and Technology Government Agencies in Brazil and is the recipient of several awards including the Brazilian National Great Cross of the Order of Scientific Merit.
GLAUCIUS OLIVA
President, Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development
Glaucius Oliva is a professor at the University of São Paulo Institute of Physics of São Carlos, where he also directs the National Institute of Science and Technology of Structural Biotechnology and Medicinal Chemistry in Infectious Diseases. He is President of the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq. He is a Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and received the Medal of Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit.