Biographies

Tom Banchoff

Professor Tom Banchoff is director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, and Associate Professor of Government in Georgetown College and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. His current research focuses on religion and politics in Atlantic democracies. Banchoff is editor of Democracy and the New Religious Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2007) and Religious Pluralism, Globalization, and World Politics (forthcoming, Oxford University Press). His current book project centers on the religious and secular politics of stem cell research in Europe and the United States.

Banchoff’s two previous books explored the intersection of history, institutions, and values in European politics. The German Problem Transformed: Institutions, Politics, and Foreign Policy, 1945-1995 (University of Michigan Press, 1999) examined Germany's enduring turn towards a peaceful, multilateral, foreign policy, and Legitimacy and the European Union: The Contested Polity, co-edited with Mitchell Smith (Routledge, 1999), analyzed problems of political representation and identification beyond the level of nation state.

Professor Banchoff received his BA from Yale (summa cum laude) in 1986, an MA from the University of Bonn in 1988, and a Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton in 1993. He was a Conant fellow at Harvard's Center for European Studies in 1997-98 and a Humboldt Fellow at the Centre for European Integration Studies in Bonn in 2000-01. Banchoff was awarded the DAAD Award for Distinguished Scholarship in German studies in 2003.

Daniel Byman

Daniel Byman (moderator) is Associate Professor and Director of the Security Studies Program and the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.  He holds a joint appointment with the Georgetown Department of Government as well as is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Dr. Byman has served as a Professional Staff Member with both the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States ("The 9-11 Commission") and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. He has also worked as the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation and as an analyst of the Middle East for the U.S. intelligence community.  Dr. Byman has written widely on a range of topics related to terrorism, international security, and the Middle East.  His latest book is "Deadly Connections:  States that Sponsor Terrorism" (Cambridge University Press, 2005).  He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Frank Comerford

A lifelong New Yorker, Frank Comerford is the president and general manager of WNBC, the flagship station of the NBC network. Under his leadership, the station’s newscasts and local programming were the first in New York to broadcast in high-definition. Also during his tenure, the station launched, WNBC 4.4, a hyper-local channel that provides cultural programming, news, local sports, entertainment and educational programming, as well original content from varied WNBC local partners.

A veteran of the television industry with more than 25 years experience, Comerford was promoted to his current position at WNBC in 2002 after serving as executive vice president in charge of sales and marketing for the NBC Television Stations Division since 1999, where he oversaw NBC's 14 owned-and-operated television stations. Before that, he spent five years as the head of sales for WNBC, where under his leadership, the station broke numerous sales records and surpassed the competition as the top billing television station in the New York marketplace.

He serves on the boards of the charitable organizations such as the Committee for Hispanic Children & Families, Child Abuse Prevention Program, Archdiocese of New York Catholic Charities, Diocese of Brooklyn Television Station, and Lutheran Medical Center. He is a board member of the Association for a Better New York, sits on the executive board of NYC & Company, and is a member of the executive board of the Television Bureau of Advertising. Additionally, Comerford is the Chairman of the Metropolitan Television Alliance, a member of the Columbus Citizens Foundation and a director of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

Most recently, Comerford was awarded the annual Diocese of Brooklyn's Distinguished Communicator Award, earned a David Rockefeller Fellowship, named to Irish America magazine's annual “Business 100” list, and presented with the “Sportsman of the Year” award by Abilities! – an organization which provides education, employment and research for people with disabilities. In addition, Comerford has been a GE/NBC Elfun Society Volunteer at the Manhattan School of Science and Math and was honored as volunteer of the year by the Friends of Retired & Senior Volunteer Program of the Community Service Society. Comerford was also recognized by the New Yorkers for Children for WNBC's outstanding success with the Wednesday's Child adoption program, an initiative launched under his watch, which today is one of the most successful ventures in the nation to help place foster children in permanent homes.

A graduate of Georgetown University in 1977, Comerford holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration and Finance. Comerford and his wife Maura Manning reside in both Brooklyn and Long Island.

