Abdallah Diwan graduated from the College of Law at the Alexandria University, Egypt. He also has a Masters in Business Administration.  He is active in the area of Youth Development and focuses on youth development at the Qatar Foundation.  He is the Chairman of the Egyptian Institute of Youth and Development.  Follow him on Twitter @abdallahdiwan

Abdel Hafiz Swilam is a Medical student at Al-Azhar University, and is the head of the Al-Dostour Party's student committee in Damietta.  He formerly was a member of the Adl Party in Egypt

Abdel Raouf Rabie is a writer and film producer.  He holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Administration

Adam Shatz is a senior editor at the London Review of Books and a former literary editor of The Nation. He has worked at the New York Times Book Review, Lingua Franca and The New Yorker.

Adeel Malik is the Globe Fellow in the economies of Muslim societies, lecturer in development economics at the University of Oxford and a research fellow in economics at St. Peter's College, Oxford. His core areas of research are: causes and consequences of economic fluctuations in developing countries, political economy of institutions and development, and the relationship between finance and development.

Adel El-Adawy is a Next Generation fellow at The Washington Institute.

Agnes Czajka is Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the University College Cork in Ireland.  Prior to joining the UCC, she was Assistant Professor of Sociology at the American University in Cairo.

Ahmed Kouchouk is the Deputy Director and Executive Manager of the Macro-Fiscal Policy Unit at the Egyptian Ministry of Finance

Ahmed Saeed is a Managing Director at Nomura International. Previously, he was a senior US Treasury Department official with responsibility for the Middle East and Africa

Ahmed Zahran is the Business Development Manager for Renewable Energy & CDM at Tri-Ocean Energy

Ahmed Adel graduated from Ain Shams University.  He teaches English and writes short stories and poems.  His writings are available at http://ibnadel.blogspot.com/ and @IbnAdel

Ahmed Rabah has a Bachelors in Business Administration from Ain Shams University in Egypt.  His articles have been published in many newspapers in Egypt and he writes articles, short stories, and scripts.

 Ahmet Davutoğlu has been the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey since May 2009

Alan Strathern is a fellow in History at Brasenose College, Oxford and author of Kingship and Conversion in Sixteenth-Century Sri Lanka: Portuguese Imperialism in a Buddhist Land

Alex Vatanka is an Iranian-born scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington D.C.

Ali Hishaam is a 14-year-old author who began writing in 2008. His work has been published in Al Dostour and Al-Badeel, and can be found on http://www.kobbaya25.blogspot.com

Amal Ghandour has over 16 years of experience in research and communications strategy.  She is the author of About This Man Called Ali (2009) and blogs at http://thinkingfits.blogspot.com

Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate, is a Lamont University professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University

Ami J. Abou-bakr is a Lecturer in Politics at King’s College London. Her research focuses on state resilience in times of serious national crisis. Her Ph.D research explored the viability of US public-private partnerships to enhance resilience to catastrophic disasters.  She also sustains an ongoing and active interest in the response to political crises in the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in regard to Egypt and the Arab Uprisings. 

She has recently published two articles in World Defense Systems, and her upcoming book, Managing Disasters Through Public-Private Partnerships, is scheduled for publication by Georgetown University Press in the spring of 2013.

Amro Ali is a political analyst, scholar and stand-up comedian. He graduated from the Australian National University with a Master of Arts (with Honours) in Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, and a Master of Diplomacy. He has been a regular consultant to diplomatic missions and international organisations.

Ali is currenty based in Alexandria, Egypt. He blogs at www.amroali.com.  Follow him on Twitter @_amroali

Annelle Sheline is a PhD student at George Washington University in Washington DC, currently on a Boren Fellowship in Cairo. She worked in Cairo as a journalist from 2008 to 2010.

