Speaker biographies
Mauro De Lorenzo is a resident fellow in foreign and defense policy studies at AEI, where he studies entrepreneurship in developing countries as well as Chinese investment and political influence outside the Pacific region. In 2005, he worked with Afghan construction companies in Kabul, and prior to that was a research associate at both the American University in Cairo and the Makerere Institute of Social Research in Kampala, Uganda, focusing on refugee policy and the wars in Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. In 2002, he researched and was associate producer of a BBC documentary film about U.S. food aid to Africa and the misdiagnosis of famine.
Alex de Waal is a researcher and writer on African issues. He is a director of the Social Science Research Council program on AIDS and social transformation, and a director of Justice Africa in London. During his career he has studied the social, political, and health dimensions of famine, war, genocide, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, especially in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes. He has been at the forefront of mobilizing African and international responses to these problems.
René Lemarchand is as an emeritus professor of political science at the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. He specializes in political modernization and development, African political systems, genocide studies, refugee movements, and governance and democracy. Mr. Lemarchand served as a regional consultant for USAID in West Africa on issues of democracy and governance. He is well-known for academic contributions to the concepts of clientelism and ethnicity, as well as for his work on the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi.
Louisa Lombard is a university scholar studying cultural anthropology at Duke University. Her dissertation will focus on conflict and sovereignty in central Africa. She also works as a consultant to the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based research institute. She most recently visited the Central African Republic, including the northeastern Sudan border region, in December 2006, under the framework of the Sudan Human Security Baseline Assessment. She has lived in and worked throughout central and East Africa, and has written for publications including Legal Affairs and Foreignpolicy.com.
James C. Swan has been deputy assistant secretary for African affairs since December 2006. In this capacity, he is responsible for the Department of State’s offices for central Africa, East Africa, and regional security affairs. Immediately prior to this assignment, Mr. Swan was the director of analysis for Africa in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (2005–06). A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, Mr. Swan has devoted most of his professional life to countries facing complex political transitions, notably in Africa. His overseas assignments have included service as deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassies in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (2001–04), and in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo (1998-2001). Earlier in his career he was the Somalia watcher in Nairobi, Kenya (1994–96) and chief of the political section in Yaounde, Cameroon (1992–94). He has also served in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Managua, Nicaragua. In Washington, he was the Zaire (later Democratic Republic of the Congo) desk officer (1996–98).
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