Berkley Center

Thomas F. Farr is president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute, an NGO committed to achieving worldwide acceptance of religious liberty. Farr is also a senior fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. From 2006 to 2018 he was an associate professor of the practice of religion and world affairs at Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and senior fellow at the Berkley Center; during 2017 and 2018 he was director of the Religious Freedom Research Project and from 2011 to 2016 director of the Religious Freedom Project, both at the Berkley Center. After a distinguished career in the U.S. Army and the Foreign Service—which included teaching at West Point and the Air Force Academy, serving as an advisor during U.S.-Soviet arms control talks in Geneva, and leading an interagency task force on verification provisions for the START II Treaty—Farr served as the first director of the U.S. State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom from 1999 to 2003.

Ambassador Touqir Hussain is a research fellow at George Washington University and adjunct professor at Georgetown University and University of Virginia. Hussain is a former senior diplomat from Pakistan, with expertise on issues including South Asian security, political Islam, terrorism, and U.S. relations with the Islamic world. Hussain held senior positions in the Pakistani Foreign Office, and served as the diplomatic advisor to the Pakistani Prime Minister from 1996 to 1998. He then served as Ambassador to Brazil (1990-1993), Spain (1993-1995), and Japan (1998-2003). He also served as a Senior Fellow at the US Institute of Peace from 2004 to 2005.

Admiral Mike Mullen was sworn in as the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 1, 2007, serving until September 30, 2011. He served as the principal military advisor to the president, the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council. A native of Los Angeles, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968. He commanded three ships: the gasoline tanker USS Noxubee (AOG 56), the guided missile destroyer USS Goldsborough (DDG 20) and the guided missile cruiser USS Yorktown (CG 48). His last operational assignment was as commander, NATO Joint Force Command Naples/Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe. Mullen is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School and earned a Master of Science degree in Operations Research from the Naval Postgraduate School. Prior to becoming chairman, Mullen served as the 28th Chief of Naval Operations.

Eric Patterson is president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and is a research fellow with the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He previously served as president of the Religious Freedom Institute, dean of the School of Government at Regent University, and before that, as associate director at the Berkley Center. He is an expert in two overlapping areas: the ethics of war and peace, and global religious trends and religious freedom policy. These two areas routinely intersect, such as in building post-conflict systems that represent diverse ethnoreligious factions, understanding the religious factors in conflict, and measuring U.S. democracy promotion efforts. His government experience includes time at the U.S. State Department, service as a White House Fellow, and over 20 years as an Air National Guard commander. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including Politics in a Religious World: Toward a Religious Informed U.S. Foreign Policy (2011).