Arwa Aburawa is a UK-based freelance journalist who writes regularly on climate change and the Middle East. She is an editor at GreenProphet.com, which is a leading news site on environmental issues in the Middle East, and has a regular green column at Sisters magazine.  Her website is http://arwafreelance.com

Avi Shlaim is an emeritus professor of international relations at Oxford University and the author of "Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations"

Aymen Amer, formerly an Arabic teacher in Egypt, works in the editing and publishing field.  His collection of short stories will be released in 2012

Barbara Ibrahim is the Founding Director of the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo (AUC) and Member of the Board of Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies

Brock Dahl worked in Baghdad and on the Afghanistan Interagency Operations Group with the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He has studied Arabic and performed academic work on political economics, corruption and human rights issues in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Afghanistan

Caroline Freund was the former Chief Economist in the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank. Ms. Freund has also worked at the IMF and the Federal Reserve Board. Ms. Freund has worked on economic growth, international trade, and international finance. Her work covers the developing world and transition countries. Ms. Freund is the author of numerous academic and policy papers on international trade, development, and current account adjustment. Her work has appeared in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Journal of International Economics. She is well known for her theoretical and empirical work on regionalism, highlighting potential gains, and for identifying cutoffs and characteristics of current account adjustment. Ms. Freund is ranked among the top 5% of economists by RePec and is in the top 100 female economists. She is on the board of the Economic Research Forum headquartered in Cairo, the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis, and on the editorial board of the World Bank Economic Review and a member of the Center for Economic Policy Research. Ms. Freund holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University.

Catherine Ashton is a British Labour politician who, in 2009, became the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

 Charles Kenny is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development, and a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. He is the author of Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding and How We Can Improve the World Even More (2011)

Chitra Kalyani is a freelance journalist. Her work can be found in Daily News Egypt and on her blog, http://www.chitrakalyani.wordpress.com

Claude Salhani, a specialist in conflict resolution, is an independent journalist, political analyst and author of several books on the region. His latest book, 'Islam Without a Veil,' is published by Potomac Books. He tweets @claudesalhani.

Dana Eyre specialises in translating social science knowledge into effective action. A sociologist with a Ph.D. from Stanford University, he is an expert on social change and organisational learning. In the 1990s, he served with the NATO Civil-Military Task Force in Bosnia-Herzogovina before becoming Senior Policy Adviser to the UN Deputy Special Representative in Kosovo as well as Deputy Head of the Economic Policy Office

David R. Ignatius, a prize-winnning columinst for the The Washington Post, is an American journalist and novelist. He is also an Associate Editor for The Washington Post and author of eight novels, including Body of Lies (2007)

David Rieff is an American polemicist and pundit. His books have focused on issues of immigration, international conflict, and humanitarianism

Dina Said is a Managing Director at Unifund SA. A dedicated philanthropist, she has worked to promote female education, particularly as a means of fighting poverty and social instability in the Middle East and North Africa

Dr. Ebony Coletu is an Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. Currently, she teaches courses on the role of writing and visual art in revolutions and political literacy. 

Ed Husain is the author of The Islamist, a book about Islamic fundamentalism, and an account of his five years as an Islamist activist. Husain also helped create, with Maajid Nawaz, the Quilliam Foundation. His blog can be found at http://www.arabstreet.blogspot.com

 El Koshary Today in not a “real” news site. The team's philosophy is to use sarcasm and imagination to raise awareness of some of the serious (and not so serious) issues plaguing our nation. It is not intended to relay any factual information or credible circumstances, though where possible, readers will find news links to the actual issues being satirized.  Their website can be found at http://www.elkoshary.com/

Engi Haddad is a strategy & communications consultant. She co-founded Shayfeen.com,  the Afro-Egyptian Human Rights Organization (AEHRO) and Egyptians Against Corruption. She is a Board Member of several major Egyptian Companies. Engi holds a BSc. from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and an Executive MBA from Harvard University

Ethemcan Turhan, Ph.D. Candidate, Autonomous University of Barcelona

 F.W. de Klerk was the seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994. Winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, he is best known for engineering the end of apartheid and supporting the transformation of South Africa into a multi-racial democracy

Dr. Farid Antoun is a specialist in Youth Development and has published extensively on Life Skills and Civic Training

Frank Jacobs is a London-based author and blogger. He writes about cartography, but only the interesting bits.

