Leadership
Advisors and Supporters
Project Khalid is administered by the Ameen Rihani Institute, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the United States. The Institute has a global advisory board that includes several ambassadors and scholars from Lebanon, the Arab world, and the United States. Project Khalid is led by an advisory council focused on the specific activities associated with the 100th anniversary of The Book of Khalid.
Director
Todd Fine, the director of Project Khalid, the centennial campaign for The Book of Khalid, is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is the editor of a new critical edition of The Book of Khalid under advance contract with Syracuse University Press. At Harvard, Mr. Fine worked for Samuel P. Huntington as a research assistant for two years on his book on American identity and immigration, entitled Who Are We? (Simon and Schuster, 2004). He also organized and developed the Global Zero campaign on nuclear weapons, which launched in Paris, France in December 2008.
Advisory Council
Dr. Saad Albazei
Saad Albazei is a leading scholar of literature, who, until recently, was professor of English and Comparative Literature at King Saud University in Riyadh. He is currently a member of the Shura Council of Saudi Arabia and the president of the Riyadh Literary Club. He is a former editor-in-chief of The Global Arabic Encyclopedia and the past editor-in-chief of the Riyadh Daily, an English-speaking newspaper. He earned his B.A. in English language and literature from the University of Riyadh (now King Saud University) in 1974, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Purdue University in the United States.
Dr. Suheil Bushrui
Suheil Bushrui is a Senior Research Scholar at the University of Maryland and the foremost authority on the works of Kahlil Gibran. From 1982 to 1988, Professor Bushrui was Cultural Advisor and official interpreter to the President of the Republic of Lebanon. In 1983, he headed a presidential committee in Lebanon which organized the international celebrations to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kahlil Gibran. These activities focused on the theme of “Unity in Diversity” and were held in Beirut, Oxford, London, and Washington, D.C.
Dr. Nathan Funk
Nathan Funk is an international relations scholar and Assistant Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Conrad Grebel University College. He earned his Ph.D. in International Relations in 2000 from American University’s School of International Service in Washington, D.C. He has authored or co-authored a number of writings on international conflict resolution and Islamic-Western relations, and in 2004 he edited Ameen Rihani: Bridging East and West (University Press of America, 2004), which included chapters from a collection of scholars about Ameen Rihani’s views on cultural interaction and dialogue.
Gamal Helal
Gamal Helal is the President of Helal Enterprises, a consulting firm for engagement of the Middle East. He was a diplomat, a policy adviser, and a senior diplomatic interpreter of Arabic for a long series of American presidents and Secretaries of State. He was at the table of every major Middle Eastern peace summit and has dedicated his life to informing American officials about the culture and thinking of the Middle East.
Rami Khouri
Rami Khouri is the Director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. He is an internationally syndicated political columnist and author and serves as editor-at-large of the Beirut Daily Star newspaper. Additionally, he is a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard Divinity School, a member of the board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University and the Jordan National Museum, and a member of the international advisory council of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Amb. David Mack
David Mack is a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs (1990-1993) and U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (1986-1989). His diplomatic assignments included Iraq, Jordan, Jerusalem, Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia. Following a career in the State Department, Ambassador Mack worked as Senior Counselor for C&O Resources and later served for ten years as Senior Vice President of the Middle East Institute (MEI).
Amb. Clovis Maksoud
Ambassador Clovis Maksoud is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for the Global South at American University in Washington, D.C. A Lebanese national, Dr. Maksoud was the Chief Representative of the League of Arab States in India from 1961 to 1966. From 1967 to 1979, he served as the Senior Editor of Al-Ahram and then Chief Editor of Al-Nahar Weekly. Between 1979 and 1990, Ambassador Maksoud was the League of Arab States’ Chief Representative to the United Nations. Dr. Maksoud graduated from the American University of Beirut, went on to receive his J.D. from the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. and did post-graduate studies at Oxford University in Britain.
Amb. Marwan Muasher
Marwan Muasher is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he directs research in both Washington, D.C. and Beirut on the Middle East. Muasher served as the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of Jordan, and he has worked in diplomacy, development, civil society, journalism, and communications.
Dr. Abdul Aziz Said
Abdul Aziz Said is a senior ranking professor of International Relations at American University, Washington, D.C. He founded the university’s Center for Global Peace, and he established and now serves as director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Division of the School of International Service. He has consulted for the U.S. Department of State, the Department of Defense, the United Nations, and the White House “Committee on the Islamic World.” Dr. Said has written, co-authored and edited more than seventeen books.
The Rihani Family of Washington, D.C.
