U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative Leadership Team and Staff:

• Aakif Ahmad, Vice President, Convergence
• David Fairman, Managing Director, Consensus Building Institute
• Robert Fersh, President, Convergence
• Paula Gutlove, Deputy Director, Institute for Resource and Security Studies
• Dusie Hoagland, Project Associate, Convergence
• Laith Ulaby, Mellon Foundation Fellow, Convergence
  

Staff Biographies

	Aakif Ahmad- aahmad@cnvg.org Vice President, Convergence - Washington, DC Aakif Ahmad is a member of the Leadership Team of USMEI and co-founder of Convergence, a U.S-based firm providing consensus-based solutions to issues of national and international policy, and a member of the Leadership Team of the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative. From 1996 to 2009, Mr. Ahmad worked at the Corporate Executive Board where, as Managing Director, he led sales organizations across Europe and North America. He also served as a member of the Management Committee for Global Sales and Marketing. Mr. Ahmad currently serves on the Boards of three non-profit organizations focused on legal advocacy, civic engagement and the provision of critical needs care, respectively. Mr. Ahmad earned a B.A. from Yale University in an interdisciplinary studies program combining Philosophy, Political Science and Economics. He has his Executive M.B.A from the Kellogg School of Management.
	David Fairman Managing Director, Consensus Building Institute - Cambridge, MA David Fairman heads the Leadership Team of USMEI, and was co-director of the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project, where he was the principal author of the USME Leadership Group Report, Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World.  For more than 20 years, he has facilitated consensus building and mediated resolution of public conflicts both internationally and in the United States. He works on national development plans with the United Nations Development Group, on complex projects with the World Bank Group and on building public conflict resolution capacity with aid agencies, developing country governments and civil society organizations. He is Associate Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, a founding board member of the Alliance for Peacebuilding and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.A. from Harvard College.
	Robert Fersh President, Convergence - Washington, DC Robert Fersh is a member of the Leadership Team of USMEI, was co-director of the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project, and is President of Convergence, where his central focus is organizing and conducting policy consensus processes on issues of national importance. Most recently, he served as Executive Director of Search for Common Ground-USA and its U.S. Consensus Council.  He currently co-directs the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project and previously directed a national policy consensus project on Health Care Coverage for the Uninsured.  Mr. Fersh has over 30 years experience in national public policy issues, having held senior positions in the Executive Branch, with three Congressional Committees, and as president of a leading national non-profit organization working to end hunger in the U.S. He holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a law degree from Boston University.
	Paula Gutlove Deputy Director, Institute for Resource and Security Studies - Cambridge, MA Paula Gutlove is a member of the Leadership Team of USMEI, was the Project Manager of the U.S. Muslim Engagement Project, and is the Deputy Director of the Institute for Resource and Security Studies. Dr. Gutlove has over 25 years of experience working with people of diverse perspectives and interests to improve communication, build understanding, resolve conflicts and promote cooperation. In 1996, she founded the Health Bridges for Peace project, which links health care with the prevention and resolution of inter-communal conflict in the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and elsewhere. Dr. Gutlove is a founding board member and board chair of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, an Associate of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, and a consultant to numerous international organizations. She holds a D.M.D. from Boston University and a B.S. from Cornell University, and has had post-doctoral fellowships in peace and conflict studies at Harvard University and the Australian National University.
	Dusie Hoagland Project Associate, Convergence - Washington, DC Dusie Hoagland is Project Associate for the US-Muslim Engagement Initiative at Convergence. Ms. Hoagland's interest in Muslim relations began while studying at Brown University, leading her to write an undergraduate thesis on the subject of immigration in France following the "veil affair". After graduating with a B.A. in International Relations and French Civilization with honors, she began teaching English in the suburbs of Paris during the 2005 riots there. She became closely acquainted with the tensions and grievances among primarily Muslim youth and French society at large. Drawing upon a desire to expose inequalities like those she witnessed as a teacher, Ms. Hoagland received her M.A. in Human Rights from University College London's School of Public Policy. She wrote her dissertation on discrimination against Muslim youth in France. Ms. Hoagland served as a junior policy officer at 4Children, a British children's charity, before returning to the U.S. to pursue a career in international public policy. Prior to joining Convergence as a Fellow in March 2010, Ms. Hoagland taught French at St. Albans School in Washington, DC.
	Laith Ulaby Mellon Foundation Fellow, Convergence - Washington, DC Laith Ulaby completed his PhD in ethnomusicology in 2008 from the University of California, Los Angeles. He has conducted almost three years of fieldwork in the Arab world and wrote his dissertation on the maritime music communities of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, and Oman). Dr. Ulaby has worked as a professional musician and taught courses and given guest lectures at several universities in both North America and the Middle East. He is the recipient of two Fulbright awards to conduct research abroad. He is currently working as a Post-doctoral Fellow at Convergence on the US-Muslim Engagement Initiative. He speaks fluent Arabic and intermediate Urdu.