Ganzeer is a graphic designer, product designer, street artist, comic book artist and a video-maker. More information is available on his website, http://www.ganzeer.com

Geoff Mulgan is a former head of strategy in the UK government and author of Good and Bad Power: the Ideals and Betrayals of Government published by Penguin, and of The Art of Public Strategy which will be published in Cairo in Arabic in 2012

Gianluca Parolin is an expert in comparative constitutional law and Islamic law. He is currently a law professor at the American University in Cairo and Cairo University

Gilles Kepel is a professor of Middle Eastern politics at the Institut d'Études
Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and a senior fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France. He is the author of several books, including Muslim Extremism: The Prophet and the Pharaoh (1986) and The War for Muslim Minds (2006)

Graeme Robertson is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina

Guy Sorman is a public intellectual based in Paris. Among his recent books , “Rifaa’s Children , In Search of Modern Islam” and “Economics Does Not Lie”

Ha-Joon Chang is one of the leading heterodox economists and institutional economists specialising in development economics. Currently a Reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely-noted policy books, including 2002's Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective.

Hanan Badr is a media and communications scientist at the University of Erfurt, Germany. The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) doctoral fellow was previously a communications scientist at the University of Cairo.

Hassan Omran graduated with Honor from the Faculty of Agriculture, Alexandria University in 1979.  He is currently the Director of Exchange Sudents and the administration officer at the Postgraduate Studies department of the Faculty of Agriculture at Alexandria University. 

Heba Abou Shnief is the Policy Coordinator at the Social Contract Center (SCC) in Cairo - a joint UNDP-Government of Egypt project that promotes social equity and works to build consensus towards a new social contract in Egypt

Hesham Sallam is co-editor of Jadaliyya e-zine and is a doctoral candidate in Government at Georgetown University.  He is currently a Peace Scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace

Hicham Ben Abdallah El Alaoui is a visiting researcher at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. He is also the Founder of the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton University

Hüseyin Avni Botsalı is the Turkish Ambassador to Egypt.

Hussein Ibish is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). His most recent book is What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (2009)

Ibrahim El Houdaiby is a freelance columnist and researcher. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from the American University in Cairo (AUC), where he is currently pursuing a Master's Degree. He has a diploma in Islamic Studies from the High Institute of Islamic Studies where he is currently completing his Master's Degree in Shariah

The late Dr. Ibrahim Shihata, was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of the World Bank (1981-1999)

Ibrahim Saif is a researcher at Carnegie Middle East Center specializing in Middle Eastern political economy.  His research focuses on transitional economies, institutional governance and labour market economy.   He is on Twitter at @ibrasaif

Iman Dakhil currently resides in London and spent the better part of 2011 working for the Libyan Revolution

Issandr El Amrani is a freelance journalist and commentator. His work has been published in The Economist, The Financial Times, The London Review of Books, Foreign Policy, The National, Bidoun among other publications

James Derounian, BSc (Hons) MPhil MRTPI FHEA FILCM, is a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Lecturer in Community Development and Local Governance at the University of Gloucestershire, England

James Zogby is the Founder and President of the Arab American Institute. His most recent book is Arab Voices: What They are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters (2010)

Javed Ahmed, a Yale and Harvard graduate, grew up in Pakistan and currently works in the energy industry in London

Jayson Casper is a writer and researcher with Arab West Report based in Cairo. He is also the editor of Orient and Occident, a bilingual magazine of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. He serves as local correspondent for Christianity Today and blogs regularly on Egyptian politics, religion, and culture at A Sense of Belonging. Jayson has worked previously in Mauritania, Jordan, and Tunisia, and holds an MA in Islamic Studies from Columbia International University. Fond of all things Arabic, Jayson enjoys crossing boundaries to promote understanding, bringing the other closer to home Fr Girgis, ‘because we had only oJayson Casper is a writer and researcher with Arab West Report based in Cairo. He is also the editor of Orient and Occident, a bilingual magazine of the Anglican Diocese of Egypt, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. He serves as local correspondent for Christianity Today and blogs regularly on Egyptian politics, religion, and culture at A Sense of Belonging. Jayson has worked previously in Mauritania, Jordan, and Tunisia, and holds an MA in Islamic Studies from Columbia International University. Fond of all things Arabic, Jayson enjoys crossing boundaries to promote understanding, bringing the other closer to homene church despite being the great majority of Christians.’