Mark Dybul

Ambassador Mark R. Dybul serves as the United States Global AIDS coordinator, leading the implementation of President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief - the $15 billion, five-year initiative to fight HIV/AIDS around the world. Prior to becoming coordinator, Dybul served on the planning task force for the emergency plan, and led the Department of Health and Human Services' International Prevention of Mother and Child HIV Initiative.

He also served as the assistant director for Medical Affairs at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He continues to be a clinician in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation at NIAID/NIH and maintains an active role as the principal investigator for clinical and basic research for U.S. and international protocols with an emphasis on HIV therapy. Dybul received his bachelor's degree (1985) and medical degree (1992) from Georgetown University before completing his residency in internal medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals (1995) and a fellowship in infectious diseases at the NIAID (1998).

Robert Gallucci

Robert L. Gallucci became the Dean of Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service on May 1, 1996. He had just completed twenty-one years of government service, serving since August 1994 with the Department of State as Ambassador at Large. In March 1998, the Department of State announced his appointment as Special Envoy to deal with the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. He held this position, concurrent with his appointment as Dean, until January 2001.

Dr. Gallucci began his foreign affairs career at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1974. In 1978, he became a division chief in the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. From 1979 to 1981, he was a member of the Secretary's Policy Planning Staff. He then served as an office director in both the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (1982-83) and in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (1983-84). In 1984, he left Washington to serve as the Deputy Director General of the Multinational Force and Observers, the Sinai peacekeeping force headquartered in Rome, Italy. Returning in 1988, he joined the faculty of the National War College where he taught until 1991. In April of that year he moved to United Nations Headquarters in New York to take up an appointment as the Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) overseeing the disarmament of Iraq. He returned to Washington in February 1992 to be the Senior Coordinator responsible for nonproliferation and nuclear safety initiatives in the former Soviet Union in the Office of the Deputy Secretary. In July 1992, Dr. Gallucci was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs.

He has authored a number of publications on political-military issues, including "Neither Peace Nor Honor: The Politics of American Military Policy in Vietnam" (Johns Hopkins University Press 1975), and "Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis" with Joel S. Wit and Daniel Poneman (Brookings Press, April 2004). For "Going Critical," he is the recipient of the 2005 Douglas Dillon Award given by the American Academy of Diplomacy for a book of distinction in the practice of diplomacy. He received the Department of the Army's Outstanding Civilian Service Award in 1991, the Pi Sigma Alpha Award from the National Capital Area Political Science Association in 2000, and the Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary) from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in May 2002. He is married to Jennifer Sims; they have a daughter and a son.

Ted Leonsis

Vice Chairman of AOL LLC, serves as a strategist and visionary for AOL, focusing on the transformation of AOL into a company that is driving some of the most exciting Web 2.0 technologies. He also oversees a unit focused on how AOL interacts with consumers and protects their privacy. Leonsis is a pioneer of the Internet and new media, a sports team owner, and an innovator in the world of philanthropy.

He has been with AOL for 13 years and is credited with positioning AOL as a major media company and inventing the successful channel programming model.

As head of AOL's core service, Ted became known as AOL's "champion of the member," delivering a world-class experience for AOL's members. He led efforts to develop cutting-edge products and programming across the company's dial-up, broadband, wireless, and voice services.

Prior to joining AOL, Leonsis founded and was CEO of Redgate Communications Corp., considered the first new-media marketing company, participated in launches of the Apple Macintosh, the IBM PC and Wang office automation, and founded four computing magazines.

As majority owner of National Hockey League's Washington Capitals, Leonsis has employed state-of-the-art consumer and interactive initiatives to dramatically boost the Capitals' attendance and revenue. He is a minority shareholder in the National Basketball Association's Washington Wizards with future purchase rights to the team and to Verizon Center in Washington. In addition, Leonsis' investor group owns and operates the Washington Mystics, a franchise of the Women's National Basketball Association.

