Berkley Center

Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics and is director of research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; at Georgetown University she is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs and an associate professor of the practice of religion, peace, and conflict resolution in the Department of Government. She is the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. Former president of the European Academy of Religion, her work on religion, political violence, and conflict resolution has garnered recognition and awards from numerous international organizations such as the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and the Royal Society for Arts in the United Kingdom. She is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University's Institute for Religion, Politics and Society. She teaches on contemporary Islam and politics at Harvard Divinity School and directs the Islam in the West program. Cesari is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Azza Karam is a member of the United Nations’ Secretary General High Level Advisory Board on Multilateralism, a professor of religion and development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, secretary general emerita of Religions for Peace International, and president and CEO of the Women’s Learning Partnership. She served for nearly two decades in the United Nations (in UNDP and UNFPA), where she coordinated the Arab Human Development Reports, co-founded and chaired the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion (with over 20 UN system bodies), and founded and convened its Multi-Faith Advisory Council. Karam created and facilitated the peer-to-peer “Strategic Learning Exchanges” on religion, development, and diplomacy. Karam is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Elisabet le Roux is a research director at the unit for religion and development research at Stellenbosch University. As a faith and development expert, she does research across the globe, focusing particularly on gender and gender-based violence as well as faith communities in conflict-affected settings, patriarchy within faith communities, and interfaith peace and conflict.

Dr. Sandra Iman Pertek is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham, principle investigator of the “Protecting Forcibly Displaced Women and Girls in the Muslim World” initiative, and gender and protection specialist with over a decade’s experience in humanitarian and international development settings.

Christine Schliesser is a senior lecturer at Zurich University and Fribourg University and a research fellow at Stellenbosch University. Her research interests include public theology, peace and reconciliation studies, and religion and the SDGs. She is author of On the Significance of Religion for the SDGs. An Introduction (Routledge) and co-editor of the interreligious book series Religion Matters (Routledge).