Jean Drèze is Visiting Professor, Department of Economics, Allahabad University

Jeffrey D. Sachs is Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He is also Special Adviser to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals

 Jo Johnson has been Member of Parliament for Orpington in the United Kingdom and a Member of the Public Accounts Committee since May 2010. He is currently Co-Chairman of the Indo-UK All Party Parliamentary Group

Professor Joann Fletcher teaches in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and is a founding member of the university’s Mummy Research Group. She is also Consultant Egyptologist for Harrogate Museums and Arts and Consultant Archaeologist for Barnsley Museum. Her publications include 'Cleopatra the Great' (Hodder & Stoughton/Harper Collins) and 'The Search for Nefertiti' (Hodder & Stoughton/Harper Collins), and she recently wrote and presented the series 'Ancient Egypt: Life and Death in the Valley of the Kings' for the BBC.

Joel Beinin is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and a professor of Middle East history at Stanford University. This article is based on the press and interviews conducted in Cairo in December 2012. Thanks to Dina Bishara and Ahmad Shokr for their insightful conversation and comments.

Dr. John Inge is the Bishop of Worcester, England, in the Diocese of Worcester, and author of A Christian Theology of Place (2003)

Joseph S. Nye is a professor at Harvard University and author of The Future of Power (2011)

Joshua Stacher is assistant professor of political science at Kent State University and an editor of Middle East Report. He is author of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Stanford, 2012) and will be a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in 2012-2013.

John "Juan" Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia.  He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan

Julia Tieke works as a freelance writer and radio drama editor based in Berlin and regularly travels to Egypt. She runs the blog „Cairo by Microphone“ (cairobymicrophone.wordpress.com) and has co-curated the "Alexandria Streets Project" (www.alexandria-streets-project.net), which comprises a sonic map of Alexandria and a series of radio workshops and events. 

Karen Brooks is the former Director for Asian Affairs on the staff of the National Security Council of the United States

Karim Noor is a veteran environmentalist and the Founder and Manager of the Deep South diving lodge in Marsa Alam, Egypt. Noor's writing can be found on http://sayaala.com/wordpress/ and http://deepsouthecolodge.blogspot.com/

Karim Salama is the Chairman of the Middle East Logistics & Consultant Group.  He lives in Alexandria, Egypt and received his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Alexandria University in 1985

Katrina Lantos Swett is the Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). 

Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer, broadcaster, anda radio presenter in the U.K.  He has also written and presented a number of radio and TV documentaries including Disunited Kingdom, Are Muslims Hated? Islam, Mullahs and the Media, Skullduggery and Man, Beast and Politics. His writings are at www.kenanmalik.com . Follow him on twitter on www.twitter.com/kenanmalik

He studied neurobiology (at the University of Sussex) and history and philosophy of science (at Imperial College, London). 

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch 

Kerem Durdag is the CEO of Biovation and was born and raised in Pakistan of Turkish parents.  His writings and thoughts are on http://www.ireakt.com

Khadiga Omar is an independent researcher and author. She earned her B.A. with High Honors, specializing in Political Science and History, from the American University in Cairo (AUC). She is currently pursuing a diploma in Islamic Studies and is a Linguist Project Manager at Google

Khaled Shaalan is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

Kwasi Kwarteng is a Member of the British Parliament and author of Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacy in the Modern World (2011)

Laila Mahmoud Saada is an Egyptian freelance journalist and media consultant currently residing in New York. She currently works with UNESCO on crafting the communication plan for the establishment of a national museum in Cairo

Larry Diamond is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Director of Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law

Linda Sarsour is a working woman, community activist, and mother of three. She is a Palestinian Muslim American and a self-proclaimed “pure New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn!” Currently she is the Advocacy and Civic Engagement Coordinator for the National Network for Arab American Communities (NNAAC) and ACCESS and locally serving as the Director of the Arab American Association of New York, a social service agency serving the Arab community in NYC. 

Lisa Anderson has been President of the American University in Cairo (AUC), Egypt, since January 2011

Loay Mudhoon is an academic and professor of Political and Islamic Studies in Cologne University in Germany. He is also a director of quantara.de. 

