AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

Human Rights Day Event:
Academic Freedom in Iraq

Biographies of the Speakers

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Keith Watenpaugh is Associate Director of the Center for Peace and Global Studies and Assistant Professor of Eastern Mediterranean and Islamic History at Le Moyne College. He became interested in the Middle East during his junior year as an exchange fellow at the American University in Cairo. He graduated from the University of Washington with a double BA (honors) in History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. He received both Fullbright-Hays and Social Science Research Council dissertation research fellowships and was the Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at Williams College. Prof. Watenpaugh's research examines issues of colonialism, class and modernity in the urban history of the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Several articles related to this topic have been published in journals like the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies and Social History and Princeton University Press is publishing his book Being Modern in the Middle East. He is a member of the Middle East Studies Association and the founding editor of H-Levant, the H-Net network for the Modern Middle East. His future work examines questions of civil society, nationalism and neocolonialism in the context of the contemporary history of Iraq. Prof. Watenpaugh also designed the new program in Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College, a program built around questions about ethics and justice in an era of globalization. His own interest in peacemaking and the challenges of globalization has led Watenpaugh to become involved in efforts to help rebuild Iraq and to appear on local television to talk about violence in the Middle East. Recently, he was appointed the Islamic Middle East section editor, for the new e-journal History Compass.

Imad Harb is a program officer in the Institute's Education Program, where he is engaged in developing higher education peace studies curricula in Iraq and democratizing classrooms in Iraqi universities. He conducts workshops to enrich the teaching experience in post-conflict Iraq by bringing together faculty members from different sectarian and ethnic groups to introduce them to complementary pedagogies and materials. Harb taught political science and Middle East studies at the University of Utah and San Francisco State University. He was also an adjunct professor of Arabic at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Maryland, and also taught Arabic at the Middle East Institute. He has written several articles and book reviews, including "The Egyptian Military in Politics: Disengagement or Accommodation?" which appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of the Middle East Journal. Harb received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Utah, where his dissertation analyzed the disengagement of the military from politics and the transition to electoral democracy in Egypt and Turkey.

Rob Quinn is the Director of Scholars at Risk Network and Executive Director of the Scholar Rescue Fund, an initiative founded in the spring of 2002 by the Institute of International Education (IIE). Mr. Quinn is also an adjunct professor of law at Fordham Law School teaching courses in international human rights. He previously served as a post-graduate fellow at Fordham’s Crowley Program in International Human Rights, where he participated in the planning, conduct and post-mission reporting for fact-finding missions to Turkey, Hong Kong/PRC and Burma. He has also served as a lecturer of human rights law at the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Program. Prior to joining Fordham Mr. Quinn practiced law with the litigation firm of Lankler Siffert & Wohl LLP and served as law clerk to the Honorable John F. Keenan, United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Quinn received his A.B. cum laude from Princeton in 1988, and his J.D. cum laude from Fordham in 1994. Before beginning his legal career, Mr. Quinn worked to promote tenant-owned housing with the NYC Department of Housing Preservation & Development. He has also traveled extensively in Asia, Central and South America, and served as a visiting lecturer at the People's University in Beijing, China from 1988-89. Mr. Quinn is an attorney whose practice includes pro bono asylum representation through the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights and the Midwest Immigrants Human Rights Center (MIHRC) (a part of the Heartland Alliance), as well as pro bono mediation for the Center for Conflict Resolution (CCR). Mr. Quinn currently sits on the Steering Committee for the Network for Education and Academic Rights (NEAR), the Executive Board of Le Ecole Libre des Huate Etudes (New York) and the Board of Advisors of the Crowley Program in International Human Rights at Fordham Law School, New York.

Dr. Karim Altaii has been an Associate Professor in the Integrated Science and Technology Department of James Madison University (JMU) since 2000. He served as the Energy Academic Team Lead in 2003-2004. Prior to JMU he was on the faculty at the University of Turabo, school of engineering in Puerto Rico and the City College of New York, New York. Born and raised in Iraq, he was a Magna cum laud graduate of the University of Baghdad-School of Engineering in 1980. He holds M.E., M. Phil. and Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering from the City University of New York. He is a Registered Professional Engineer and was awarded a NASA-ASEE Professorship at Langley Research Center. He worked two summers with Sandia National Laboratories in the Wind Energy and Solar Thermal areas. His interests are in Engineering education, fluid-thermal sciences and renewable energy applications. He visited Baghdad in August of 2003 after 23 years of absence. The purpose of the trip was to asses the condition of the college of Engineering at the University of Baghdad.

Roger Bowen is the General Secretary of the American Association of University Professors. The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has 45,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States. Dr. Bowen earned his B.A. from Wabash College, his M.A. from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of British Columbia. A frequent contributor to journals and newspapers, his book-length publications include Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan (1980) and Japan's Dysfunctional Democracy (2003). Prior to his service as president of SUNY New Paltz, Bowen served as a professor at Colby College (1978-91) and as vice president for academic affairs at Hollins College (1992-96). Since 1981, he has also been an associate in research at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University.

Dr. Tilahun Woldemichael is a senior Ethiopian scholar of medical physics and electrical engineering with more than 20 years experience of teaching and research. In 1994, at the request of the government, he founded and headed the National Radiation Protection Authority, an affiliate of the International Atomic Energy Agency, for three years. During the same period he also served as Acting Director of the National Scientific Equipment Center. He was one of two Ethiopian delegates to the IAEA General Conference in Vienna, and also served as named expert in the group drafting the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Treaty in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1995. He has published a number of original scientific papers in the field, particularly in nuclear medicine physics, and his most recent work has focused on improvements in the design of gamma cameras. In 2002-03, Dr. Woldemichael was a visiting professor at Scholars at Risk Network member Illinois Institute of Technology, a visit supported by the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund and a matching grant from IIT. The Scholar Rescue Fund has renewed his fellowship, and SAR/SRF staff are working to identify a new host university where he can undertake his fellowship.

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(site updated 12/03/2004)