Rabi Mohtar founded the Global Engineering Program at Purdue University where he was a Professor of Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering since 1996. His professional activities addressed the important issues of Water – Energy Food nexus and its inter-linkages; more specifically in developing and maintaining the environmental aspects of sustainable development.
Sheikha Aisha bint Faleh Al-Thani delivered a Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject of “Women in Qatar: Quotas, Qualifications, and Qatarization” on December 4, 2012. Sheikha Al Thani is the chairperson and…
On December 8–9, 2012, CIRS convened its first Working Group meeting under the research initiative “Weak States in the Greater Middle East.” Participants employed a multi-disciplinary approach to critically analyze the…
On January 5–6, 2013, CIRS held a working group meeting under the research initiative “Politics and the Media in the Post-Arab Spring Middle East.” Given the profound socio-political transitions within Arab…
Former Foreign Minister of Thailand and career diplomat Kasit Piromya was the featured speaker for a CIRS Monthly Dialoguelecture on January 22, 2013. His Excellency Piromya’s talk, titled “Southeast Asia’s Role…
Richard Schofield, an expert on the study of historical territorial disputes, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on “Territorializing when Decolonizing: Britain Tries to Square its Circles in the Gulf, 1968-1971” on…
H.E. Munir Ghannam, Ambassador of Palestine in Qatar, delivered a Focused Discussion lecture on February 13, 2013, on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Ambassador introduced the lecture by noting that…
Maha Al-Hendawi, the inaugural CIRS Qatar University Fellow for 2012-2013 and Assistant Professor of Special Education in the College of Education at Qatar University, delivered a CIRSFocused Discussion on “Policy Borrowing in Education:…
CIRS hosted a Focused Discussion featuring the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dr. Zlatko Lagumdžija. The event included an in-depth discussion of the Syrian conflict with senior diplomats and ambassadors, academics, and foreign policy analysts. Some of the topics of discussion included the course and direction of the Syrian conflict, the regional and international responses it has elicited, the pros and cons of outside military intervention in the conflict, and the rise in the scale of the refugees and the humanitarian disaster to which the conflict has given rise.
On March 12, 2013, CIRS organized a panel discussion on the topic of “War by Other Means?Iran under Sanctions,” featuring Mehran Kamrava, Director of CIRS; Mansoor Moaddel, CIRS Visiting Scholar;…
On March 16–17, 2013, CIRS held a second working group to conclude its research initiative on “Social Change in Post-Khomeini Iran.” Experts and scholars from various multidisciplinary backgrounds reconvened in Doha…
On Monday, April 1, 2013, CIRS hosted a talk by H. E. Bader Omar Al Dafa from the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Al Dafa is a career diplomat, and served as Qatar’s Ambassador to Egypt, the United States, France, and Russia. He was also the Undersecretary General to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). H. E. Al Dafa is currently Ambassador-at-Large and also the Executive Director of the Global Dry Land Alliance. During his visit, Ambassador Al Dafa shared his experiences as a diplomat and commented on current trends in Qatari diplomacy related to regional developments.