Maggie Mitchell Salem is Executive Director of the Qatar Foundation International and was a former Special Assistant to US Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright

Mahmoud Salem is an author, blogger and activist and a business development consultant.  His blog can be found at http://www.sandmonkey.org and he can be found on Twitter @Sandmonkey

Maissa Hamed is the founder of Enjoy Islam. She is an Education and Research Consultant for Sesame Workshop’s International Research Department and author of The Last Night of Ramadan

Malak Zaalouk is a professor of practice and director of the Middle East Institute for Higher Education at the American University in Cairo. From 2005 to 2010, she served as regional senior education adviser for the Middle East and North Africa at the United Nations Children’s Fund. She is the author of The Pedagogy of Empowerment: Community Schools as a Social Movement in Egypt.

Dr Manfred Sing is a research associate at the Orient Institute in Beirut.

Maria Golia, a long-time resident of Egypt, is author of Cairo: City of Sand (2004) and Photography and Egypt (2009)

Marina Ottaway works on issues of political transformation in the Middle East and Gulf security. A long-time analyst of the formation and transformation of political systems, she has also written on political reconstruction in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, and African countries.  Ottaway is the co-author, with Amr Hamzawy, of Getting to Pluralism: Political Actors in the Arab World (Carnegie, 2009)

Mark Linder is the Director of Sector Reputation at Bell Pottinger Sans Frontières. He has developed international branding strategies and implementation for several renowned companies, including AT&T, Ford Motor Company, BP, Nokia and Vodafone

Mark Roe is a Professor at Harvard Law School

Martin Moore is Director of the Media Standards Trust, an independent charity based in the UK that works for quality transparency and accountability in news on behalf of the public

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani came to Egypt as the wife of an Egyptian/Canadian businessman and the mother of our children in the late 80's.Her husband is no longer with them, the children are pursuing careers abroad, but Egypt is still her home, albeit, a rural rather than urban one.

Mehrunisa Qayyum is an international development consultant for the Middle East and North Africa. She is the founder of PITAPOLICY Consulting & Blog, www.pitapolicyconsulting.com and blogs for the Huffington Post.  Follow her on twitter @Pitapolicy 

Michael Meyer-Resende is the executive director of the Berlin-Based NGO Democracy Reporting International. 

Michael Singh is managing director of The Washington Institute

Mirette F. Mabrouk is the Director of Communications at Economic Research Forum in Cairo, Egypt, and is a Visiting Fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.

Mirette F. Mabrouk is Deputy Director for Regional Programs at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council. Formerly Associate Director for Publishing Operations at the American University in Cairo Press, Mabrouk has over 20 years of experience in journalism. She is the founding publisher of theDaily News Egypt, Egypt’s only independent English-language daily newspaper, and the former publishing director for IBA Media, which produces the region’s top English-language magazines. Mabrouk holds a B.A. in mass communication and an M.A. in broadcast journalism from the American University in Cairo. 

Mohamed Khalil works at Commercial International Bank (CIB), Egypt, in the Strategic Planning department.  Khalil has published articles with Al-Masry Al-Youm, The Daily News Egypt and a number of other publications

Mohamed Ezzat Mahmoud was born in Mansoura, Egypt and completed his Bachelors of Commerce from Mansoura University.  His writings are on http://3ezat.blogspot.com/

Mohamed Elshahed is a doctoral candidate in the Middle East Studies Department at New York University. He lives in Cairo, where he is conducting dissertation research on architecture and urban planning in Egypt

Mohamed El Dahshan is an award-winning writer and journalist. He is currently a consultant in international development, working with several international and national organizations, think tanks and research centres.

Mohammed Samhouri is a senior economist at the Cairo-based Regional Center for Strategic Studies, and a former senior fellow and lecturer at Brandeis University’s Crown Center for Middle East Studies in Boston.

Mona Yassine was the first Chairperson of the Egyptian Competition Authority from which she retired on January 11, 2011. Prior to that, she was the Vice Chairman at Banque du Caire, the third largest Egyptian bank. Yassine is currently the Vice Chairman of The Association for the Protection of Competition- Egypt, the first NGO in Egypt for the protection of competition

Muhammad Faour is a non-resident scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center, where his research focuses on education reform in Arab countries, with an emphasis on citizenship education. 
Prior to joining Carnegie, Faour was a research fellow at the Center for International and Security Studies at York University in Canada, where he studied social change and demography of the Middle East, and conflict analysis and resolution. From 2007 to 2010, he was president of Dhofar University in Salalah, Oman. Faour also served as deputy vice president for Regional External Programs at the American University of Beirut (AUB) from 2000 to 2007.

