Participants

Dimitris Antoniou (D.Phil., University of Oxford, 2011) is Lecturer in Modern Greek History and Culture in the Department of Classics at Columbia University. Before joining Columbia, he was Faculty Research Fellow at Oxford, Hannah Seeger Davis Fellow at Princeton, and National Bank of Greece Fellow at LSE. His research draws on anthropological and historical approaches to examine state operation and the making of public history in Greece. In particular, Dimitris studies unrealized government initiatives and failed architectural projects. His monograph, The Mosque That Wasn’t There: Islam and the Politics of Imagination in Contemporary Greece (forthcoming, University of Pennsylvania Press), explores the state’s failure to construct a mosque. Recent articles examine spatial absence and encounters with the unthinkable in the scholarly investigations of Greece’s dictatorial past.

Paris Aslanidis is a Lecturer of Political Science at the Department of Political Science and the
Hellenic Studies Program, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University. His work focuses on populism as a mobilizing discourse in party politics and social mobilization. He has published with Political Studies, Democratization, Sociological Forum, Mobilization, Quality & Quantity, and he authored the chapter on “Populism and Social Movements” in the Oxford Handbook of Populism.

Angelos Athanasopoulos works as a Senior Editor on Diplomatic, Defence and EU affairs in newspapers “To Vima” and “Ta Nea”. They are, respectively, the weekly and daily papers of Alter Ego Media Group in Athens. In the past, he was deputy editor-in-chief in the international news department in “To Vima”. In 2011, he has been awarded the “Eleni Vlachou” prize for distinguished journalism from the Greek Parliament and the German Embassy in Athens for reporting on European affairs. He has also been a European Marshall Memorial Fellow (MMF) for GMF in 2008. He has interviewed, among others, Jean – Claude Juncker, Wolfgang Schauble, Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Jens Stoltenberg, Jeroen Djisselbloem, Guy Verhofstadt, Joseph Nye, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strobe Talbott, James Stavridis, Barry Eichengreen, Fareed Zakaria et.al. Angelos Athanasopoulos has written academic articles on the Balkans, the EU and migration and worked briefly for the European Parliament. He has also worked as a consultant for think tanks, embassies and private firms.

Mustafa Aydın is a Professor of International Relations at Kadir Has University (Istanbul), and the President of International Relations Council of Turkey. Previously, he worked at Ankara University (1994-2005) and Economy and Technology University (2005-2009), and was the Rector of Kadir Has University between 2010 and 2018. Professor Aydın was guest researcher and/or lecturer at Michigan (1998), Harvard (2002, Fulbright fellow), and Athens (2003, Onassis Fellow) universities, as well as at Richardson Institute for Peace Studies (1999, Unesco Fellow) and the EU Institute for Security Studies (2003). He is a member of International Studies Association (ISA), Turkish Atlantic Council, Turkish Political Sciences Association, European Leadership Network, Greek-Turkish Forum, and European Academy of Art and Sciences. Prof. Aydın’s areas of interest include international politics, foreign policy analysis, security issues related to Central Asia, Caucasus, the Black Sea and the Middle East, as well as Turkish foreign and security policies.

Ruşen Çakır was born in 1962, in Hopa, Artvin. Starting to work as a journalist in the Nokta magazine, he continued his profession in various newspapers, journals, and television channels. He penned fifteen books in total, on a wide variety of issues concerning the political agenda of Turkey, Islamic movement being in the first place. After thirty years of work as a correspondent, columnist, and commentator in mainstream media, he now works as an editorial director and commentator on Medyascope-TV, an alternative media he himself founded in 2015.

Cengiz Candar is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse. A journalist since 1976, he is the author of seven books in the Turkish language, mainly on Middle East issues, including the best-seller Mesopotamia Express: A Journey in History. Currently, he is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies (SUITS) and a Senior Associate Fellow at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs (UI). On Twitter: @cengizcandar

Ann Cooper is CBS Professor Emerita of Professional Practice in International Journalism, Columbia Journalism School. She taught international and broadcast journalism for 12 years at Columbia. Prior to that she was executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists 1998-2006. In her long career in journalism, she worked for The Louisville Courier-Journal, Capitol Hill News Service, The Baltimore Sun, Congressional Quarterly and National Journal, before joining National Public Radio in 1987. Cooper opened NPR's first Moscow bureau that year and covered the tumultuous final five years of the Soviet Union. She is co-editor of Russia at the Barricades, a collection of first-person accounts of the failed coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. From 1992-95 she was NPR's Johannesburg bureau chief, covering South Africa's transition to democracy, the Rwandan refugee crisis and famine and political breakdown in Somalia. Her coverage of South Africa won a duPont Columbia award for excellence in broadcast journalism in 1995. She was the Edward R. Murrow fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations 1995-96. Cooper is a graduate of Iowa State University, which honored her in 2006 with its Alumni Merit Award "for outstanding contributions to human welfare that transcend purely professional accomplishments and bring honor to the university."

