Berkley Center

Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics and is director of research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; she is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, where she previously was an associate professor of the practice of religion, peace, and conflict resolution in the Department of Government. She is the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. Former president of the European Academy of Religion, her work on religion, political violence, and conflict resolution has garnered recognition and awards from numerous international organizations such as the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and the Royal Society for Arts in the United Kingdom. She is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University's Institute for Religion, Politics and Society. She teaches on contemporary Islam and politics at Harvard Divinity School and directs the Islam in the West program. Cesari is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

John Gallagher is a senior vice president at a New York capital management firm. Previously, he served in the Trump Transition Team on presidential appointments for national security and intelligence. Following 25 years in the U.S. Army, he worked in the non-profit sector on political reform, religious freedom, and extremism in the Middle East and Asia. Prior, he was a special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon, the commander of U.S. Central Command, and the commander of all Coalition forces in Afghanistan. From 2007 to 2009, Gallagher was a White House Fellow and director for Iraq and Afghanistan at the National Security Council. A former airborne infantry officer, Gallagher is a graduate of West Point and the University of Chicago. At West Point, he taught American politics and counterterrorism and was the director of the academy’s Rhodes Scholarship program. A co-editor of Debating the War of Ideas (with Eric Patterson, Palgrave 2009), Gallagher was a 2016 Presidential Leadership Scholar and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mary Habeck is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Previously, she was an associate professor in strategic studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where she taught courses on military history and strategic thought. From 2008 to 2009 she was the special advisor for strategic planning on the National Security Council staff. Before joining SAIS, Habeck taught American and European military history in Yale University’s history department. Habeck was appointed by President George W. Bush to the National Council on the Humanities, the advisory council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and served from 2006 to 2013. She received her B.A. in international studies, Russian, and Spanish from Ohio State University, as well as an M.A. in international relations and Ph.D. in history from Yale University.

Patrick Thaddeus Jackson is associate dean for curriculum and learning and professor of International Relations in the School of International Service at American University, having previously been associate dean for undergraduate education. Jackson's research interests include culture and agency, international relations theory, scientific methodology, the role of rhetoric in public life, civilizations in world politics, the sociology of academic knowledge, popular culture and international relations, and the formation of subjectivity both in the classroom and in the broader social sphere. He was formerly editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Relations and Development; he is currently series editor of the University of Michigan Press book series Configurations: Critical Studies of World Politics and co-editor of ISQ Online. Jackson previously taught at Columbia University and New York University. He holds a B.A. from James Madison College at Michigan State University and an M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.

Peter Mandaville is a professor of international affairs at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, where he also serves as the director of the AbuSulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies. He was a Berkley Center senior research fellow from April 2018 to April 2024 and from 2022 to 2024 served as a senior advisor on religion and inclusive societies at the United States Institute of Peace. Previous government experience includes serving as a member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (2011-2012) and as a senior advisor in the department’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs (2015-2016). He has also been a visiting senior fellow at the Pew Research Center. His research focuses on the intersection of religion and international affairs, with a primary focus on Islam and the Muslim world. His publications include, among others, The Geopolitics of Religious Soft Power: How States Use Religion in Foreign Policy (2023),  Wahhabism and the World (2022), Islam and Politics (2014, 2020), Global Political Islam (2007), and Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma (2001). He holds degrees from the University of St. Andrews and the University of Kent and has studied at the American University in Cairo.

Eric Patterson is president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and is a research fellow with the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He previously served as president of the Religious Freedom Institute, dean of the School of Government at Regent University, and before that, as associate director at the Berkley Center. He is an expert in two overlapping areas: the ethics of war and peace, and global religious trends and religious freedom policy. These two areas routinely intersect, such as in building post-conflict systems that represent diverse ethnoreligious factions, understanding the religious factors in conflict, and measuring U.S. democracy promotion efforts. His government experience includes time at the U.S. State Department, service as a White House Fellow, and over 20 years as an Air National Guard commander. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including Politics in a Religious World: Toward a Religious Informed U.S. Foreign Policy (2011).

Christopher Madison Swift is an adjunct professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown University and a fellow at the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law. A practicing attorney, he counsels clients in matters involving counter-proliferation, counterterrorism, economic sanctions, export controls, foreign investment, international trade agreements, and other aspects of public and private international law. Prior to entering legal practice, he served in the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. He is currently a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the American Society of International Law. Swift frequently appears as a guest analyst for Al-Jazeera, BBC World News, National Public Radio, and other leading broadcast media. He holds an A.B. from Dartmouth College, J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center, and M.St. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge.

Mark Vlasic is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, a senior fellow at Georgetown’s Institute for Law, Science, and Global Security, and a principal at Madison Law and Strategy Group. He also serves as an outside advisor to the European Centre for Dispute Resolution, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and to the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Vlasic previously worked at the World Bank Group, was a White House fellow, and served as special assistant to the Secretary of Defense. He formerly served on the Slobodan Milosevic and Srebrenica genocide prosecution team at the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague. As a U.S. Army officer, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal.  Vlasic regularly provides legal commentary to BBC, CNN, FOX News, NPR, and various other news outlets. Vlasic received his B.S., and J.D. from Georgetown University.