Faour is the author of several books and monographs, including The Silent Revolution in Lebanon: Changing Values of the Youth, and The Arab World after Desert Storm, and the co-author of University Students in Lebanon: Background and Attitudes (with Adnan El-Amine).

Faour has a B.S. in biology-chemistry, M.A., sociology, the American University of Beirut; Ph.D., sociology, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor

Musharraf Hussain, winner of an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2008, is the Chief Executive of the Karimia Institute in Nottingham, England, and the Chief Editor of The Invitation, a Muslim community magazine. He received his BSc and Ph.D. from Aston University (U.K.), his B.A. from Al-Azhar University (Cairo, Egypt), his M.A. from Darul uloom Muhammadia Ghausia (Pakistan), and his Honorary Doctorate from Staffordshire University (U.K.)

Naava Mashiah is CEO of M.E. Links, Senior Consultant at ISHRA and Editor of MEDABIZ economic news.

Nada Zaher is a first year student at Columbia University, New York. She wrote this paper for her University Writing course. Nada graduated from Schutz American School in Alexandria, Egypt with highest honors. She was a National Honor Society member and received the Presidential Award for Educational Excellence. She plays on the women’s tennis team at Columbia University.

Nadia El-Awady is a journalist and wanna-be adventurer. She has a BSc in journalism and an MA in journalism. Most of her career has been spent as a science journalist/science communicator. She has also taught journalism and managed journalism training programs in Egypt and the Arab region. 

Nadia has successfully summitted Africa's highest summit, Kilimanjaro. She climbed Mont Blanc but due to weather problems, did not manage to reach the summit. She has gone bungee jumping, skydiving, paragliding, and rafting. She is also a professional scuba diver. 

More importantly, Nadia is a wife and mother of four wonderful and rapidly growing children. Nadia blogs at Inner Workings of My Mind.

Nadia S. Mohammad is an editor with AltMuslimah.com. Follow her on Twitter at @nadiasmo

Nagwa Emad is a highly experienced PR professional with over 25 years in the Middle East.  She is the Founder of the PR firm Media Waves, based in Egypt, and is the National Chair of Egypt for the International Public Relations Association (IPRA)

Nagwa Shoeb is a communications professional, actively involved in social development, cultural heritage, women's rights and peace issues. 

Naomi Wolf is a political activist and social critic whose most recent book is Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries (2008)

Nathan Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. He is a distinguished Carnegie Scholar and author of six book on Arab politics.

Nawal Saadawi is a leading Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician and psychiatrist.  She is one of the most widely translated contemporary Egyptian writers, with her work available in over 30 languages.  El Saadawi formed the Arab Women's Solidarity Association in 1981. The AWSA was the first legal, independent feminist organization in Egypt. 

Nezar Al Sayyad is Professor of Architecture and Urban History, and Chair of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of the recently released Cairo: Histories of a City

Nouriel Roubini is an American economist. He teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business and is the Chairman of Roubini Global Economics, an economic consultancy firm

Olva Tito is an IT engineer, political activist and writer. He writes poems, articles, and stories and his work can be found on http://www.olvatito.wordpress.com

Omar Barghouti is a Palestinian human rights activist, former resident of Egypt, and author of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS): The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket: 2011)

Dr. Paul Sedra is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair, of the Department of History at Simon Fraser University, Canada.  He is the Middle East Editor, History Compass, and his writings have been published extensively.  http://paulsedra.com

Peter Goldmark currently directs the Climate and Air program for Environmental Defense Fund. Prior to joining Environmental Defense, he was Chairman and CEO of the International Herald Tribune. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and has received several honorary degrees

Priyamvada Gopal is a lecturer in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge

Rachel Shabi has written extensively on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Middle East. Her award-winning book, Not the Enemy: Israel's Jews from Arab Lands, was published in 2009. She received the International Media Awards Cutting Edge prize in 2013, the Anna Lindh Journalism Award for reporting across cultures in 2011, and was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize the same year. She tweets @rachshabi

Randa Shoeb is an educator and holds Master's Degrees in Education from Pacific Lutheran University and in Educational Administration from Michigan State University. She previously taught grades 7- 9 English and is currently the Elementary School Principal of Schutz American School in Alexandria, Egypt

Ranya Khalifa is a freelance writer and blogger on Egypt's current affairs, democratic transition and women's empowerment. Ranya's Twitter handle is @RanyaKhalifa, and her personal Blog is www.ranyakhalifa.webs.com

REBECCA J. ROSEN is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic. She was previously an associate editor at The Wilson Quarterly, where she spearheaded the magazine's In Essence section.