Leonsis is a former mayor of Orchid, Florida, and sits on the boards of Georgetown University and several charities, where he has used the interactive medium to encourage greater volunteerism and involvement. Recently, he received an Andrew Heiskell Community Service Award from Time Warner, AOL's parent company. Leonsis was named one of the 25 most powerful people in sports by Sporting News and businessman of the year by Washington Business Journal.

Jane Dammen McAuliffe

Jane Dammen McAuliffe was appointed Dean of the College at Georgetown University in 1999.  She is also a tenured Professor in the Department of History and the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies. Dr. McAuliffe held previous appointments at Emory University as professor and associate dean and at the University of Toronto as Chair of the Department for the Study of Religion and Professor of Islamic Studies in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations.  She received her BA in Philosophy and Classics from Trinity College, Washington, D.C. and her MA in religious studies and PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Toronto.

As Dean of Georgetown College, Dr. McAuliffe has focused particular attention on faculty recruitment and development.  She works closely with department chairs to enhance the diversity of the College faculty, to increase its sponsored research and to develop initiatives that foster more effective teaching.  Her promotion of curricular renewal has benefited departments across the College and has generated the creation of new undergraduate majors and minors as well as several new doctoral and masters' programs.  Convinced that the initial undergraduate months are critically important, Dr. McAuliffe instituted an intensive advising system for all first-year students in the College and recently launched an innovative series of first-year seminars.

Dr. McAuliffe is an internationally known scholar of Islamic studies.  Her numerous publications have focused primarily on the Qur'an and its interpretation, on early Islamic history and on the multiple relations between Islam and Christianity.  Titles include Qur'anic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (Cambridge, 1991), Abbasid Authority Affirmed: The Early Years of al-Mansur (SUNY, 1995), With Reverence for the Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Oxford, 2003), and The Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an (Cambridge, 2006).  She recently completed the six-volume Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an (Brill, 2001-2006), the first such reference work in Western languages.  Dr. McAuliffe is co-editor of a book series published by Brill Publishers and a member of several editorial boards.  In 2004, she served as president of the American Academy of Religion, the elected leadership position for this 10,000 member professional organization.  Professor McAuliffe's work has been supported by prestigious fellowships, including those from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and Guggenheim Foundation.

Dr. McAuliffe has long been active in various forms and forums of Muslim-Christian dialogue, on both the national and international levels, and served for ten years on the Vatican's Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims.  She has also been on the boards of the American Academy of Religion, the Association of Theological Schools, and the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate.  In 2005 she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Trinity University in Washington, DC.  Dr. McAuliffe is married to Dr. Dennis McAuliffe, a scholar of medieval Italian literature at Georgetown University.  They are the parents of four children.

Megan Mylan

Megan Mylan (F'92) is a New York-based documentary filmmaker and co-director and producer of “Lost Boys of Sudan,” feature-length documentary that follows two Sudanese refugees on an extraordinary journey from Africa to America. She directed “Batidania: Power in the Beat,” about an Afro-Brazilian youth percussion group from Rio de Janeiro fighting drug violence and racism through music. The film screened nationally and internationally and won the Best Documentary Award from the Marin Latino Film Festival. Mylan is currently in production on a film about the struggle for racial equality in Brazil. She has worked on documentaries for PBS, HBO, Showtime, and the BBC, including the Oscar-nominated, “Long Night’s Journey Into Day.” Before beginning her film work, Mylan worked with Ashoka, an international development non-profit, in the U.S. and Brazil. She has a masters’ degree in Journalism and Latin American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley.

Justin Oppmann

Journalist and documentary filmmaker Justin Oppmann (C'97) has worked at or written for CNN/TIME AllPolitics, Forbes FYI, CNN and The Washington Post. In the 2000 election cycle, he worked for Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, serving as the director of the McCain 2000 Patriots Network (veterans outreach).

