Lucas Bento, J.D., LL.M.
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, M.Phil.
Ambassador Dell is an adviser. He has served as a U.S. diplomat spanning 40 years of service. His experience 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.
Syed Agha Hyder Jafri, MPH.
Arrived in the United Stares as a refugee from Pakistan, some 40 years ago. He served with with US Department for Health and Human Services for 30 years. He was an adviser on public health for UNDP. He is Secretary-General of the American-Muslim Congress, has given presentations at the UN on Interreligious and intercultural dialogue for peace and security. He also serves on the Board of the Razi School, in New York. His education includes a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Public Health from University of Michigan. He is bilingual English, Urdu and speaks Arabic. He is an American citizen.
Jadranka Mihalic, MIA
Jadranka, an advisor 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.
Gregory E. Sterling, Ph.D.
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.
Massimo Tommosoli, Ph.D.
Dr. Tommasoli, served with International IDEA in senior leadership positions, leading the Institute’s global programs and representing it as Permanent Observer to the United Nations in New York. He is currently a consultant to International IDEA as well as professor for an online seminar on “Professionalization in International Studies.” He holds a PhD (doctorat) in social anthropology from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. He worked in the field of aid and development at the OECD/Development Assistance Committee in Paris; at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Directorate General for Development Cooperation in Rome; and at UNESCO in Addis Ababa. He is a visiting scholar at the LUISS University in Rome and at the City College of New York. He has lectured at various Universities in Italy and Spain, the UN System Staff College in Turin, and at UNITAR in New York. He has fieldwork experience in Colombia, the Horn of Africa, and the Russian Federation. His publications include: Nel nome dello sviluppo (In the Name of Development); Politiche di cooperazione internazionale (International Aid Policies); Democracy and the Pillars of UN Work; and El desarrollo participativo: Análisis sociales y lógicas de planificación.