Summer Institute 2026 Faculty
Partial list
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib leads Realign For Palestine, an Atlantic Council project that challenges entrenched narratives in the Israel and Palestine discourse and develops a new policy framework for rejuvenated pro-Palestine advocacy. Realign For Palestine aims to cultivate a new generation of Palestinian voices committed to a two-nation solution, nonviolence, and radical pragmatism.
Alkhatib serves as a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, where he writes extensively on Gaza’s political and humanitarian affairs, is an outspoken critic of Hamas, and promotes a radically pragmatic approach to peace and Palestinian statehood as the only path forward between Palestinians and Israelis. His writing and opinions have been published and featured across the US, Israeli, and international press, and his views are prominently featured across social media platforms. Alkhatib holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and a master’s degree in intelligence and national security studies. He grew up in Gaza City and left Gaza in 2005 to attend college in the United States as an exchange student. Much of Ahmed’s experience is influenced by having grown up in Gaza during the Oslo peace process—and during the difficulties resulting from Oslo's failure—and the rise of Hamas and Islamism in Gaza.
Since the October 7 massacre, Alkhatib’s life has been deeply impacted by the loss of thirty-three of his immediate and extended family members, who were killed by three different Israeli airstrikes. Still, he aims to play a part in breaking the cycle of dehumanization and defying the cycle of hatred, incitement, violence, and revenge.
Dr. Rosann M Catalano holds a Doctorate in Philosophy in Systematic Theology from the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, where she did her major work on the theology of God and the poetry of suffering in the Book of Psalms. She also holds a Master of Arts in Theology and Biblical Studies from the University of St. Michael's College, Toronto, and a Baccalaureate in Theology and Philosophy from Loyola University, Baltimore, MD.
Since 2009, Dr. Catalano has functioned as an independent scholar and educator, teaching Hebrew Bible and New Testament at Beth El and Chizuk Amuno Congregations, both in Baltimore.
From 1994 to 2017, Dr. Catalano was a pivotal figure at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, serving as a scholar of Roman Catholic Christianity, Associate Director, and Director of Programs.
Dr. Catalano also served as an Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore, MD, between 1980 and 1991 and as an Adjunct Professor of Theology at Notre Dame University of Maryland and at The Ecumenical Institute, St. Mary’s Seminary & University.
Dr. Catalano’s ongoing research focuses on the complex relationship between prayer and suffering and the dynamic interplay of emerging Christianity and rabbinic Judaism in the first centuries of the Common Era.
Dr. Catalano is the author of several publications and is a sought-after lecturer for Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic audiences on a variety of biblical, theological, and interfaith topics. Her areas of expertise include the dynamic relationship between suffering and prayer, the origins of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, and the partings of their ways. She is a frequent Weekend Scholar-in-Residence and retreat director.
Christopher M. Leighton is the founding director of the Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies (Baltimore, Maryland) where he served for thirty-three years. Over the course of his tenure, the ICJS provided an educational forum where scholars, clergy, and lay leaders explored the complex interplay of Christians, Jews and Muslims, with particular attention to dialogical inquiries that confront the differences and distortions that have pitted our religious communities against one another. He co-edited Talking About Genesis, the study guide for Bill Moyers’ Genesis series. He worked closely with the Jewish scholars who crafted Dabru Emet: A Jewish Statement on Christians and Christianity, and the companion works Christianity in Jewish Terms and Irreconcilable Differences. During 2010-2012, he worked with the Institute for Theological Inquiry on a project examining the relationship between religion and violence, and his essay on Cain and Abel is published in Plowshares into Swords? He is the author of the recent book, A Sacred Argument: Dispatches from the Christian, Jewish and Muslim Encounter published by Wipf & Stock in 2024.
He is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and did his doctoral work in Philosophy and Education at Columbia University—Teachers College. He was awarded a Klingenstein Fellowship at Columbia. He is the recipient of Loyola College’s the Andrew White Award, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by St. Mary’s Seminary and University.
Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary antisemitism, the author of Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student’s Survival Guide, and a sought-after speaker and lecturer.
She is a fellow with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC; senior fellow with the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities in Palo Alto; and a fellow with the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and the Comper Center for the Study of Antisemitism and Racism at the University of Haifa.
A contributing writer at Tablet, she has also published in Newsweek, Sapir, Quillette, The National Interest, Fathom, The Forward, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Her essays have appeared in several edited volumes, including October 7: The Wars over Words and Deeds (Academic Studies Press); The Rebirth of Antisemitism in the 21st Century: From the Academic Boycott Campaign into the Mainstream (Routledge); Mapping the New Left Antisemitism: The Fathom Essays(Routledge); Sionismo y antisionismo: Un debate necesario (RiL editores); and Jewish Priorities: Sixty-Five Proposals for the Future of Our People (Wicked Son). Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Polish, Russian, Czech, and other languages.