Berkley Center

R. Scott Appleby is the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs and a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame. He co-directs, with Ebrahim Moosa and Atalia Omer, the Contending Modernities project, which explores the interaction among Catholic, Muslim, and secular forces in the modern world. Appleby is a graduate of Notre Dame and has both his master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.

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.

Richard Cizik is president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, a faith-based organization that is dedicated to fostering values consistent with a free society. Cizik was the vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals from 1980 to 2008.

E.J. Dionne is a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center, University Professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture teaching in Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy and Government Department, and a leading scholar and commentator on religion in U.S. politics. In addition, since fall 2017 he has been William H. Bloomberg Visiting Professor at Harvard Divinity School and the Harvard Kennedy School. The W. Averell Harriman Chair and senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at the Brookings Institution, Dionne writes a column for the Washington Post that is syndicated in over 200 outlets nationally and abroad. His books include One Nation After Trump: A Guide for the Perplexed, the Disillusioned, the Desperate, and the Not-Yet Deported (2017, with Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann); Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism: From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond (2016); Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent (2012); Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right (2008); Stand Up Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Wimps, and the Politics of Revenge (2004); They Only Look Dead: Why Progressives Will Dominate The Next Political Era (1996); and Why Americans Hate Politics (1991), which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award nominee.

Afeefa Syeed is a cultural anthropologist who served as senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She is currently a research associate with the Cambridge Institute on Religion and Global Affairs, senior fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement, and advisory council member at the Center for Women, Faith and Leadership. Her work includes religion and development, gender inclusion, countering extremism, and integrating cultural context into development and diplomacy.