Berkley Center

Anne E. Brodsky is a professor of Psychology and associate dean for research and college affairs in the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Her work as a community/clinical psychologist focuses on resilience, psychological sense of community, and the role of communities in creating and resisting societal risks and oppression, including violence, poverty, racism, and sexism. She is the author of over 40 articles and chapters, as well as the book With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (2003). Brodsky earned her A.B. from Vassar College and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Lael Mohib is founder and director of the Enabled Children Initiative, a registered charity that supports and advocates for Afghan orphans with special needs. She previously worked for the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, before joining BBC Media Action, where she worked on educational media programs in Afghanistan. She most recently served as chief of staff at the American University of Afghanistan. She has a B.A. in Journalism and an M.A. from Boston University in International Relations and Communications.

Louise Pascale is a professor at Lesley University and has worked in the field of arts in education for over 25 years. Her research focuses on investigating the meaning of singer/non-singer with an interest in changing the ways singing is implemented in education. In 2007 she launched the Children’s Afghan Songbook Project, an internationally recognized project that strives to preserve and redistribute traditional Afghan children’s songs that were almost completely eradicated due to decades of war and terrorism in Afghanistan. Pascale holds a B.A. from the University of California and M.Ed. and Ph.D. from Lesley University.

Avideh Shashaani is the founder and president of the Fund for the Future of our Children, focusing on youth leadership for peace. She was the first co-director of the International Institute for Rehabilitation in Developing Countries, founded by the United Nations, UNESCO, and UNDP, and was appointed by the UN secretary-general to the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on the “Socio-Economic Implication of Investments in Rehabilitation of the Disabled.” She is the sixth recipient of the “Waging Peace” award first given to George Clooney by President Jimmy Carter. Shashaani is the author of three books: Promised Paradise (1993), Remember Me (1996), and Tell Me Where To Be Born (2008). She is the editor of Something Deeper Happened: Young Voices and the 2008 US Election (2010). Her poetry and writings have also appeared in books, anthologies, and journals. She has a B.A. in Experimental Psychology and a Ph.D. in Sufi Studies.

Ashraf Zahedi is a sociologist whose research interests include Iran and Afghanistan, political ideology, social policy, socioeconomic disparities, gender and development, and transnational feminism. Zahedi has conducted research at the Center for Middles East Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara; the Beatrice Bain Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley; the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University; and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She has published many articles in academic journals and books and is the co-editor of Land of the Unconquerable: The Lives of Contemporary Afghan Women (2011) and Children of Afghanistan: The Path to Peace (2014).