Lucas Bento
Lucas Bento, serves as an adviser and a member of the board. He is of counsel with the law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in New York City where he specializes in dispute resolution and has an active pro bono practice. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, President of the Brazilian-American Lawyers Associations, and Chair of the Artificial Intelligence & International Law Subcommittee at the New York City Bar Association.
He has published articles on international legal subjects in a number of leading publications, including the New York Times, Harvard Negotiation Law Review, and Berkeley Journal of International Law. He has spoken on international law at various conferences around the world (United Nations, Harvard University, University College London), and he has also taught dispute resolution courses at New York University and INSPER (Brazil).
Lucas is fluent in French and Portuguese and holds degrees from Harvard, Oxford, Bristol, and Warwick
Christopher W. Dell
Ambassador Dell is an adviser. He has served as a U.S. diplomat spanning 40 years of service. His expereince includes:Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Engagement;United States Ambassador to Kosovo; Deputy Chief of Mission, Afghanistan; United States Ambassador to Zimbabwe; United States Ambassador to Angola; Deputy Chief of Mission Mozambique, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for International Security Executive Secretary/Special Assistant to the Special Negotiator for Greek Bases; Desk Officer for Spain and Portugal. Currently, he is the non-executive Director, Sicona Battery Technologies Sydney, Australia and Washington, D.C; Subject Matter Expert, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Training (J-7) Suffolk, VA and Stuttgart, Germany.
He has received honors and awards for The Secretary’s Career Achievement Award;Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Medal, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff; The Order for Peace, Democracy and Humanism “Dr. Ibrahim Rugova”; Republic of Kosovo; Ghazii Mir Masjidi Khan High State Award, Republic of Afghanistan; Presidential Honorable Service Award; Presidential Distinguished Service Award; Robert C. Frasure Memorial Award, U.S. Department of State; Order of the Madara Horseman, First Degree, Republic of Bulgaria.
His education includes: a M.Phil., Balliol College, Oxford University; B.A., magna cum laude, Columbia University.
He speaks fluently Bulgarian, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Troy Elder
Tory Elder is Executive Director, of the Interfaith Refugee and Immigrant Services, a program of the of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Previously as a legate for the Diocese, and a founding board member for Grace Initiative Global. Troy coordinated the articulation and promotion of the diocese's progressive approach to global partnership in foreign and domestic contexts, including engagement with state and non-state actors in Africa, Central America, Haiti, the Middle East, Pakistan, and at the United Nations. He also coordinated diocesan response to immigration issues. Troy Elder’s education includes Juris Doctor, Yale Law School, and Master of Ethics, Yale Divinity School.
Donna Hicks
Dr. Donna Hicks is an adviser. Dr. Hicks is an associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Dr. Hicks was Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution (PICAR) at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. She worked extensively on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and as a member of the third party in numerous unofficial diplomatic efforts. In addition to her work in the Middle East, Dr. Hicks founded and co-directed a ten-year project in Sri Lanka. She has also worked on the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Colombia and conducted several US/Cuba dialogues. She is the Vice President of Ara Pacis, an Italian non-governmental organization based in Rome. They are currently involved in a dignity restoration project in Syria and Libya. Dr. Hicks was a consultant to the British Broadcasting Company where she co-facilitated encounters between victims and perpetrators of the Northern Irish conflict with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The encounters were made into 3 television programs, Facing the Truth, which were aired throughout the United Kingdom and on BBC World. She is the author of Dignity: It’s Essential Role in Resolving Conflict; and her newest book, Leading with Dignity: How to Create a Culture That Brings Out the Best in People.
Agha Jafri
Agha a member of the board. Agha arrived in the US as a refugee from Pakistan, some 40 years ago. He served with with US Department for Health and Human Services for 30 years. He is an adviser on public health for UNDP. He is Secretary-General of the American-Muslim Congress, has given presentations at the UN on Inter-religious and intercultural dialogue for peace and security. He also serves on the Board of the Razi School, in New York. His education includes a BS from University of Michigan. He is bilingual English, Urdu and speaks Arabic. He is dual passport holder of US and Pakistan.
Jadranka Mihalic
Jadranka, a member of the board, served with the United Nations for 30 years beginning as a political affairs officer, and finally a director for Latin America for the UN Department of Public Information, based in Mexico City. On the mission in Timor-Leste, Jadranka served as the Head of Office of Public Information in UNMIT.Also, Ms. Mihalic served as the spokesperson for the President of the General Assembly as well as on several UN peacekeeping missions, including Angola, Haiti, and Mozambique. Ms. Mihalic holds a Master of International Affairs, from Columbia University. She speaks, English, Croatian (native), French, Italian, Spanish, and is proficient in Russian.
Luis Miguel Ruiz Rios
Luis serves on the board as well as an adviser. He is a specialist in international organizations and migrations. He is president of an NGO in Paris, Plateforme Migrants et CitoyennetéEuropéenne. He has also served as the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Regional Bureau Chief for Latin America and the Caribbean in Geneva, as well as IOM’s chief of mission in Portugal form 1997-2004.
Luis holds a BA, MA in international relations for New York University, Master of International Public Administration from the Polytechnic School of Lausanne, and Ph.D. of Institute of International and Development Studies from Geneva University. His languages include: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.
Gregory E. Sterling
Dr. Gregory E. Sterling is the Reverend Henry L. Slack Dean of Yale Divinity School and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament. Dean Sterling, a New Testament scholar with a specialty in Hellenistic Judaism, has concentrated his research on the writings of Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, and Luke-Acts, with a focus on the ways in which Second Temple Jews and early Christians interacted with one another and with the Greco-Roman world. He assumed the deanship in 2012 after more than two decades at the University of Notre Dame, where he served in several capacities at the College of Arts and Letters before becoming the first dean of the independent Graduate School.
Dean Sterling is the author or editor/co-editor of seven books and more than seventy scholarly articles and essays. He is the general editor for the Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series (E.J. Brill), co-editor of the Studia Philonica Annual, and a member of the editorial board of Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. He served as editor of the Christianity and Judaism in Antiquity Series (University of Notre Dame Press) for twenty years.
He has held numerous leadership positions in the Society of Biblical Literature, the Studiorum Novi Societas, and the Catholic Biblical Association. He is a minister in the Churches of Christ and serves in several leadership roles for his own denomination in addition to his other responsibilities.