Professor of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University and Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies, American University Michael Brenner is the Seymour and Lillian Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies and Director of American University’s Center for Israel Studies and Professor of Jewish History and Culture at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich. He received his PhD at Columbia University and taught previously at Indiana and Brandeis Universities. Since 1997 he has been Professor of Jewish History and Culture at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich. He had visiting appointments at numerous universities, including Haifa, Paris, Budapest, Vienna, Stanford, Berkeley, and Johns Hopkins. Professor Brenner is an elected fellow of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, the American Academy for Jewish Research and the Accademia Nazionale Virgiliana in Mantua. He is the International President of the Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History and serves on many academic boards, including the Jewish Museum of Berlin, the Israel Institute, the Center for European Studies of the University of Haifa and is board chair of the Franz Rosenzweig Research Center of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His nine books have been translated into ten languages and include In Search of Israel: The History of an Idea; A Short History of the Jews; Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History; Zionism: A Brief History; The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, After the Holocaust: Rebuilding Jewish Lives in Postwar Germany and, most recently, In Hitler’s Munich: Jews, the Revolution, and the Rise of Nazism. He is co-author of the four-volume German-Jewish History in Modern Times, for which he was awarded a National Jewish Book Award, and editor of nineteen books. Professor Brenner was awarded with the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 2014. In 2020 he was the first recipient of the Salo W. and Jeannette M. Baron Award for Scholarly Excellence in Research on the Jewish Experience. Michael Brenner publishes widely in international media, including the Washington Post, the Times of Israel, and the Spiegel. His voice is heard frequently on PBS and international radio and TV stations.
Director, African Climate and Development Initiative, University of Cape Town Mark New was appointed Pro-VC for Climate Change and Director of the ACDI in July 2011. He is also Professor of International Development (part time) at the University of East Anglia. His research focuses on climate change detection, processes, scenarios, impacts and adaptation. He sits on the SA Global Change Science Committee, is on the editorial board of Environmental Research Letters, and various other science committees and reference groups.
Assistant Professor of Public Health, University of California, Merced Dr. Gonzalez is an Assistant Professor in Public Health at the University of California Merced in the fields of Social Epidemiology, Health Disparities, and Health Policy. Her current research focuses on health disparities, including oral health disparities, and the ways in which social and environmental factors affect health risk behaviors. Dr. Gonzalez’s research areas include tobacco control, and understanding the unexpected risks and benefits of tobacco control policies, as well as the linkages between tobacco use and other risk behaviors. Dr. Gonzalez also studies the ways in which health behaviors differ between first, second, and third generation Latinos. Dr. Gonzalez’s previous research has examined scientific and medical occupational pipelines, the passage of smokefree laws in the United States, as well as the passage of smokefree laws in the Netherlands.
University Senior Lecturer in International Macroeconomics at Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge Michael Kitson is an Assistant Director of the Centre for Business Research (CBR), Cambridge, and is Hub Director of the UK-Innovation Research Centre. He has undertaken research for: the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC); the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS); the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC); and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA). Michael Kitson was Assistant Director of the National Competitiveness Network (NCN) of the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) between 2000 and 2003, and Director of NCN between 2003 and 2007. CMI was a joint venture between Cambridge University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to improve competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship in the UK. He has provided evidence and advice to: the EU; the House of Lords enquiry into globalisation; and various regional and local governments. He is currently advising the Northern Ireland Government about its innovation policy.
Professor of Epidemiology Healthcare Infection and Infectious Diseases Control, UNSW Australia Professor Mary-Louise McLaws is an epidemiologist who's expertise is infection control and prevention. She works in collaboration with the World Health Organization Advisor and the Clinical Excellence Commission providing advise on infection control programs and interventions to improve patient safety. Mary-Louise has partnered on patient safety improvement projects in Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Taiwan, China, Malaysia, and Turkey.