Athanasios Ellis is Editor in Chief of Kathimerini English Edition, published in Greece with the New York Times as a single paper.  A long time Washington bureau chief, he has also reported from many other capitals -Beijing, Tokyo, Brussels, Berlin, London, Paris, Rome, Vienna, Ankara, Nicosia, Cairo- and has interviewed numerous heads of state and international organizations, among them Turkish leaders Erdogan, Gul, and Davutoglu, French Presidents Macron and Sarkozy, European Commission Presidents Junker and Baroso, and IMF Managing Directors Lagarde and Strauss Kahn.  He has often appeared on international media to analyze Greece related issues.  He holds a B.A. from Boston University in Economics and Political Science, and a M.A. from Boston University (Paris) in International Relations.

Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis is Associate Professor and Jean Monnet Chair of European Studies at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent University. Currently he is Visiting Professor at the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program, Buffett Institute for Global Studies, Northwestern University. In the academic year 2016-2017, he was IPC-Stiftung Mercator Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik-SWP) in Berlin and Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellow at Princeton University. He has published numerous academic articles and the following books in English:  Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism: Constitutional Reform in Greece and Turkey (London & New York: Palgrave Springer, 2017), Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A “Sacred Synthesis”, (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union, (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His research interests include late Ottoman and republican Turkish politics and history with a focus on nationalism and democratization.

Tasos Kostopoulos is a journalist in the Athenian daily Efimerida ton Syntakton; in the past, he has been employed in the dailies Eleftherotypia (1990-2012), Avghi (1985-1987) and the magazine Scholiastis (1985-1990). As a journalist, he has visited for professional reasons 22 countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, America and the Middle East. A PhD in Modern History from the University of the Aegean in Mytilene, a graduate of the Law School at the University of Athens and a participant in 45 history workshops or conferences in Greece, Germany, France, Italy, Serbia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Japan, he is also the author of six books of history, all of them in Greek, and 31 scientific historical articles in Greek, English or French; some of them are accessible at https://independent.academia.edu/tasoskostopoulos.

Katerina Lagos is the current Director of the Hellenic Studies Program at the University of California, Sacramento. She has 16 years of teaching and research experience an has published numerous papers, with a focus on the current state of modern Greece. 

Taso G. Lagos holds a PhD in political communication from the University of Washington and is a lecturer there in international communications. He has published extensively on Greek immigrant media, digital democracy and media history, and his article have appeared in the Journal of Communication, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Journal of Modern Hellenism, Popular Communication and New Media & Society, among others.  His recent book, American Zeus (McFarland, 2018) focuses on the career of early film theater magnate and pioneer, Alexander Pantages, and the media representation of his sexual assault trial in 1929.      

Dr Elena Lazarou is Assistant Professor of International Relations (European Studies) at the School of Social Sciences of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil. She has held post-doctoral research positions at the University of Cambridge and the LSE and various visiting positions in think-tanks and universities in France, Italy, Greece and the US. Her research has focused on regional integration in Europe and South America, EU foreign policy, Turkey and Brazil. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Cambridge on  the role of the mass media in Greek-Turkish conflict transformation. Dr. Lazarou is currently on leave, working as a policy analyst on foreign affairs at the European Parliament's Research Service.  She has published several articles, edited volumes and book chapters in English, Greek and Portuguese and in the Brazilian and Greek press. She is a non-resident research associate at ELIAMEP, Athens.

Apostolos Mangiriadis is a Political Correspondent for SKAI TV and Radio Producer for SKAI Radio. He was the Editor-in-Chief of HISTORIES, SKAI TV’s leading current affairs program. He has worked as a Political Correspondent for MEGA TV and a contributing editor for TA NEA newspaper, Greece’s historic daily. He writes for reader.gr and is a frequent contributor to magazine publications. He holds a Master in International Affairs from Columbia University (SIPA) and a BA in Political Science from Athens Law School. He was born and raised in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Safwan M. Masri is Executive Vice President for Global Centers and Global Development at Columbia University, and a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). A scholar on education and contemporary geopolitics and society in the Arab world, his work focuses on understanding the historic, postcolonial dynamics among religion, education, society, and politics. He is the author of Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly (Columbia University Press, 2017), which examines why Tunisia was the only country to emerge from the Arab Spring as a democracy. The book has received positive coverage in a number of media outlets, including the Financial Times, Le Monde, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and the Journal of Democracy. His writings on education and current affairs have been featured in the Financial Times, Huffington Post, The Hill, and Times Higher Education. He is an honorary fellow of the Foreign Policy Association and a member of the International Advisory Council of the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES).

Ioannis Mylonopoulos was educated at the University of Athens and the Ruprecht-Karls University Heidelberg (Ph.D. summa cum laude 2001). Before coming to Columbia in 2008, professor Mylonopoulos was Research Associate at the University of Heidelberg, Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna, Junior Professor at the University of Erfurt, and Fellow of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies. He has received fellowships and grants from the Alexander S. Onassis Foundation, the Ernst-Kirsten Society, the Friedrich-Naumann Foundation, the Gerda-Henkel Foundation, and the German Research Council. His book, Πελοπόννησος οἰκητήριον Ποσειδῶνος. Heiligtümer und Kulte des Poseidon auf der Peloponnes, Kernos supplement 13, Liége 2003, which won the Margarete Häcker Award for the best dissertation in Classical Studies in German language in 2002, examines the archaeology and architectural development of sacred sites on the Peloponnese dedicated to Poseidon.

