Berkley Center

Mohammed Abu-Nimer is a senior adviser at the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) and professor in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at American University's School of International Service. An expert on conflict resolution and dialogue for peace, his work has focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on application of conflict resolution models in Muslim communities.

Aden Batar is the director of migration and refugee services for Catholic Community Services and the first former refugee to hold such position in Utah. He is also the former president of the Utah Islamic Society, the founder of Somali Community Services of Utah, and an immigration attorney by training.

Faisal bin Muaammar is founder and secretary general of the International Dialogue Centre (KAICIID) and the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Previously he oversaw the founding and stewardship of the King Abdulaziz Center for National Dialogue and held senior positions in the Saudi Arabian administration.

Shaun Casey is a senior fellow with the Luce Project on Religion and Its Publics at the University of Virginia and a Pulaski Institution non-resident fellow. He served as director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and professor of the practice in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University from 2017 to 2021. He previously was U.S. special representative for religion and global affairs and director of the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Religion and Global Affairs. He has also served as professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, DC, and held positions at the Center for American Progress and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Casey has written on the ethics of the war in Iraq, as well the role of religion in American presidential politics. He is the author of The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (2009) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Political Theology (forthcoming, with Michael Kessler); he is writing a book on ethics and international politics tentatively titled Niebuhr’s Children. Casey holds a B.A. from Abilene Christian University, MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and M.Div. and Th.D. in religion and society from Harvard Divinity School.

Ganoune Diop, PhD, is the Director of the Public Affairs and Religious Liberty Department (PARL) at the Seventh-day Adventist Church world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he was  formerly director of the United Nations Relations and of the Five World Religions and Philosophies Study Centers (Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Secularism and Postmodernism). He holds many ecumenical and interreligious leadership positions, including as a member of the Religions for Peace Advisory Council and Secretary General of the International Religious Liberty Association. He regularly trains leaders in capacity building on peace, justice, and human rights: the pillars of the United Nations.  He has received numerous honors and awards including, in 2020, as one of four recipients of the Charles Elliott Weniger Society Award of Excellence, Loma Linda University. Dr. Diop is an ordained Seventh-day Adventist minister, and has served as a local church pastor. He has been conference departmental director and professor of Biblical Languages, Exegesis, and Theology at Saleve Adventist University in France, at Southern Adventist University, and Oakwood University in the United States. He studied sociology, pastoral psychology, and pastoral care. Dr. Diop was born in Dakar, Senegal. He is a concert flute soloist, who also loves art and literature.

W. Cole Durham, Jr. is emeritus professor of law at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University, where he held the Susa Young Gates University Professorship. He is also founding director of the Clark Law School’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS). He has been heavily involved in comparative law scholarship, with a special emphasis on comparative constitutional law, and is known for his contributions to protecting religious freedoms.

Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., is the Pedro Arrupe Distinguished Research Professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service; a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and an affiliated professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. His teaching and research deal with human rights, religious and ethical responses to humanitarian crises, and religion in political life from the standpoint of Catholic social thought, theology, and the social sciences. His books include Humanity in Crisis: Ethical and Religious Response to Refugees (2019), Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants (2010) The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics (2003), and The Common Good and Christian Ethics (2002). He has taught often at Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya, and he collaborates with Jesuit Refugee Service. From 2020 to 2022 he is a distinguished research associate with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Hollenbach is also a research associate with the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Zambia. Hollenbach is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Audrey E. Kitagawa, J.D., is president and founder of the International Academy for Multicultural Cooperation, president of the Light of Awareness International Spiritual Family, a UN Representative for the United Religions Initiative (URI), and co-facilitator of URI UN Cooperation Circle. She is also the chair of the G20 Interfaith Forum Anti-Racism Initiative.