Keynote Speaker: Dr. Azza Karam
Prof. Dr. Azza Karam 
serves as the Secretary General of Religions for Peace – the largest multi- religious leadership platform with 92 national and 6 regional Interreligious Councils. She also holds a Professorship of Religion and Development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, in The Netherlands – of which she is a citizen.
She served as a Senior Advisor on Culture, at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and as Coordinator/Chair of the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion and Development (UN IATF-R&D); and founder of the Multi Faith Advisory Council of the UN IATF- R&D. In those capacities, she coordinated engagement with members of a Global Interfaith Network for Population and Development with over 600 faith-based organizations from all regions of the world, representing all religions and interreligious affiliations. She was the Lead Facilitator for the United Nations’ Strategic Learning Exchanges on Religion, Development and Diplomacy, building on a legacy of serving as a trainer cum facilitator of inter- cultural leadership and management in the Arab region as well as Europe and Central Asia.
Professor Karam has served in different positions in the United Nations since 2004, as well as other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations since the early 1990s, such as International
IDEA,OSCE, and Religions for Peace. Simultaneously, she lectured in various academic institutions in Europe, in North America (including the United States Military Academy/West Point), Africa and the Middle East.
Her Ph.D. in 1996, focused on Political Islam, and became her first book in Arabic (her mother tongue) and in English. She has since published widely, and in several languages, on international political dynamics, including democratization, human rights, peace and security, gender, religious engagement and sustainable development. She was born in Egypt, and now lives in the United States.
The Law and Governance of Cultural Heritage
Yiannis Avramides
Yiannis Avramides is Senior Director of Programs at the World Monuments Fund. In his current role he supports the lifecycle of a segment of the project portfolio, collaborating with field staff on project management and decision-making, while also being responsible for the internal administration of the Programs department. He is additionally responsible for performance monitoring and program evaluation efforts across the organization. In prior roles, he contributed to and led the administration of the World Monuments Watch program, the organization’s flagship program that seeks to discover, spotlight, and take action on behalf of heritage places facing challenges of direct relevance to global society. He has participated in conservation field projects in Cambodia, France, Greece, Haiti, and the Old City of Jerusalem, and has been a member of the team behind the development of the Arches heritage inventory and management system. Yiannis received a BSE in Civil Engineering and Architecture from Princeton University in 2008 and an MS in Historic Preservation from Columbia University in 2010.
Dr. Mounir Bouchenaki
Mounir Bouchenaki is Special Advisor to the UNESCO Director General and to the ICCROM Director General. He was the Director-General of ICCROM from 2005-2011 and the initiator of the ICCROM/Sharjah Centre. His appointment at ICCROM followed a long career of 25 years at UNESCO, where he held roles as Assistant Director-General for Culture, Director of the Division of Cultural Heritage, Director of the World Heritage Center at UNESCO, and Director of Antiquities, Museums, and Historic Monuments in Algeria. He holds a Ph.D. in archaeology and ancient history. He has been awarded the medals of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Officier des Arts et des Lettres, and Commander des Arts et Lettres. He was a member of the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution and the Advisory Board of the State Hermitage Museum, and an ad hoc expert for the safeguarding of the site of Angkor Wat, among many other roles and honors in the field of cultural heritage.
Aviva Rosenthal
Aviva Rosenthal is the Director of the Smithsonian’s Office of International Relations (OIR). She has more than 20 years of diverse experience in government, business, and the non-profit sector. At OIR, Aviva oversees the development, growth, and implementation of the Smithsonian’s global footprint, which includes integrating the Institution’s strategic priorities into its vast array of international projects, programs, research, relationships, and activities and effectively communicating its global impact to a wide variety of stakeholders. She stewards the Institution’s strategic partnerships with international governments, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and other multi-lateral entities, as well as ongoing collaborations between the Smithsonian and various U.S. federal agencies including the U.S. Department of State.