Betsy Reed has been the Editor-in-Chief of The Intercept since 2015.  Under her tenure, The Intercept has won numerous awards for its investigative journalism, which covers a range of topics, from national security to politics to the environment and criminal justice. The Intercept, which is published by First Look Media, attracts millions of readers and followers through its website, podcasts, live events, newsletters, social media accounts and videos. Previously, she was Executive Editor of The Nation, where she led the magazine’s investigative coverage. She has edited several best-selling books, including Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill’s “Blackwater” and “Dirty Wars.” Reed co-edited the New York Times best-seller “Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare” with Richard Kim.She is also the editor of the essay collections “Unnatural Disaster: The Nation on Hurricane Katrina,” published on the storm’s one-year anniversary, and “Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror” published in 2003. 

Chiara Superti is Director of the M.A. program in political science and Lecturer in Political Science. She received the B.A. in International and Diplomatic Sciences at the University of Bologna (Forli), the Masters degree in Pacific and International Affairs at the University of California, San Diego (IRPS/GPS), and the Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University (2015). After completing her doctoral work, she was awarded the position of College Fellow in the Department of Government at Harvard University. Dr. Superti works on a variety of topics: unconventional voting, immigrants' political attitudes, and electoral politics in Southern Europe, Latin America, and Israel. She is currently working on a number of projects on unconventional voting in Cuba, immigration and trust in Israel, and electoral systems and parties in Italy.

İpek Cem Taha is a Turkish businesswoman, journalist, and an active board member of leading Turkish and international organizations. İpek is the Founding Director of Columbia Global Centers | Istanbul since its inception in 2011. The Center is working to build collaborative programs and projects that link Columbia University to Turkey, and the Istanbul Center to the eight other Global Centers worldwide. Her mandates include programming on such issues as education, sustainability, peace and conflict resolution, women’s empowerment, social entrepreneurship, public health as well as work on the history, culture and future of cities, and specifically that of Istanbul. 

Dimitrios Triantaphyllou is Associate Professor of International Relations and Director of the Center for International and European Studies (CIES) at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. He holds a BA in Political Science and History from the University of California, Berkeley and an MA and PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He has previously served in various capacities in a number of research and academic institutions such as the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP); the EU Institute for Security Studies; the London School of Economics; the University of the Aegean; and the International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS). He also served as an advisor at the Hellenic Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He is Associate Editor of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (SSCI indexed); a member of the Greek-Turkish Forum; co-convener of the Commission on the Black Sea; a member of the Advisory Boards of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, the International Institute for Peace, Vienna, and the Corporate Social Responsibility Association of Turkey.

Konstantinos Tsiaras is a politician and a member of the New Democracy. He is a current member of the parliament for the region of Kardista and is a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece. He was Chairman of the Association of Primary Health Care Workers (KEPD) of Karditsa (1992-1993). He is also a member of several Scientific Associations: founding member of the Karditsa Research Institute and founder of the Hellenic American Friendship Association of Karditsa. He was a member of the GOP, Chairman of the Local Committee of Karditsa (1991-1994) and at the same time responsible for the Quality of Life of the Prefectural Committee of Karditsa.

In 2004 he was elected for the first time a member of the New Democracy in the prefecture of Karditsa. He was re-elected in the 2007 elections, as well as in the 2009 May and June 2012 and January 2015 elections, first in crosses of preference. He has been Head of the Health and Social Solidarity Sector, Deputy Head of New Democracy Citizen Protection Policies Division and New Democracy Secretary of Agriculture. He was Chairman of the Greek Parliamentary Friendship Group with the Parliament of Azerbaijan and a member of the Greek Parliamentary Delegation to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC), for the countries' cooperation in the Black Sea. He then served as Chairman of the Standing Committee on National Defense and Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Parliament from 2013 to 2015.

Murat Yetkin is a Turkish journalist and political analyst, and the author of six books on Turkey’s foreign policy and security issues. His columns appear in English in the Hürriyet Daily News, where he is the editor-in-chief, and in Turkish in the Hürriyet . He is considered one of the most profound connoisseurs of Turkish foreign policy and is often quoted with his comments and analysis in international media.

Afşin Yurdakul is a Turkish journalist and news anchor. She has hosted and executive-produced prime time current affairs programs for Habertürk News Network, one of Turkey’s largest national news channels. Afşin was previously the network’s chief foreign editor, and has conducted numerous interviews with prominent Turkish and international figures. In the past, Afşin wrote about Turkey and the Middle East for a variety of publications including Foreign Policy and The New Republic. She has moderated panels at the World Economic Forum’s Middle East and Davos summits, and has been a member of the Forum’s International Media Council and the Global Agenda Council on Europe (2014-2016). Afşin holds an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York, and is the first Robert L. Long Fellow at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.