Who We Are
Eva Bellin, Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics
Bellin is the author of Stalled Democracy: Capital Labor and the Paradox of State-Sponsored Development and has written extensively on the authoritarian persistence in the Middle East, the political economy of development, the evolution of civil society, and the politics of cultural change. She has been a Carnegie Scholar and a Princeton University Fellow and has served as an editor of the journal Comparative Politics since 2005. She previously taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Harvard University, Hunter College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Kristina Cherniahivsky, Associate Director
Cherniahivsky earned an MBA from Simmons School of Management in 2001. Previously she managed the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and worked in Eastern Europe on issues around democracy and civil society in post-communist states.
Robert L. Cohen, Editor
Cohen has edited reference books, scholarly and general-interest non-fiction, and public policy and think tank publications on international relations, urban affairs, and other specialties for over a quarter-century. He has also written and edited definitions for the Random House Unabridged and other dictionaries; contributed a monograph on anti-poverty policy history to Inventing Community Renewal: The Trials and Errors That Shaped the Modern Community Development Corporation; written a documentary for NPR and feature stories and reviews for magazines and newspapers; and produced a compilation CD and over 100 radio programs.
Shai Feldman, Judith and Sidney Swartz Director
Feldman is the Judith and Sidney Swartz Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. He is also a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where he serves as co-chair of the Crown-Belfer Middle East Project. Prof. Feldman is also an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. In 2001-2003, Feldman served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Short C.V.
Nader Habibi, Henry J. Leir Professor of the Economics of the Middle East
Before joining the Crown Center in 2007 Habibi was Managing Director of the Middle East and North Africa Division in Global Insight. He is a regional economist with concentration on Middle East and North Africa. His recent research projects have focused on operations of sovereign wealth funths in Arab Countries and US-Arab economic relations. He holds a Ph.D. in economics and a graduate degree in systems engineering from Michigan State University and has worked as a research fellow at the Middle East Council at Yale University.
Marilyn R. Horowitz, Senior Department Associate
Horowitz is a native of New York City and now lives in Waltham, MA. She is an avid photographer, designs jewelry, is a member of the Dog Writers Association of America (her 2007 Sunnybank Calendar won the Calendar Category of the 2006 DWAA Writing Contest), and has a monthly column in a professional Collie publication with national circulation.
Abigail Jacobson, Junior Research Fellow
Jacobson received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2006. She has taught at the Interdisciplinary Center in Israel, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the social and urban history of mixed urban communities in Palestine in the late Ottoman period and the British mandate. Jacobson's book, entitled "From Empire to Empire: Jerusalem between Ottoman and British Rule" was recently published by Syracuse University Press in July 2011. At the Crown Center, she will focus on the history of Palestinian communism and anti-imperial struggle at the end of the British mandate.
Peter Krause, Junior Research Fellow
Krause received his PhD in Political Science from MIT in 2011. He was formerly a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and at the Smith Richardson Foundation. Krause's current research analyzes the political effectiveness of social movements and non-state coercion; recently he examined the "Afghan Model" of warfare and operations at Tora Bora as well as methods for improving U.S. engagement with the peoples of the Middle East.
Kanan Makiya, Faculty Chair
The Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University, Baghdad-born Makiya wrote Republic of Fear, which became a bestseller after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991.
Shana Marshall, Junior Research Fellow
Marshall is a PhD candidate in International Relations and Comparative Politics at the University of Maryland. Her dissertation examines how Arab governments utilize their trade with Western defense firms in order to encourage foreign investment in the industrial and commercial ventures of regime-allied elites. During the 2010-2011 academic year she was a research fellow in regional political economy at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University.
Benjamin Rostoker, Program Coordinator
Rostoker received his B.A. and M.A. in Politics from Brandeis University in 2005. He has worked with conflict resolution programs and organizations including: the Israeli Palestinian Negotiating Partners; Middle East Education through Technology; and Mercy Corps Conflict Management Group. In 2007, Rostoker was a teaching and research assistant at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel.
Abdel Monem Said Aly, Senior Fellow
The President of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, Said Aly is a regular contributor to the Al-Ahram Daily newspaper and a frequent commentator on political affairs for Egyptian and Arab television. Said Aly was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., in 2004. He was also a research fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University in 2003. He founded the International Alliance for Arab-Israeli Peace and the Egyptian Peace Movement.
Khalil Shikaki, Senior Fellow
Shikaki has directed the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah since 2000, and has conducted more than one hundred polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1993. A world-renowned expert on Palestinian public opinion and a widely published author, he has taught at several institutions, including Birzeit University, An-Najah National University, the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, and the University of South Florida. He also was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., in 2002.
Naghmeh Sohrabi, Associate Director for Research
Sohrabi was a postdoctoral fellow at the Crown Center from 2005-2007. She received her Ph.D. in history and Middle East studies from Harvard University in 2005. Her dissertation received an honorable mention from the Foundation for Iranian Studies. Sohrabi is currently under contract with Oxford University Press to publish her book on 19th century Persian travelers to Europe. She has taught courses at Harvard University, Skidmore College, and most recently at Brandeis.