Joseph Klingler
Joseph Klingler is a partner in the International Litigation and Arbitration Department of Foley Hoag, LLP in Washington, DC. A graduate of Harvard Law School (JD, 2014) and The Fletcher School (MALD, 2014), he exclusively represents sovereign States and State-owned entities before the world’s principal dispute resolution bodies.
Joseph is on the legal team representing Armenia against Azerbaijan before the International Court of Justice in proceedings under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which involve Armenia’s denunciation of Azerbaijan’s systematic efforts to destroy Armenian cultural heritage in areas it controls. He has published extensively on matters of international law and is an expert on treaty interpretation. He is a lecturer on treaty interpretation at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, and is co-authoring the 3rd edition of Oxford University Press’ preeminent volume Treaty Interpretation. Joseph was named by Legal500 as a key lawyer in its “Dispute Resolution: International Arbitration” publication for 2021.
Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou
Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is Visiting Scholar in the International Studies Program at Boston College and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Her research interests and policy work focus on the intersections of geopolitics, religion, and human rights, with particular focus on the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. Prodromou served a diplomatic appointment on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (2004- 2012), and she was a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion & Foreign Policy Working Group (2011-2015). The author of edited volumes and book chapters, and widely published in academic journals such as Journal of World Christianity, Journal of Democracy, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Orbis, and Survival, her current research and publications deal Russian influence-building through religious soft and sharp power, and Turkey’s religious homogenization policy at the intersection of cultural heritage policy and human rights regime. She has taught at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she was the founding faculty director of the Initiative on Religion, Law, and Diplomacy; at Boston University; and, at Princeton University. She holds a Ph.D. and an S.M. in political science from MIT, an MALD from The Fletcher School, and a B.A. in history and international relations from Tufts University.
Rising Tides: Climate Change and Cultural Heritage
Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine
Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine is the Chieftess and Head of State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation. She is a published author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, environmentalist, film consultant, and “The Art-ivist.” She is the founder of the premiere advocacy organization for the continuation of Gullah/Geechee culture, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. Queen Quet has advocated for the preservation of Gullah/Geechee land and culture at international forums like the UNFCCC Conference of Parties, as a White House advisor and an expert at the UN Oceans Action Summit.
Adam Markham
Adam Markham is interim director of the Climate & Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. He helps lead UCS efforts to persuade policymakers to rapidly and effectively respond to the climate crisis, focusing particularly on climate impacts to national parks, protected areas, and cultural heritage. In 2014 he co-authored the UCS report National Landmarks at Risk, which detailed climate impacts on US historic and archaeological sites. In 2016, he was the lead author for a UNESCO/UNEP/UCS report, World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate, which helped bring global attention to the threat of climate change to World Heritage sites.
Carlos Alvarado Quesada
Carlos Alvarado Quesada served as the 48th President of the Republic of Costa Rica from May 2018 to May 2022, when his constitutionally limited term ended. Under President Alvarado’s leadership, Costa Rica contributed to global efforts to combat climate change and defended human rights, democracy, and multilateralism. President Alvarado is a recipient of the 2022 Planetary Leadership Award by the National Geographic Society for his outstanding commitment and action toward protecting the ocean and in September 2019 he received on behalf of his country the Champion on the Earth Award for policy leadership, presented by the United Nations Environment Program. In November 2019, he was named one of TIME’s 100 Next emerging leaders around the world who are shaping the future and defining the next generation of leadership. President Alvarado’s prior government leadership service includes a tenure as Minister of Labor and Social Security (2016-2018) and as Minister of Human Development and Social Inclusion (2014 – 2016) and Executive President of the Joint Social Welfare Institute, responsible for implementing social protection and promoting poverty alleviation programs. Before entering politics, he worked for Procter and Gamble, Latin America.
Dr. Salma Sabour
Salma is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at the School of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton. Her current project involves developing socio-economic and cultural impact assessments on the Vietnam coast to better evaluate how compound flooding from sea-level rise, tropical cyclones, and other extreme events affect the livelihoods of coastal communities, including their assets and values. Salma is also the Networking Coordinator of the National Geographic project Preserving Legacies: A Future for our Past, which envisions a world where we celebrate our diverse cultural heritage and safeguard every site against current and future climate impacts. The project aims to empower every community with the scientific knowledge and technical training to achieve appropriate place and people-based climate adaptation plans by developing a series of virtual training on climate literacy, adaptation approaches, and community-led values-mapping techniques. Salma holds a double diploma in physical and environmental engineering from the University of Liege in Belgium and Ecole Centrale Paris in France.
Cultural Heritage Preservation in Crisis
Dr. Sima Samar
Dr. Sima Samar is an Afghan woman’s and human rights advocate, activist and a social worker within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women’s Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. Dr. Samar was appointed as a member of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement in December 2019. In addition to her role as a Panel member, she is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation. Previously, Dr. Samar held the positions of Special Envoy of the President of Afghanistan and State Minister for Human Rights and International Affairs. She has also served as Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), as Minister of Women’s Affairs and as one of the only two women in the transition government at that time; Vice-Chair of the Emergency Loya Jirga and as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan.
Dr. Monica Duffy Toft
Monica Duffy Toft is a Professor of International Politics and Director of the Center for Strategic Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Before joining Fletcher, Professor Monica Duffy Toft taught at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. While at Harvard, she directed the Initiative on Religion in International Affairs and was the assistant director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies. She was educated at the University of Chicago (MA and Ph.D. in political science) and at the University of California, Santa Barbara (BA in political science and Slavic languages and literature, summa cum laude). Prior to this, she spent four years in the United States Army as a Russian linguist. Monica’s areas of research include international security, ethnic and religious violence, civil wars and demography. Her recent books include: Securing the Peace, (Princeton); Political Demography, (Oxford); and God’s Century, (Norton). In addition she has published numerous scholarly articles and editorials on civil wars, territory and nationalism, demography, and religion in global politics. Monica can also be found on Twitter @monicaduffytoft. Affiliations: Monica is a research associate of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford and at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She is a supernumerary fellow at Brasenose College, University of Oxford, a Global Scholar of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Political Instability Task Force. In 2008 the Carnegie Foundation of New York named her a Carnegie Scholar for her research on religion and violence, in 2012 she was named a Fulbright scholar, and most recently served as the World Politics Fellow at Princeton University.
Anna Kijas
Anna Kijas is the Head of Lilly Music Library at Tufts University. She holds a master’s degrees in library and information science from Simmons College, music with a concentration in musicology from Tufts University, as well as a bachelor of arts in music literature and performance from Northeastern University. She is the co-founder of Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online, an initiative focused on safeguarding and preserving the digital cultural heritage of Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War. Her publications include a book entitled The Life and Music of Teresa Carreño (1853-1917): A Guide to Research, and a digital project, which documents Carreño’s performance career with primary source materials, metadata, and transcriptions, as well as explores her performances and texts through data analysis and visualization tools.
Religious and Cultural Literacy in International Affairs Workshop
Rev. Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward is the Associate Director for the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative (RLPI) at Harvard Divinity School. Most recently Hayward served as a senior advisor for Religion and Inclusive Societies at the U.S. Institute of Peace and a 2020–21 Fellow in Religion and Public Life. At the USIP , Hayward led efforts to understand religious dimensions of conflict and advance efforts engaging religious actors and organizations in peacebuilding. From 2010–2012 she coordinated an initiative exploring the intersection of women, religion, conflict and peacebuilding in partnership with the Berkley Center at Georgetown University and the World Faiths Development Dialogue. She co-edited a book on the topic entitled “Women, Religion and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen.” Hayward studied Buddhism in Nepal and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. She holds a bachelor’s degree in comparative religions from Tufts University and master’s degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard Divinity School.