Speaker Profiles - American University of Iraq, Sulaimani
Transcription
Speaker Profiles - American University of Iraq, Sulaimani
THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF IRAQ - S U L A I M A N I - Institute of Regional and InternationalStudies Institute of Regional and International Studies Annual Cultural Heritage Conference 2015 Session 1: • Gyorgy Busztin is the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary - General (Political) for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). He previously served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Budapest and as Hungary’s Ambassador to Iran, and was previously Ambassador to Indonesia. He has served in diplomatic posts in Afghanistan, Libya, and Egypt. He holds a PhD in Arabic History from Damascus University and a second PhD in Arabic Language from Lorand Eotvos University in Budapest. • Mala Awat is the Director of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Directorate of Antiquities. He organizes regular international conferences on archaeology and history in Erbil and has helped introduce innovative methodological approaches to archaeology in the region. His department is also in charge of the revitalization of the Erbil citadel, a world heritage site of immense cultural significance. • Hashem Hama Abdullah is the Director of the Sulaimani Museum. He has had extensive participation in excavations projects at Shiela Castle, Koya, Tell Graizah, Alqichlah along with many others. He is a member of the editorial staff of the archeology journal Hazar Merd. • Iqbal Kadhim Aajeel is the Director of the Nasiriyah Museum, which is the second largest museum in the country, and has been reopened recently. Her talk will discuss the role of provincial museums in promoting cultural heritage, with particular focus on the Nasiriyah Museum. • Marie Labrosse is a poet, translator, and member of the Department of English and Journalism at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. She is the host of the university’s annual poetry reading and works towards preserving Iraq’s poetic heritage through archival digitization projects. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF IRAQ SULAIMANI Session 2: • Axel Plathe is the Director of the UNESCO Office for Iraq and the UNESCO Representative in Iraq since February 2014. He has previously served as the Director of the UNESCO Office in Kathmandu and in various positions at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris including Chief of the Executive Office of UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Communication Information and Chief of the Section for Universal Access and Preservation in UNESCO’s Information Society Division. Dr. Plathe holds an MA and PhD in German and Roman Studies, both from Albert Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg, Germany, and a post-doctoral diploma in Library Management and Library Sciences from Bibliotheksschule Frankfurt/Main, Germany. • Ahmed Kamal Mohammed is the director of the newly reopened Iraqi Museum. The museum opened the day after ISIS destroyed the Mosul Museum and represents one of the most important counterstrategies to ISIS’ strategy of cultural destruction. His talk will discuss the role of this museum in promoting cultural heritage in Iraq. • Hussein Dhaher is the Director of the Department of Archaeology at Mosul University. He has been recently displaced with the ISIS takeover of Mosul and is living in Duhok. AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF IRAQ SULAIMANI • Bilal Wahab is an Assistant Professor at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani and the Founding Director of the Center for Development and Natural Resources (CDNR). He teaches courses on the petroleum industry, public policy, and international politics. He completed his PhD at George Mason University with a dissertation about the smuggling of Oil and Antiquities from Iraq. • Muayyad Said Damerji is the former Director of the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and advisor to the Iraqi Minister of Culture. He has previously led major excavation projects at world heritage sites including Nimrud, Hatra, and Samarra. During his career he made many significant discoveries in ancient Iraqi culture, such as the famed Treasures of the Nimrud Queens which are now securely stored in Baghdad. Session 3: • Simone Mühl studied Near Eastern Archaeology and Assyriology at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). In 2011, she completed her dissertation entitled, “The History of Settlement in the central Trans-Tigris area - from the Neolithic to the Late Assyrian period”. She now works as an Assistant Lecturer at the Institute of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Munich. In collaboration with the Sulaimani Directorate of Antiquities and several leading European universities, she is also the archaeological director of the Shahrizor Survey Project, which combines a study of the ancient environment and cultural history in the Shahrizor Plain (Sulaimani and Halabja Provinces). • Jessica Giraud is a research fellow at the Ifpo-Iraq (Institut français du Proche-Orient). She studies the evolving patterns of human settlements using aerial and satellite photography and landscape archaeology. Her specialization includes the Bronze Age in Oman and Upper Mesopotamia. She also serves as the Associate Director of the Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey directed by Jason Ur (Harvard University) and she is the Project Director of the Sulaimani Governorate Archaeological Survey (SGAS). • Tobin Hartnell was awarded a doctorate degree from the University of Chicago before becoming a professor at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. His research specialty includes the ancient empires of Mesopotamia and the ancient Near East. Hartnell is the faculty coordinator of the first Annual Iraqi Cultural Heritage Symposium. • Kozad Ahmed is the Head of Archaeology at the University of Sulaimani. He is an expert in the history of ancient Kurdistan. • Mustafa Ahmad is a PhD Candidate at the Universite Lumiere 2 Lyon in France. He is a contributing member of the MEDMAK Syrian Archaeology Study Center and studies the material culture of early Islam in northern Iraq and Syria. His talk will focus on the destruction of cultural heritage in Syria since the start of the civil war. • Christine van den Toorn is the Director of the Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at AUIS, where she has taught Middle East history for four years. She has conducted fieldwork all over the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with a particular focus on disputed territories in Nainawa and has delivered talks, moderated panels and been interviewed about her research. She is a reporter for Iraq Oil Report and has contributed to publications like Inside Iraqi Politics, Daily Beast and Niqash. Van den Toorn has also conducted baseline reports and social impact assessments for major international oil companies operating in the KRG, working with teams of student researchers from AUIS. Sponsored by: