Berkley Center

Bizuayehu Abayneh is the deputy manager for the Resilience Food Security Activity at Haraghe Catholic Secretariat.

Najah Almugahed is the Gender, Protection, and Inclusion Advisor for Islamic Relief Worldwide. Previously, Najah chaired the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAW/G) working group at the Gender and Development Network and worked on women’s economic empowerment through microfinancing in Yemen, leading the country's national network for microfinance institutions.

Clara Ana De Sousa has served as the World Bank Division Director for the Sahel countries including Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Niger since July 2021. Before joining the World Bank, she was an Executive Director at the Bank of Mozambique.

With over 25 years’ experience managing humanitarian and development programs, Dr. Jean Baptiste Kamate oversees World Vision’s field work in 83 countries across Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, as well as VisionFund International, a World Vision subsidiary network of 28 microfinance institutions. Previously, Dr. Kamate worked in programs for the American Embassy in Mali.

Peter Mandaville is a Berkley Center senior research fellow and a professor of government and politics 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 is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center. From April 2024 to January 2025 Mandaville served as director of the Center for Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships and senior advisor for faith engagement at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and from 2022 to 2024 as 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.