Pramila Jayapal is a U.S. Representative for Washington's 7th Congressional District and serves as Senior Whip of the House Democratic Caucus. She is the first South Asian American woman elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and a leading voice on democracy, human rights, and U.S. global engagement.

Congresswoman Jayapal serves on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Judiciary Committee — where she is Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement — and the House Budget Committee. Her work spans U.S. foreign policy, civil liberties, and the intersection of domestic and international governance.

She has been an outspoken advocate for a values-driven U.S. foreign policy, emphasizing human rights, democratic accountability, and the protection of civilian populations in conflict settings. Prior to Congress, she spent over two decades in global public health, development, and human rights advocacy, including founding OneAmerica, a leading immigrant rights organization.

Jim McGovern is a U.S. Representative for Massachusetts' 2nd Congressional District and a leading voice in Congress on human rights, global food security, and U.S. foreign policy. He serves as Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and is Co-Chair of the bipartisan Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.

Congressman McGovern has built a national and international reputation for advancing a values-driven U.S. foreign policy grounded in human rights, accountability, and the rule of law. He has played a central role in shaping legislation to combat corruption and hold human rights abusers accountable, including measures addressing abuses in China, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

In addition to his foreign policy leadership, he has been a global advocate in the fight to end hunger, helping to elevate food security as a national and international priority. His commitment to human rights dates back to his early career, when he led a congressional investigation into abuses in El Salvador that helped shift U.S. policy toward stronger human rights conditions.

Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University and a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. A distinguished scholar, diplomat, and public intellectual, he is widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on contemporary Islam and Muslim societies.

His career spans academia and public service, including senior roles in the Civil Service of Pakistan and service as Pakistan's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Ireland. He has held academic appointments at the U.S. Naval Academy, the University of Cambridge, Harvard University, and Princeton University.

Professor Ahmed is the author of numerous influential works examining Islam, globalization, and relations between the Muslim world and the West, including his widely recognized "Journey into" series published by Brookings. Throughout his career, he has been a leading voice for dialogue, pluralism, and mutual understanding.

John L. Esposito is Distinguished University Professor of Religion and International Affairs, and Professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. He is the Founding Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and The Bridge Initiative, which focuses on protecting pluralism and countering Islamophobia.

A globally recognized authority on Islam, political Islam, and religion in international affairs, Professor Esposito has advised governments, international organizations, and corporations worldwide, including the U.S. Department of State. He was elected President of both the American Academy of Religion and the Middle East Studies Association — the only scholar to ever hold both roles — and has served with the World Economic Forum and the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

He is the author or editor of more than 55 books, many translated into over 45 languages, including Who Speaks for Islam?, The Future of Islam, and Islam and Democracy after the Arab Spring. His scholarship has shaped academic and policy debates on Islam, governance, and global security for decades.

Robert Malley is a Senior Fellow and Lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs and a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy and Middle East diplomacy. He most recently served as U.S. Special Envoy for Iran from 2021 to 2023.

Malley previously served as President and CEO of the International Crisis Group, where he led conflict prevention and resolution efforts. During the Obama administration, he held senior White House roles including Special Assistant to the President, Senior Advisor for the Counter-ISIL campaign, and Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region. Earlier, he served on the National Security Council under President Clinton, where he played a key role in Arab–Israeli negotiations.

A graduate of Yale, Harvard Law School, and Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, Malley has written extensively on conflict, diplomacy, and international affairs. His most recent book, Tomorrow is Yesterday, examines the challenges of peace efforts in Israel–Palestine.

Bahey eldin Hassan is a leading Egyptian human rights defender and one of the founders of the modern Arab human rights movement. He is the Director of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) and has been at the forefront of advocacy for human rights, democratic reform, and accountability in the Middle East for over four decades.

Due to his outspoken criticism of human rights abuses in Egypt, he has faced severe reprisals, including asset freezes and a prison sentence in absentia, and has lived in exile in Europe since 2014. His work has made him a prominent international voice on authoritarianism, civic space, and the rule of law in the Arab world.

Hassan has served on the boards and advisory bodies of major international organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the International Center for Transitional Justice. He is the recipient of the Human Rights Watch Award and remains a central figure in advancing human rights and democratic values in the region.