Robert Kesten is the Executive Director of The Peoples Movement for Human Rights Learning (PDHRE)

Samer Salty is the CEO of Zouk Euorpe’s largest dedicated clean technology fund

Sara Horowitz is the Founder and Executive Director of Freelancers Union. Horowitz was named one of "25 People to Watch" in 2010 by Crain's New York, was selected as one of "100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow" at the 2002 World Economic Forum by the Schwab Foundation, named one of Esquire Magazine's "50 Best and Brightest" in 2002, and received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 1999

Sara Eftekhar has been community volunteer since a very young. She has been active on the North Shore through various local organizations.  Aside her local volunteer work, Sara has volunteered in Ecuador, Turkey, Brazil, Tanzania, Europe, India, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Japan. 

A few years ago, Sara was awarded a prestigious fellowship from Tony Blair where she worked on parliament hill in Ottawa as a Youth Ambassador alongside Senator Jaffer to advocate for Global Health causes. Recently, Sara was awarded a scholarship from the government of Japan to represent the province of B.C and Canada to study International Relations from political experts from around the world at the United Nations University. She has been awarded the Outstanding Youth Award, she was nominated for BC’s High Achievement Award and Global Citizen Award and she has appeared in several media outlets. Sara is currently a Nursing student at UBC pursuing a minor in Health and Society as well as a certificate in Adult Education. Sara’s website:saraefte.blogspot.ca

Sara Khorshid is an Egyptian journalist and columnist who has written on Egypt and on Muslim-Western relations for the last ten years. Her articles are published in Al-Monitor, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Al Shorouk Egyptian daily, Asharq Al Awsat, Alarabiya.net, and numerous other media outlets. Until July 2009 she was the managing editor of IslamOnline.net's Politics in Depth Section (now, OnIslam.net). 

Sarah Eltantawi is a scholar of religion.  She holds a PhD in Islamic Studies from Harvard University, and is currently a Scholar in Residence in Religion, Gender, Culture and the Law at Brandeis University.

Scott Long is the founding and former director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. Prior to that he was program director at the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC)

Sebnem Gumuscu is a political scientist specialized in Islamic political movements at Sabanci University in Istanbul

Seheir Kansouh is a Development Planning Consultant and former UNDP official

Serene Richards is currently an LLM candidate in International Economic Law, Justice and Development at the University of London. Her research interests include tax justice and human rights, natural resources, critical legal thought and issues of the global South. She writes occasionally and blogs at serenejr.tumblr.com

Sharif Abdel Kouddous is an independent journalist based in Cairo. He is a Democracy Now! correspondent and a fellow at The Nation Institute.

Sheikh Musa Furber is a research fellow at the Tabah Foundation and a qualified issuer of verdicts. He received his license to deliver legal edicts or fatwas from senior scholars at the Egyptian House of Edicts including the Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Sherief Elkatsha is a documentary filmmaker living between Cairo, Egypt and Brooklyn, NY.  He has directed two feature films: 'Butts Out' (2006) and 'Egypt We Are Watching You' (2007).  He has also directed numerous short films, and was cinematographer for the Danish film, 'Cairo Garbage' (2008) He is currently editing his third feature, 'Cairo Drive.'  www.katsha.com

Simon Henderson is the Baker fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The Washington Institute.

Soraya Morayef is a writer and freelance journalist based in Cairo. Her blog suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com provides insight into the burgeoning graffiti scene in Cairo.

Tarek Osman is the author of Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak (Yale University Press, 2011). His work appeared in numerous publications, including in The Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Economist, The Guardian and The Washington Post

 Taufiq is a strategy adviser, political analyst and writer based in Dubai. He writes in a number of forums on the latest geopolitical trends, particularly those pertaining to the Muslim world.

