Musaraj takes an anthropological approach to the study of economic transitions, informal economy, and corruption. She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from The New School for Social Research in 2012, and was Postdoctoral Scholar at the Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine from 2012-2014.

Lybarger is a religious studies specialist focusing on Islam and comparative religions, with more than 20 years of experience in ethnographic field study methods. His research and teaching have focused on how religion, nationalism, war, mass displacement, and state violence shape identities and demands for justice across generations.

Younge, Professor of Music at Ohio University, is currently the Executive and Music Director of Azaguno, Inc., a multi-ethnic ensemble based in Athens, Ohio that focuses on research, preservation, and performance of African, African American, Caribbean, and Latin American Music and Dance.

Dr. Steven Miner is an expert on Russian and Eastern European history. Miner offers great insight on not only the history of these regions, but the current state of international relations between Russia and the United States. He has taught Russian history for nearly 30 years and traveled extensively throughout Russia and Ukraine.

Dr. Shad Sargand is nationally recognized for his expertise in general infrastructure and roadway construction as director of the National Asphalt Laboratory, an indoor pavement test facility house at the Russ College of Engineering and Technology's Ohio Research Institute for Transportation and the Environment (ORITE), where he serves as director.

Dabelko works at the interface of research and policy on questions tackling links between climate change and security, fostering environmental peacebuilding, and making more age-friendly and climate resilient for older adults. He has over three decades of experience bringing together individuals and organizations not accustomed to working together on shared challenges and opportunities.

For Dr. Kendhammer, the political Islam that shapes Nigeria is the most interesting feature on the African landscape. After graduating from Coe College, where he received a Bachelor of the Arts in both French and Political Science, he decided to look more deeply into West Africa and the political issues of the region.

Based on more than two decades of focused research and field work, Dr. Mario Grijalva is an internationally recognized expert on the spread of infectious disease and is perhaps the world’s premier expert on Chagas disease, which affects millions of people in South and Central America and has recently spread to the United States and Europe.

Sandal earned her Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations from University of Southern California in 2010, and she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute of International Studies at Brown University from 2010-13. Her research focuses on the dynamics of peace and conflict; religion and politics; political competition and outbidding; minority rights; and Turkish politics.

Education and cosmopolitanism have been a passion for Dr. Emmanuel Jean Francois since he was a boy, growing up in Haiti listening to the news on the radio with his father. As a high school student, his classes explored not only Haitian literature, but also French literature and philosophy. It was then that he discovered the Period of Enlightenment and Voltaire, which is where he came to understand cosmopolitanism.