Wednesday, September 18, 2024 Hybrid Luncheon, Union Club of Boston and via Zoom

Simon Saradzhyan

Founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

“Drivers of Russia’s Military Interventions: When Does Vladimir Putin Send Troops Abroad?”

Dr. Saradzhyan is the founding director of the Russia Matters Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Dr. Saradzhyan also helps advance the center’s U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism.

Prior to joining the Belfer Center in 2008 as a full-time research fellow, he worked as a researcher, consultant, and journalist in Russia. He was an editor at Moscow Times, a senior fellow at the East-West Institute, and a consultant for the World Bank.

Saradzhyan has written articles for The Times of London, Financial Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Foreign Affairs, and has appeared on the BBC, CBS, NPR, and Al Jazeera, as well as on Russian and Armenian TV and radio. He has also testified before Congress on nuclear terrorism and violent extremism.

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Monday, October 7  lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston

Khalil Shikaki

Founder and Director, Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research, and Senior Fellow, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University

“One Year After October 7: How the War Affected the Prospects for Palestinian-Israeli and Regional Peace“

Khalil Shikaki is founder and director of the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah, Palestine, and senior fellow at Brandeis’ Crown Center for Middle East Studies. He has also been a visiting fellow at Brookings and taught at Najah University in Nablus and at several American universities. Shikaki has written numerous articles and reports on the Arab Spring, Israeli-Palestinian relations, and Palestinian politics and governance. Since 1993, he has designed and directed over 300 surveys of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Results of recent surveys on Palestinian attitudes toward Hamas, the war in Gaza, a two-state solution, and other topics are available at https://www.pcpsr.org/en

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Tuesday, December 3rd lunch meeting at the Union Club of Boston

Karen Elliot House

Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and former journalist and managing editor at the Wall Street Journal.

“Saudi Arabia: New and Improved“

Karen Elliott House has served as a reporter, assistant foreign editor, foreign editor, vice president, president, and publisher at the Wall Street Journal. In 1984 she received a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Middle East, and she has also received several other journalism awards for her reporting on foreign affairs. House has served on the boards of the Council on Foreign Relations, Boston University, the Asia Society, the Rand Corporation, and the Trilateral Commission. Her book, On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines – and Future was published in 2012. House is currently a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School.