Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Speaker Biographies
Ali Al-Ahmed is the founder and executive director of Saudi Institute in Washington, an independent organization focusing on Saudi Affairs. Mr. Al-Ahmed is a frequent consultant to major world media outlets including CBS News, CNN, PBS, Fox News, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press. Al-Ahmed holds a master's degree in international finance from Saint Thomas University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mohamed Eljahmi is a Principle Software Engineer with over 21 years experience in the software industry. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston (1983). For the past two years, he has been working at Kronos, designing and implementing custom solutions for their customers. He is co-founder and member of the Board of Directors for the American Libyan Freedom Alliance (www.alfa-online.org) which seeks to promote a Libyan democratic society.
Tanya Gilly comes from a family of Kurdish political activists opposed to Saddam Hussein’s rule. Her father was arrested on several occasions for his resistance activities, and the family was forced to flee Iraq in 1970s. Ms. Gilly has worked for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (www.puk.org). She is dedicated to advancing democracy and pluralism in a free Iraq.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI, focusing on Arab democracy and domestic politics in Iran and Iraq. Before returning to AEI, Mr. Rubin was a political adviser in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and an assistant on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He was a visiting lecturer on international relations and history at Hebrew University (Jerusalem) from 2001-2002 and at the Universities of Sulaymani, Salahuddin, and Duhok (Iraqi Kurdistan) from 2000-2001. From 1999-2000, he was a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a visiting lecturer in history at Yale University.