A map of the world with the words finding solutions to global crises
A picture of a man named dr. julio frenk
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    From Office of The President, University of Miami


    Julio Frenk is the president of the University of Miami since August of 2015. He also holds academic appointments as Professor of Public Health Sciences at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, as Professor of Health Sector Management and Policy at the Miami Business School, and as Professor of Sociology at the College of Arts and Sciences. 


    Prior to joining the University of Miami, he served for nearly seven years as the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the T & G Angelopoulos Professor of Public Health and International Development, a joint appointment with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Frenk was the Minister of Health of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. There he pursued an ambitious agenda to reform the nation’s health system and introduced a program of comprehensive universal coverage, known as Seguro Popular, which expanded access to health care for more than 55 million previously uninsured persons. He was the founding director-general of the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico, one of the leading institutions of its kind in the developing world. He also served as executive director in charge of Evidence and Information for Policy at the World Health Organization and as senior fellow in the global health program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among other leadership positions. 


    His scholarly production, which includes over 180 articles in academic journals, as well as many books and book chapters, has been cited over 23,000 times. In addition, he has written three best-selling novels for youngsters explaining the functions of the human body. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico, and El Colegio Nacional. Dr. Frenk holds a medical degree from the National University of Mexico, as well as a master of public health and a joint Ph.D. in Medical Care Organization and in Sociology from the University of Michigan. He has received honorary degrees from ten universities.

A poster with a picture of a man and the words global trade and climate goals
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    From McLarty Associates


    Ambassador Blake served for 31 years in the State Department in a wide range of leadership positions. From 2013-2016, he served as the US Ambassador to Indonesia, where he focused on building stronger business and educational ties between the US and Indonesia, while also developing cooperation to help Indonesia reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  In 2009, he was nominated by President Obama to be Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, serving from 2009-2013, for which he was awarded the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award. From 2006-2009, he served concurrently as US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Prior to that, he served as Deputy Chief of Mission in India from 2003-2006, where he was named the worldwide DCM of the Year by the State Department.


    Most recently, Ambassador Blake has held a wide variety of key State Department positions as well, including Executive Assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs from 2001-2003, Deputy Executive Secretary for the Department of State from 2000-2001, and Senior Desk Officer responsible for economic and political relations with Turkey from 1998-2000. He has also served in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Nigeria.


    He is currently Chairman of the Board of the US-Indonesia Society, and he is a member of the board of the Asia Foundation and the Bhutan Foundation.


    Ambassador Blake holds a BA from Harvard College, and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

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    From KimGhattas.com


    After almost two decades roaming the world as a journalist, juggling tight deadlines, adrenaline highs, hours of live television reporting and Twitter addiction, I spent two and a half years focused solely on one project: a new book, Black Wave. 


    After twenty years as a BBC journalist, it was also time to say goodbye to this great institution. I am currently a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, shuttling between Beirut and Washington D.C.


    I was born and raised in Beirut, on the front lines of the Lebanese civil war. Searching for answers about the chaos around me is what made me want to become a journalist at the age of 13. 


    I started my journalism career in 1998, as an intern in Beirut at the local English-language newspaper The Daily Star. Soon, I started reporting for Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant as well as the Financial Times and the BBC. I spent my time on the road covering the Middle East: reporting from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and of course Lebanon. In 2006, my BBC colleagues and I covered the war between Israel and Hezbollah and we won an Emmy for international news coverage. 


    In 2008, I left my posting in Beirut, the city that made me a journalist, to become the BBC's State Department correspondent based in Washington.  For six years, I travelled regularly with Secretary of States: Condoleezza Rice, Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. I've had the honor of being recognized by publications like Monocle for my State Department reporting. 


    My front row seat to the making of American foreign policy led me to write a book, The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, which became a New York Times best seller. The book includes personal reflections about being a child in war-torn Lebanon, growing up with questions about America. 


    My work has  been published in The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Time magazine and The Washington Post. I regularly speak on American television and radio, and at special events, on Middle East issues and American foreign policy. 


    I serve on the Board of Trustees of the American University of Beirut, my alma mater and a beacon of intellectual engagement in the Middle East.



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A poster for a special joint event with bob giles
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    From WhenTruthMattered.net

    "Robert Giles made the connection between journalism and truth at a young age. The lessons came from a stern and resolute boss who would accept nothing less than accurate, fact-based stories. Seeking the truth became a guiding value in Bob’s journalism life of more than 50 years.


    He is now retired and, with his wife, Nancy, lives in Traverse City, Michigan. At a time when life was slowing, a long-felt urge became a passion for telling the story that mattered most in his newspaper life. He wanted the world to know of the Akron Beacon Journal’s truthful narrative in reporting the campus shootings at Kent State, May 4, 1970. Before it was too late.


    After service in the U.S. Army, his first reporting job, in 1958, was at the Beacon Journal. In 1965, he won a Nieman Fellowship and then accepted his editor’s challenge of learning to be an editor. By May 1970, he had become the paper’s managing editor.


    After 17 years in Akron, Giles tried teaching journalism, briefly, at the University of Kansas. He loved the Jayhawks and the experience of opening young minds to the rigors of journalism. But he was a practitioner at heart and wanted to get back to a newsroom. 


    From 1977-1986, Giles was executive editor and then editor at the Democrat & Chronicle and the Times-Union, in Rochester, N.Y. While in Rochester, he wrote a text book called Newsroom Management.


    His final newspaper job was as editor and publisher of The Detroit News. He retired in 1997, but he wasn’t finished.  An opportunity with the Freedom Forum and its Media Studies Center in New York City enabled Giles to direct an extensive examination of fairness in the news media. 


    Giles retired from the Freedom Forum in 2000 and, at age 67, moved on to the grandest job of all, as curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. During the final 11 years of his working life, he savored the privilege of selecting bright, courageous, working journalists for a transformative year of learning and expanding horizons. 


    Giles was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He is a past president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and of the Associated Press Managing Editors, and past president of the Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism.


    Giles grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. He is a 1955 graduate of DePauw University. He received his master’s degree in 1956 from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. He received the honorary Doctorate in Journalism from DePauw in 1996. 


    His wife, Nancy, is a psychologist and a specialist in trauma. They have three children: David is vice president and deputy general counsel for E.W. Scripps Co. He and his wife, Ellen, live in Cincinnati. Rob lives in Springfield, Va., with his wife, Kelly, and two daughters. He is a prosecutor in the U.S. Navy Trial Counsel Assistance Program. Megan, an artist and former journalIst, lives in Darien, Conn., with her husband, Jay, and their two children."


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