Berkley Center

Mustafa Akyol is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, where he focuses on the intersection of public policy, Islam, and modernity. He is the author of books such as Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance (2021), and Why, as a  Muslim, I  Defend Liberty (2021). He was a long-time contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and he teaches classes at Boston College, Foreign Service Institute, and Acton University. “The Thinking Muslim,” a popular podcast, defined Akyol as “probably the most notable Muslim modernist and reformer.”

Thomas Banchoff is director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and serves as vice president for global engagement at Georgetown University, where he is a professor in the Department of Government and the Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Sue Breeze is a career diplomat. Her most recent posting was as the UK’s deputy ambassador to Venezuela. She has served as assistant private secretary to four Ministers for Europe and now works on a wide range of bilateral and multilateral policy desks in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.  She currently heads a team responsible for the UK’s work to promote and protect freedom of religion or belief, as well as a other equality issues such as the rights of women and children. She also works closely with the UK Envoy on Post-Holocaust Issues to ensure that the UK plays a leading role in Holocaust education, research, and remembrance internationally.

Thomas F. Farr is president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute, an NGO committed to achieving worldwide acceptance of religious liberty. Farr is also a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. From 2006 to 2018 he was an associate professor of the practice of religion and world affairs at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior fellow at the Berkley Center; during 2017 and 2018 he was director of the Religious Freedom Research Project and from 2011 to 2016 director of the Religious Freedom Project, both at the Berkley Center. After a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the Foreign Service—which included teaching at West Point and the Air Force Academy, serving as an advisor during U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva, and leading an interagency task force on verification provisions for the START II Treaty—Farr served as the first director of the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2003.

Pasquale Ferrara is the director general for political affairs and international security at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. He previously served as the ambassador of Italy to Algeria from 2016 to 2020. He joined the Italian Foreign Office in 1984 and has spent much of his career in Italy and abroad, including overseas postings in Chile, Brussels, and the United States. Ferrara holds a degree from the University of Naples.

Silvio Ferrari is a professor of canon law at the University of Milan and a professor of church-state relations at the University of Leuven in Belgium. An expert on the legal status of Islam in Europe, Ferrari is also the president of the International Consortium for Law and Religious Studies. In the past, he has served as a visiting professor in Paris and worked for numerous international organizations, including the European Union and the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe. Additionally, he founded, with the assistance of other professors, the European Consortium for Church and State Research. His main areas of interest include law and religion in West Europe, comparative law of religions, and relations between Israel and the Vatican.

Allen Hertzke is the David Ross Boyd Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma (OU) and faculty fellow in religious freedom for OU’s Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage. He is also a distinguished senior fellow with Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion. Hertzke has written extensively on religious advocacy in politics, particularly faith-motivated activism in foreign policy. His publications include Christianity and Freedom: Volume 1 Historical Perspectives and Christianity and Freedom: Volume 2 Contemporary Perspectives (2016, ed. with Timothy Samuel Shah), Religious Freedom in America: Constitutional Roots and Contemporary Challenges (2015, ed.), The Future of Religious Freedom: Global Challenges (2012, ed.), and Freeing God’s Children: The Unlikely Alliance for Global Human Rights (2004). He is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. From 2011 to 2016, Hertzke was an associate scholar with the Berkley Center's Religious Freedom Project and co-chair of its Christianity and Freedom Project steering committee from 2012 to 2013.

Ahmet T. Kuru is professor of political science at San Diego State University. Previously, he was assistant director of Columbia University’s Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion. His books include Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (2019) and Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey (2009).