He is the Director of Globesight, an emerging markets strategy company based in the UAE and was also a Visiting Fellow at the Dubai School of Government. He has worked with McKinsey & Company, where he worked on strategy and transformation projects in the public, private and social sectors across the greater Middle East. Previously, he has also worked with the United Nations in Lebanon, Aga Khan Foundation, and National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. He has also served as a dialogue facilitator for Soliya. His work and travels have taken him across the Muslim world. 

Taufiq holds a Master's in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and an A.B. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. You can follow his random thoughts at TheGeopolitico.

Ty McCormick is assistant editor at Foreign Policy. He is a former freelance Cairo correspondent.  His writing has been published by Newsweek, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera English, NPR, CBS News, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Herald, the Washington Post, and the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, among others. Follow him on Twitter at @TyMcCormick.

Ursula Lindsey is a journalist and writer who has lived in Cairo since 2002. She is the Middle East correspondent for the Chronicle of Higher Education and reports on education, culture, media, and politics in the Arab world for a number of news outlets, including Newsweek, Foreign Policy, and the BBC/PRI program the World. She is a regular contributor to the Arabist blog

Utz Claassen is an Honorary Professor and Ambassador of Leibniz University, Germany

Vira Nanivska is the Director of the International Centre for Policy Studies (ICPS) in Kyiv, Ukraine

Vitalino Canas is a lecturer at the Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon and an expert on systems of government. This analysis takes into account the draft of 14 October and the changes of that draft published on 22 October.

Currently Adjunct Assistant Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation, teaching Strategic Management of Public Organizations, Formerly Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and formerly Founding Coordinator of the Gulf Studies MA Program, Qatar University, she has focused her work, consultancy and articles on the role of women activists in civil society in the Middle East and political change through spiritual activism. She is the author of Women in Civil Society: The State, Islamism and Networks in the UAE, New York: Palgrave-McMillan (2008), and this article is drawn from her book Civil Society and Women Activists in the Middle East: Islamic and Secular Organizations in Egypt, London: I.B. Tauris, newly published (2012).

William Davies is Academic Director of The Centre for Mutual and Employee-Owned Business, University of Oxford, United Kingdom. His weblog is at http://www.potlatch.org.uk

William Dalrymple is the author of From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium. His new book Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42 will be published by Bloomsbury in February.

Yahia Lababidi, is an Egyptian-American writer. He is the author of three collections: Signposts to Elsewhere (aphorisms); Trial by Ink (Essays) and Fever Dreams (poems). Lababidi has recently publish a new book, The Artist As Mystic - http://www.onesuchpress.com/index.php/books/121-the-artist-as-mystic 

His website: http://www.pw.org/content/yahia_lababidi

Yasser Abou-Ouf is an independent Egyptian writer who studied in Egypt and the US. Currently based in Canada, he is a Director in Trading Risk Management at CIBC Bank

Yomna Khattab is an economist at the Macro-Fiscal Policy Unit in the Office of the Egyptian Minister of Finance

Yousef M. Aljamal is a Gaza-based translator and blogger. His website is www.yeljamal.wordpress.com. He can be followed on Twitter: @YousefAljamal.

Youssef Chouhoud is from Brooklyn, New York by way of Alexandria, Egypt. Currently, he is a doctoral student at the University of Southern California studying Political Science and International Relations. A student of Islam, history, and politics, his recent extended stay in Cairo placed him squarely at the nexus of these disciplines. Follow him on Twitter (@TheAlexandrian) 

 Yusra Badr is a dedicated writer, copywriter, editor and translator.  Her blog can be found at http://www.budzaya.com

Zaid Al-Ali has practiced international commercial arbitration for more than ten years. In 2005, he was an international adviser working on the Iraqi Constitution. From 2006 to 2010, he was advising on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform in Iraq.  He can be found on Twitter @Zalali

Zeinab Abul-Magd is assistant professor of history and political economy at Oberlin College and the American University of Cairo.

Dr. Ziad Bahaa-Eldin is the Director of The Egyptian Initiative for the Prevention of Corruption. In 2011, Dr. Bahaa-Eldin was recently elected to the Egyptian Parliament