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.”

Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post and a senior research fellow at Georgetown University. He was previously senior fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. His research interests include democratization in the Middle East, U.S. policy toward political Islam, and religion, identity, and ideology, particularly Islamist movements. Hamid is the author of several books, including, Can Religion Save Democracy? How More Faith—Not Less—Can Heal Our Public Life (2026, with Matthew Kaemingk).

Nader Hashemi is the director of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (2009). Hashemi is also co-editor of, among others, Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (2017) and a four-volume study on Islam and Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Islamic Studies (2023). He received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

Matthew Kaemingk is a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) and professor of public theology at Theological University Utrecht. Kaemingk was formerly assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Seminary, associate dean for Fuller Texas, and a scholar-in-residence for the Max De Pree Center for Christian Leadership. His research and teaching focus on Islam and political ethics, faith and the workplace, theology and culture, and Reformed public theology. Kaemingk is author of Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear and Work and Worship: Reconnecting Our Labor and Liturgy (2018, with Cory B. Wilson) and Can Religion Save Democracy? How More Faith—Not Less—Can Heal Our Public Life (2026, with Shadi Hamid).