Asma Afsaruddin is the Chair of the Board of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and Class of 1950 Herman B Wells Endowed Professor and Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. She is a leading scholar of Islamic Studies whose research focuses on Islamic political and religious thought, the Qur'an and hadith, religious pluralism, and the role of gender in Islam.

She is the author and editor of several influential books, including Jihad: What Everyone Needs to Know (2023), Contemporary Issues in Islam (2015), Striving in the Path of God (2013), and The First Muslims: History and Memory (2009). She has held academic appointments at Harvard and the University of Notre Dame and has served as a consultant to the Pew Research Center and the United States Institute of Peace.

Her work bridges scholarship and public discourse, contributing to a deeper understanding of Islam, pluralism, and governance in contemporary global contexts. In 2019 she was inducted into the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in recognition of her academic and professional achievements.

Salam Al-Maryati is President and Co-Founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and a leading voice on Islam in the West, U.S. national security, and Middle East policy. His work focuses on advancing civil rights, promoting democratic values, and strengthening engagement between American Muslim communities and policymakers.

Al-Marayati has testified before the U.S. Congress and regularly engages with government officials, media, and civil society on issues including human rights, countering extremism, and U.S. foreign policy. A frequent media commentator, his analysis has appeared in major outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today. He also serves as adjunct faculty at Bayan Claremont and has held leadership roles in interfaith initiatives, including co-chairing the Interfaith Coalition to Heal Los Angeles.

Radwan Masmoudi is Founder and President of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and Senior Advisor for Strategic and Philanthropic Initiatives at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) in Washington, DC. He is a leading expert on democracy, governance, and U.S. policy in the Muslim world, with more than two decades of experience at the intersection of public policy, civil society, and international affairs.

Since founding CSID in 1999, Dr. Masmoudi has made it a global platform for policy dialogue, research, and civic engagement, with programs and partnerships in over 20 countries. He has raised more than $12 million in funding and convened over 20 international policy conferences, bringing together senior policymakers, scholars, and civic leaders.

His work focuses on democratic reform, countering authoritarianism, and advancing values-based U.S. engagement globally. Dr. Masmoudi is a frequent media commentator and has published widely on Islam, democracy, and human rights.

Nader Hashemi is Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. A leading scholar of religion and politics, his work focuses on authoritarianism, democracy, political Islam, secularism, and U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Previously, he founded and directed the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. Professor Hashemi is the author and editor of several influential books, including Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and a member of the Board of CSID.

Haris Tarin is Vice President of Policy and Programming at the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). He previously served in senior roles at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he advised leadership on immigration, civil rights, national security, and counterterrorism policy.

Most recently, Tarin served as Chief of Staff for Operation Allies Welcome, the largest refugee evacuation and resettlement effort in modern U.S. history, coordinating aspects of the U.S. response to the evacuation of Afghan allies and refugees. He is the author of An Introduction to Muslim America and co-author of Rethinking the Red Line: Free Speech, Religious Freedom and Social Change. A frequent commentator on public policy and national security, he has appeared on CNN, BBC, MSNBC, and Fox News.

Nicholas A. Heras is the Interim Executive Director and a Board Member of MEPC. He also serves as Senior Director at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, where he is Program Chair for the M.A. in Strategy and Policy and a Lecturer in Political Science at George Washington University, specializing in Middle East affairs.

Before joining MEPC and New Lines, Professor Heras held a range of national security and policy research positions, including Director of Government Relations and Middle East Security Program Manager at the Institute for the Study of War, and Senior Analyst at the Jamestown Foundation. He frequently engages with U.S. government, military, and nongovernmental organizations and is a regular media commentator on Middle East security issues.

Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post and a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, where he co-directs the Faith and Future of Democracy Initiative. From 2023 to 2024, he was a member of the Post's Editorial Board. Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.

Hamid is the author of several books, including The Case For American Power (Simon & Schuster) and The Problem of Democracy (Oxford). His book Islamic Exceptionalism was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize. In 2019, Hamid was named one of the world's top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. He is also the co-founder of Wisdom of Crowds, a podcast, newsletter, and debate platform. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

David Mednicoff is a lawyer and political scientist holding a BA from Princeton, and AM, JD, and PhD degrees from Harvard University. He is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a Fellow at the Middle East Initiative in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

His teaching and publications focus on intersections of comparative legal ideas, institutions, politics, and public policy in the Middle East and North Africa. A former Fulbright Scholar in Morocco and Qatar, he has been awarded over $1 million in research grants on legal politics and policy. He is completing a book manuscript on the politics of the rule of law across the Middle East.

