Speakers W

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, over the past 20 years Tim Weiner covered the CIA and reported from eighteen countries (including Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Sudan), covering wars, coups and foreign policy. Legacy of Ashes, his third book, is the first history of the CIA compiled entirely from firsthand reporting and primary documents.

Ted Wheeler has been Oregon State Treasurer since 2010. Wheeler served as the Chair of the Multnomah County Commission from 2006 to 2010. Wheeler was born Aug. 31, 1962, in Portland, and graduated from Lincoln High School. He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics from Stanford University, an MBA from Columbia University and a Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Ms. Jody Williams is the founding coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which was formally launched by six nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in October of 1992. Ms. Williams has overseen the growth of the ICBL to more than 1,000 NGOs in more than sixty countries. She has served as the chief strategist and spokesperson for the campaign. Working in a unprecedented cooperative effort with governments, UN bodies and the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICBL achieved its goal of an international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines during the diplomatic conference held in Oslo in September 1997.

In her capacity as ICBL coordinator, she has written and spoken extensively on the problem of landmines and the movement to ban them. In recognition of her expertise on the issue, Ms. Williams was invited to serve as a technical adviser to the UN's Study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, led by Ms. Graca Machel, former first lady of Mozambique.

Prior to beginning the ICBL, Ms. Williams worked for eleven years to build public awareness about U.S. policy toward Central America. From 1986 to 1992, she developed and directed humanitarian relief projects as the deputy director of the Los Angeles-based Medical Aid for El Salvador. From 1984 to 1986, she was co-coordinator of the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, leading fact-finding delegations to the region. Previously, she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) in Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Washington, D.C.

Aaron Wolf is a professor of geography in the Department of Geosciences at Oregon State University. Wolf has acted as consultant to the US Department of State, the US Agency for International Development, and the World Bank, and several governments on various aspects of international water resources and dispute resolution. He has been involved in developing the strategies for resolving water aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including co-authoring a State Department reference text. He is author of Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River: The Impact of Scarce Water Resources on the Arab-Israeli Conflict (United Nations University Press, 1995). 

Robin Wright has been reporting on the Middle East for 22 years, currently as Senior Diplomatic Correspondent for the Washington Post. She is the recipient of the U.N. Correspondents Gold Medal, the National Magazine Award for reporting on Iran, and the Overseas Press club Award for reporting requiring "exceptional courage and initiative." A Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Brookings Institution, Ms Wright has also been the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Grant. Reviewing Dreams and Shadows, former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright notes that only Wright could bring "so much wisdom to analyzing the regions' many sided puzzles. This volume, full of mesmerizing details and large truths, sets a new standard for scholarship on the modern Middle East."