BIOS:
Honorable Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, Head of Mission for the Government of Southern Sudan Mission to the United States in Washington, DC and the former Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement Representative to the United States, was trained and served as a soldier in the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army and received a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland College Park. Hon. Gatkuoth advocates for democratic transformation in the Sudan, implementation of Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement, development for Southern Sudan, and an immediate end to the crisis in Darfur.

Jack A. Goldstone is the Virginia E. and John T. Hazel Jr. Professor at the George Mason School of Public Policy and an Eminent Scholar. His work on issues such as social movements, revolutions, and international politics has won him global acclaim and tens of thousands of dollars in research grants. The author or co-author of 9 books, Professor Goldstone is a leading authority on regional conflicts, has served on a U.S. Vice-Presidential Task Force on State Failure, and is a consultant to the U.S. State Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Terrence Lyons received his doctorate in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies and served as a Fellow associated with the Conflict Resolution in Africa project at the Brookings Institution and as Senior Research and Program Leader for Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo.

Lyons’s research has focused on the relationships between protracted civil wars and processes of political development and sustainable peace, with a particular focus on Africa and on policy issues. Among Lyons’s publications are: Demilitarizing Politics: Elections on the Uncertain Road to Peace (Lynne Rienner, 2005), Voting for Peace: Postconflict Elections in Liberia (Brookings Institution, 1999), Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (co-written with Francis M. Deng, Sadikiel Kimaro, Donald Rothchild, and I. William Zartman) (Brookings Institution, 1996), and Somalia: State Collapse, Multilateral Intervention, and Strategies for Political Reconstruction (co-written with Ahmed Samatar) (Brookings Institution, 1995). He has also co-edited two books, several working papers, and published in a range of journals and policy oriented publications.