Sultan Alamer is a Resident Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute's Middle East Center, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and a member of the editorial committee of Alpheratz magazine. His research focuses on nationalism, state formation, governance, and regional politics in the Middle East, with a particular emphasis on the Arabian Peninsula.

He earned his PhD in political science from George Washington University. Alamer is the author and editor of several works on Arab nationalism, Gulf politics, and political reform, and has contributed to leading platforms including Carnegie, MERIP, the Arab Reform Initiative, and New Lines Magazine. He is a co-founder of the Arab Political Science Network.

Murad Batal Shishani is a Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC) and a member of the editorial committee of Alpheratz. He previously served as a Resident Senior Fellow at the New Lines Institute's Middle East Center.

He focuses on political violence, insurgent movements, and Islamist organizations across the Middle East and the North Caucasus. With more than 25 years of experience spanning field reporting, policy analysis, and advisory work, he spent over 16 years with the BBC World Service (Arabic and English), reporting from major conflict zones including Iraq, Ukraine, Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. He is the founder of the London-based consultancy Remarks on Political Violence and the author of three Arabic-language books on the North Caucasus conflict.

Ammar Mansuri has an academic interest in Finance and Political Science. He serves on the board of the Muslim Student Organization at the University of Florida and is an active member of the broader Muslim community. Ammar has gained significant public service experience through his work on Capitol Hill for his district representative and as a judicial intern in the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit of Florida. He remains deeply involved in nonprofit work and campus initiatives and is committed to public service and community advocacy.

Josh Paul is Co-Founder of A New Policy, a nonprofit advocacy organization focused on aligning U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine with international law, human rights, and long-term American strategic interests. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow and Senior Advisor at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), where his work focuses on U.S. security assistance, arms transfers, and Middle East policy.

Paul previously served for more than eleven years at the U.S. Department of State in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. In October 2023, he resigned from the State Department in protest over U.S. military support to Israel during the Gaza war, drawing international attention to debates over U.S. policy, arms transfers, and civilian protection. Earlier in his career, he worked on security sector reform in Iraq and the West Bank.

Omar Shakir is Executive Director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), the organization founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi to promote democratic accountability and human rights in the Middle East. A leading international human rights advocate, his work focuses on Israel/Palestine, authoritarianism, and U.S. policy in the region.

Prior to joining DAWN, Shakir served for nearly a decade as Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch, where he led investigations into human rights abuses and authored influential reports on apartheid, persecution, and the humanitarian consequences of the conflict. His advocacy led to his deportation by the Israeli government in 2019. Shakir has spoken before international institutions including the United Nations and the European Parliament.

Shannan Rawcliffe is an anthropologist who earned her MA from Rutgers University in the field of Peace and Conflict. Her work focuses on policy-relevant analysis of governance, rights, and everyday life in conflict settings, with particular attention to how external security strategies reshape political legitimacy on the ground. Her work bridges ethnographic sensitivity to lived experience with practical policy design, translating field-centered insights into actionable recommendations for decision-makers.

Lein Soltan is Senior Advocacy Manager at UNRWA USA, where she leads advocacy and public engagement efforts focused on Palestinian refugees and humanitarian policy. A Palestinian American born to refugee parents displaced during the Gulf War, her work is shaped by both professional expertise and personal experience connected to displacement and global justice.

Soltan spent several years as a marine biologist and research manager at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before transitioning into global health and advocacy. Her work at UNRWA USA focuses on raising awareness about the conditions facing Palestinian refugees and advancing policies grounded in dignity, human rights, and international responsibility. She holds a Master of Public Health with a focus in Global Health and a degree in Biology and Marine Science from UNC Chapel Hill.

Ammar Elahi is Executive Director of the Muslim Action Coalition (MAC), a New York–based civic engagement and public policy organization focused on political mobilization and community advocacy. His work centers on grassroots organizing, coalition-building, and strengthening civic participation within Muslim communities.