After 9/11, Oppmann reported on terrorism, foreign intelligence operations, and education from the Sudan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan while working as a field producer on stories for CBS “60 Minutes.” He also collaborated on the best-selling book, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” soon to be a film starring Tom Hanks.

Oppmann is the co-founder and managing partner of Global Media Adventures, a unique summer program that trains college students in documentary filmmaking in Costa Rica. He is the producer/director of “The First War on Terror,” the forthcoming documentary film on Iranian state-sponsored terror featuring Jimmy Carter and narrated by Walter Cronkite. As a work in progress, the film was screened in the United States Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Pentagon in the past year. Oppmann volunteers as the co-director of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Georgetown Entertainment and Media Alliance.

Paul Pillar

Paul R. Pillar is a core faculty member in the Security Studies Program. Dr. Pillar is the former National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia at the CIA. Previously, he was a Federal Executive Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Prior to his time at Brookings, Dr. Pillar spent more than twenty years in the intelligence community. He has served in a variety of analytical and managerial positions, including as chief of analytic units covering portions of the Near East, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. Dr. Pillar also served in the National Intelligence Council as one of the original members of its Analytic Group.

He has been Executive Assistant to CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence and Executive Assistant to Director of Central Intelligence William Webster. He has also headed the Assessments and Information Group of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and from 1997 to 1999 was deputy chief of the center. Dr. Pillar is a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. He served on active duty in 1971-1973, including a tour of duty in Vietnam. He is the author of "Negotiating Peace and Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy." Dr. Pillar received his Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

Wolfgang Rennert

Wolfgang Rennert received his medical degree from Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany in 1982, followed by a doctorate at the same university in 1985. His practical residency training in anesthesia, general surgery, and internal medicine took place in Berlin between 1983 and 1988. From 1988 until 1992, Rennert ran a trauma center for victims of political violence and apartheid in an urban township community in Johannesburg, South Africa. During this time he completed a diploma in tropical medicine and hygiene at the Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg.

He studied for his pediatric residency at Georgetown between 1992 and 1995 and became chief resident in 1996. After spending a brief period in South Africa as a pediatrician and pediatric nephrologist at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, he returned to Georgetown in 2001. Since then he has been the director of the residency program in pediatrics and became a member of the university's Global AIDS Initiative, reviewing HIV projects in Kenya, Mozambique, Botswana, and South Africa.

Rennert has been published in more than 30 publications on topics including HIV, nephrology, and general pediatrics. He has received numerous teaching awards including the Golden Apple, which is awarded to outstanding professors by the student body of Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Patrick Schmitt (F'06)

Patrick is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He served as the Executive Director of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, an organization that he helped grow to more than 400 chapters throughout the world. In 2006, Patrick was the Democratic candidate for State Senate in Rhode Island's 38th District. He now serves as the director of ServeNext (ServeNext.org), an advocacy organization dedicated to promoting federal support for community and national service.

Steve Ward

Steve R. Ward, a 1992 graduate of Georgetown's Security Studies Master's Program, has served in various analytic, managerial, and policy positions during his 21-year career with the Central Intelligence Agency.   Most of Mr. Ward's service has been with the Directorate of Intelligence where his work has focused on national security and military issues throughout the Middle East and South Asia.  He recently completed a two-year tour as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East on the National Intelligence Council, where he served as Acting NIO for nearly three months.  Mr. Ward also has served in the CIA's Operations Directorate, and, from March 1998 to April 1999, he was a Director for Intelligence Programs at the National Security Council.

He has twice been awarded the CIA's Intelligence Commendation Medal for his performance as the senior Iraq military analyst during the 1990-1991 Gulf crisis and war and for leading an analytic task force that covered developments in Afghanistan and South Asia during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001 and 2002.   Mr. Ward is a 1980 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and, in addition to his Georgetown degree, he holds an MS in Systems Management from the University of Southern California. He retired from the US Army Reserve in 2001 as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Military Intelligence branch after 20 years of service that included five years of active duty as an armor officer, graduation from the US Army Command and General Staff College, and tours of duty with the Central and European Commands, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs.