The University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House has named its Inaugural Visiting Fellows and Visiting Scholars for the Spring 2017 Semester.

The Perry World House Visitors are drawn from academic, policy and practitioner backgrounds. They will guest lecture, author white papers, complete book manuscripts, mentor students, give public lectures, host expert workshops and otherwise play crucial roles in the intellectual, research and public policy contributions of Perry World House and of the broader Penn community.

“These 15 visitors individually and collectively offer us deep expertise and experience across a range of academic and policy areas,” said Richard Perry Professor of Law and Inaugural Director of Perry World House William Burke-White. “They will enhance our ability to meet a core objective of Perry World House, which is to bridge academics and policy makers for greater policy impact on pressing global problems. They will also interact directly with Penn’s students and faculty. We look forward to a programmatically and intellectually robust semester with each of them.”

The Inaugural Perry World House Visiting Fellows and Visiting Scholars hold expertise in areas critical to Perry World House’s two inaugural research themes: The Future of the Global Order: Power, Technology and Governance and Global Shifts: Urbanization, Migration and Demography. Fellows will examine how power, technology and governance interact in a new global order and how urbanization, migration and demography are shifting the ways we govern and live. Visitors bring valuable expertise across a range of issues, including U.S. foreign policy, military technology and counterterrorism, international economic policy, global urbanization, E.U. foreign policy, China-U.S. relations, refugees and migration, humanitarian intervention, technology and warfare and global security.

Jockin Arputham is president of Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), and president of the National Slum Dwellers Federation in India. Launched in 1996, SDI is a network of community-based organizations of the urban poor in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Arputham has worked for more than 40 years in slums and shanty towns, building representative organizations into powerful partners with governments and international agencies for the betterment of urban living. Arputham was the winner of the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and International Understanding and an honorary Ph.D. from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, India, in 2009. In 2011, the Government of India bestowed on him its fourth highest civilian honor, the Padma Shri award. 

Lady Catherine Ashton is a British Labour politician who served as the high representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and first vice president of the European Commission in the Barroso Commission from 2009-14. On January 1, 2017, Ashton became the Chancellor of the University of Warwick, succeeding Sir Richard Lambert and becoming Warwick's first female Chancellor.  Ashton began her parliamentary career in the House of Lords in 1990. She served as a junior education minister from 2001-04. In 2004, Ashton became a junior minister in the Department of Constitutional Affairs and in 2006 was admitted to the Privy Council. The following year, Ashton served as a junior justice minister before being promoted to leader of the House of Lords by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. In that role she was responsible for the entire Government legislative program in the House of Lords and was instrumental in easing the passage of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty through the upper house. In October 2008 she became trade commissioner in the EU, the first female British commissioner and the first female trade commissioner.

Tarun Chhabra served as the director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council from 2016-17. Prior thereto he was director for Human Rights and National Security on the National Security Council. From 2013-15 he was a speechwriter for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Chhabra previously worked in the Executive Office of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and on the staff of Annan's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change. He holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow, and an M.Phil. in international relations from Oxford, where he was a Marshall Scholar. His B.A. is from Stanford, and he was a Fulbright Fellow in Russia.

Arafat Jamal is a senior United Nations diplomat with over twenty years of international experience focused on leading in emergencies, managing operations, coordinating amongst agencies, resettling refugees, conducting humanitarian diplomacy, and formulating and evaluating policy. He currently works at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, where he heads its Inter-Agency Coordination Service, which focuses on fostering inclusive and optimized collaboration in order to meet refugee needs as efficiently as possible. Jamal also has an extensive background in managing displacement emergencies (Syrians in Jordan 2011-12, Libya 2011, Lebanon 2006, Sierra Leoneans in Guinea 1999, Western Afghanistan 1998-99, Rwandans in Zaire 1998), policy formulation, evaluation and refugee resettlement.  He has authored several papers focusing on topics including minimum standards and essential needs, the practical meaning of refugee protection and the political and strategic implications of resettlement. He holds a master’s in forced migration (Oxon), a B.A in history, and a B.Sc. in urban and regional studies from Cornell University.

Bonnie Jenkins was the U.S. Department of State's coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation. She was also the U.S. representative to the G7 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (WMD) and chaired the Global Partnership in 2012. She was the Department of State lead on the Nuclear Security Summit, and she coordinated the Department of State's activities related to the effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material. Jenkins holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the University of Virginia; an LL.M. in international and comparative law from the Georgetown University Law Center; an M.P.A. from the State University of New York at Albany; a J.D. from Albany Law School; and a B.A. from Amherst College.

Aisa Kirabo Kacyira is the deputy executive director of UN-Habitat and United Nations assistant secretary-general. In this role, she has been providing critical leadership to promote sustainable cities and human settlements globally, engaging widely with governmental and nongovernmental actors. Before joining UN-Habitat, Kirabo Kacyira was the Governor of the Eastern Province, the largest province in Rwanda with a population of 2.5 million. Kirabo Kacyira has facilitated strategic planning in line with government policy, while overseeing effective and efficient use of resources, capacity-building and service delivery. Her skilled fostering of regional diplomatic and cross-border trade relations is essential to the support for UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda. Previously, she was Mayor of Kigali (2006-11), one of the fastest urbanizing cities in the world, and an elected member of Parliament.

Ian Klaus served as senior adviser for Global Cities at the U.S. Department of State. In that role, he led the Department’s work at the nexus of urbanization and foreign policy and worked with cities around the world, from the Middle East to South America. He also served as the United States deputy negotiator for the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III). Previously, he served on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning staff. Prior to that, he was Ernest May Fellow for history and security studies at the Kennedy School of Government. He is a frequent commentator on urbanization and foreign policy issues. He is the author of Forging Capitalism and Elvis Is Titanic. He holds a Ph.D. in international history from Harvard University.

Jacob Lief is the founder and CEO of Ubuntu Education Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides comprehensive services to vulnerable children living in the townships of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, from cradle to career. After visiting South Africa to observe the country’s historic elections, he returned to the Eastern Cape to co-found Ubuntu in 1999. He has since developed the organization into a world-class institution that supports more than 2,000 children on their pathway out of poverty. Lief appeared in Fortune Magazine's “40 Under 40" list of the most influential young people in business. In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy, Lief was the host of the podcast series Philanthropy Unfiltered. In 2012, he became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative Advisory Committee and was named one of the world’s 101 most innovative visionaries at the Decide Now Act Summit. Lief has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and in 2009, he was selected as an Aspen Institute Global Fellow. Lief received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he has also served as a lecturer. 

Susan Martin is the Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of International Migration and the founder of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is currently serving as Chair of the Thematic Working Group on Environmental Change and Migration in the Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development in the World Bank.

Previously Martin served as the executive director of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, established by legislation to advise Congress and the President on U.S. immigration and refugee policy. Prior to joining the Commission's staff, Martin was the Director of Research and Programs at the Refugee Policy Group, a Washington, D.C.-based center for analysis of U.S. and international refugee policy and programs. She was assistant professor at the American Studies Department of Brandeis University and lecturer in the History of American Civilization Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Martin earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.A. from Douglass College, Rutgers University.

Scott Mulhauser was the chief of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to Ambassador Max Baucus. In that role, Mulhauser helped run Mission China, one of the busiest postings in the world that included the embassy, five consulates, 49 separate federal agencies and more than 2,200 employees and their families. During his time in China, the U.S. and China saw critical advancements, including historic agreements to cap climate emissions, extend visa validity and enhance cybersecurity. During Mulhauser’s time in China, he led trade missions on behalf of U.S. companies, spoke regularly on behalf of the Embassy and the U.S. government, traveled to more than half of China’s provinces and worked closely with leading government officials in both countries.

Bathsheba “Sheba” Nell Crocker served as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 2014-17. Crocker held other positions at the U.S. Department of State, including as a senior adviser to the secretary of state, as the principal deputy director in the Office of Policy Planning under Jake Sullivan, and as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg.

Crocker was an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2002-03. From 2003-05, Crocker worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project as a fellow and co-director. Crocker was also the deputy chief of staff at the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, from 2005-07. Afterward, she was the senior advisor to the assistant secretary-general for Peacebuilding Support at the UN Peacebuilding Support Office, from 2007- 08. From 2008-09, Crocker was a senior policy and advocacy officer for international affairs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Anne C. Richard served as assistant secretary of state for Population, Refugees, and Migration in the U.S. State Department from 2012-17. Prior to her appointment, Richard was the vice president of government relations and advocacy for the International Rescue Committee (IRC), non-resident Fellow of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University/SAIS and a board member of the Henry L. Stimson Center. She also held positions as director of the Secretary’s Office of Resources, Plans and Policy at the State Department, deputy chief financial officer of the Peace Corps, senior advisor in the Deputy Secretary’s Office of Policy and Resources at the State Department and as a budget examiner at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. As an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, she was part of the team that created the International Crisis Group.

Dominic “Dom” Tierney is associate professor of political science at Swarthmore College, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He completed his Ph.D. in international politics at Oxford University in 2003, and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Mershon Center at Ohio State University and the Olin Institute at Harvard University before coming to Swarthmore in 2005. In 2008-09, he was a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He has published four books: Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics, with Dominic Johnson; FDR and the Spanish Civil War: Neutrality and Commitment in the Struggle that Divided America; How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War; and his latest book, The Right Way to Lose a War: America in an Age of Unwinnable Conflicts.

Thomas Wright is fellow and director of the Project on International Order and Strategy, as well as a fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe, at the Brookings Institution. Wright works on U.S. foreign policy and grand strategy, Donald Trump's worldview, and the future of Europe and Asian security. Wright's writings have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Orbis, Survival, The Washington Quarterly, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune and The Washington Post, as well as in a number of international newspapers and media outlets.  His upcoming book, All Measures Short of War: The Contest for the 21st Century and the Future of American Power, will be published by Yale University Press in May 2017. Wright has a doctorate from Georgetown University, a Master of Philosophy from Cambridge University, and a bachelor's and master's from University College Dublin. 

Tom Wyler recently stepped down from the Commerce Department’s Office of Policy and Strategic Planning, where he served as counselor to the Secretary and senior advisor for International Economics. Wyler’s responsibilities included counseling the Secretary of Commerce on the full range of international economic policy issues before the Department of Commerce. He also managed the Department’s Global Economics team and was the Secretary’s primary advisor on the broader geo-economic and geo-political challenges facing the Obama Administration. He was responsible for coordinating and developing then-Secretary Pritzker’s international economic agenda, including on matters related to commercial diplomacy and trade policy and promotion. He is the author of numerous articles and publications, including “Mutually Assured Depression” and “Wiping the Slate: Maintaining Capital Markets While Addressing the Odious Debt Dilemma.” Wyler received his J.D. with honors from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and his M.A. from The Fletcher School at Tufts University, both in 2008. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Perry World House is Penn’s new hub for global engagement and international policy research. Bringing together students and faculty from across Penn’s schools and disciplines with practitioners and policymakers from around the world, it convenes conversations around the most pressing global challenges, catalyzes interdisciplinary academic research with policy relevant potential, and connects Penn to the world and the world to Penn.

For more information on Perry World House, please visit:  https://global.upenn.edu/perryworldhouse