Elahi has been actively involved in electoral organizing and candidate engagement efforts in New York, supporting campaigns and outreach initiatives aimed at increasing political participation and representation. He has also worked with community advocacy organizations, including the Bangladeshi American Advocacy Group (BAAG), on local policy engagement. Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions within MUNA Youth in Brooklyn, focusing on youth education and civic awareness programs.

Mir Sulaiman Ali is the Senior Foreign & Government Policy Advisor for AK Party USA, the representative office of Türkiye's governing party and President Erdoğan in the United States. In this role, he engages members of Congress, the U.S. Department of State, and think tanks to strengthen U.S.–Türkiye relations and discuss U.S. strategy in the Muslim world. Previously, he served as Community Manager of Muslim Advocates and Community Liaison for the New York City Mayor's Office.

Shamarukh Mohiuddin is a Director at Cadmus Group and Founder and President of The Bangladesh Project, a nonprofit initiative supporting US-Bangladesh relations. She is also co-chair of the board at Goodweave International, a human rights nonprofit, and a board member of leading Bangladeshi publishing firm UPL.

Shamarukh is an expert on women's economic empowerment. In her current role at Cadmus Group she advises the U.S. Department of State and other U.S. government agencies on Asia policy. Her previous experience includes the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the World Bank. She holds an M.A. in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Belquis Ahmadi is a human rights lawyer with 20+ years of experience leading women's rights, civil society, rule of law, peacebuilding, and governance initiatives. She has authored numerous briefs on women's rights, democracy, women's participation in peace processes, and countering violent extremism.

With over 11 years at the U.S. Institute of Peace, she led Afghanistan-focused programs to strengthen peacebuilding, civil society, and justice accountability. Ahmadi has advocated for recognizing gender apartheid and documenting Taliban abuses as crimes against humanity. She also served as a political advisor for the first post-Saddam Hussein parliamentary elections' out-of-country voting process in Jordan, and for the first post-Taliban elections in Afghanistan in 2004.

Mustafa Akyol is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity and a leading public intellectual on Islam, democracy, and religious reform. He is the author of several widely acclaimed books, including Reopening Muslim Minds, The Islamic Jesus, Islam without Extremes, and most recently The Islamic Moses. In 2021, Prospect magazine named him among the world's top 50 thinkers.

In addition to his work at Cato, Akyol is a Senior Lecturer in the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program at Boston College and directs courses on Islam and the Muslim world at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. A longtime journalist, he has written for The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and frequently appears on CNN, BBC, NPR, and Al Jazeera.

Ermin Sinanović is a scholar, educator, and thought leader in contemporary Islamic studies whose work bridges academic research, policy analysis, and community engagement. He serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Islam in the Contemporary World (CICW), where he leads initiatives that advance research on Muslims in global contexts, cultivate American Muslim leadership, and deepen intellectual engagement between Islamic tradition and modern challenges.

Under his leadership, CICW has expanded its scholarly programming, built international partnerships, and established new platforms for research on Muslim futures and American Muslim institutions. He also holds an appointment as a faculty associate in the Southeast Asia Program, Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University.

Ali Dabaje is a Program Coordinator for the Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he contributes to research on global order and emerging powers. He previously worked with CSIS's Middle East Program, supporting projects on regional foreign policy.

Beyond his policy work, Ali's scholarship sits at the intersection of Islamic legal theory and political thought, engaging questions on the role of Islamic jurisprudence in modern governance and the interaction between religious traditions and contemporary state structures. He is also the project lead of The Mainstay Foundation's Law and Policy Network. He holds a BA in Government and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.

Omair Anas is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University in Türkiye, specializing in political Islam, comparative politics, and global political thought. His work focuses on the evolution of Islamist movements and their interaction with democratic governance, pluralism, and state institutions.

His research examines how political Islam has adapted to changing domestic and international contexts, with a particular focus on North Africa, Türkiye, and South Asia. He has written on the intellectual trajectory of Rached Ghannouchi and the transformation of Tunisia's Ennahda movement, contributing to broader debates on "Muslim democracy" and post-Islamism. Dr. Anas also engages in policy-oriented analysis on global governance, emerging powers, and democratic change in the Global South.