C. Logan Anderson is a senior in the Near Eastern Studies department with a regional focus on Turkey. He is also pursuing a certificate in Portuguese language and culture. His main academic interest is national identity creation and formalization through institutional mechanisms. Logan plans to attend law school next fall.
Bilkan Erkmen is a junior in the Economics department with certificates in finance, applications of computing and applied and computational mathematics. he is currently writing a junior paper on theoretical finance, developing valuation techniques for certain types of bonds. His research interests focus on the impact of the international economic and financial system on the diplomatic dynamics between Christianity and Islam. He is involved in the European Union Undergraduate Fellows Program, and is a peer tutor in economics and finance. Erkman is from Turkey and speaks English, Turkish, German, conversational Italian and basic Spanish.
Simon Wolfgang Fuchs is a first year Ph.D. Student in Near Eastern Studies. Before coming to Princeton he studied at the University of Tübingen and Duke University as well as in Damascus and Tehran. He has had several internships at institutions like the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs which fostered his interest in foreign policy consulting. Additionally, he is a regular contributor for the Economic Platform Iraq, a website covering the reconstruction in Iraq that is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His current work at Princeton focuses mainly on the construction of religious authority in Islam during the modern period.
Ana Gonzalez is a junior in the Woodrow Wilson School with a certificate in Near Eastern Studies. She is currently preparing to write her thesis on modern day slavery and Islam in Northern African countries, particularly Mauritania. To that end, she is currently a second year Arabic student. She is a native Spanish speaker and learned English and French in school. Her faith in Jesus Christ frames the way she engages the world; it fashions her actions and demeanor towards life, people, the environment and everything around her, and spurs her to understand other people's convictions as well. Being born to two immigrant parents has given her an innate desire to understand human interactions better, particularly those between different cultures. To see distinct cultures in their most pure, beautiful forms, to see the richness that they offer the world, is one of the greatest privileges she has experienced. Her faith and her love of culture have turned her attention to the Middle East, arguably the region where the divide between culture and religion is hardest to distinguish.
Nazir Harb is a first-year MPA student at the Woodrow Wilson School concentrating in International Relations, with a particular focus on U.S.-Middle East diplomacy. He focuses on the enhancement of non-violent methods as a means to durable conflict resolution toward the demilitarization of the Middle East, as a strategic region and a complex repertory of divergent socialities. His research is in sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, Middle East political discourse analysis, and currently, the intersections of neurocognitive linguistics and international relations. As a person of mixed heritage, half Mexican and half Lebanese, he speaks Spanish and Arabic fluently. He is a certified Arabic teacher and enjoys studying languages. He researches the philosophy and anthropology of religions, and has been a leader in the Muslim and interfaith communities in and around Seattle. His interests in examining the role of religion in diplomacy and international relations are both academic and practical as he aims to work in foreign policymaking and education.
Michelle Margot Kayser is currently a second year Master's student studying International Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Originally from Essex Junction, Vermont, she attended a Catholic liberal arts college, Saint Michael's College, where she received a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Global Studies and International Business. Her interest in the role of religion in diplomacy and historical and contemporary conflicts began with a World Christianity course she took during her time at Saint Michael's College and her study of Islam in France, Germany and Turkey. Michelle has served in the Bureau of European Union Regional Affairs at the U.S Department of State and most recently at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Upon earning her Master's degree at Princeton this June, Michelle will return to the U.S. Department of State to become a Foreign Service Officer.
Chris Lumry is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School. His primary area
of focus is international development work, particularly in sub-Saharan
Africa. He is particularly excited to focus on the work of
non-governmental organizations, particularly faith-inspired ones,
through this program, given their importance in fighting poverty and
improving health and education opportunities in the developing world.
This past summer he interned with the World Faiths Development Dialogue, researching the impact of faith-inspired organizations in the fight
against tuberculosis, and organizing a conference for faith and
development leaders in Accra, Ghana.
Julia Morse is a second-year MPA student studying international relations and politics in the Middle East. Her academic interests include conflict resolution, U.S. national security, and the changing nature of the international system. She spent this past summer at Search for Common Ground in Washington, D.C., working on a project designed to facilitate constructive dialogue and improve relations between the West and the Muslim world. Prior to coming to the Woodrow Wilson School, Julia worked as an analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation for three years.
Daud Munir is a doctoral student in the Politics department at Princeton, concentrating on the politics of the contemporary Middle East and Central Asia. His current research focuses on political movements in the region, especially on the contrast between secularly and religiously framed movements. He previously studied philosophy at Bowdoin College. Before coming to Princeton, Daud worked with various civil society organizations in Pakistan. He also led a research project (sponsored by the Gates Foundation) in the areas affected by the Great Kashmir earthquake of 2005. Daud’s articles have appeared in Dawn, TheNews International and the Middle East Report. He is currently working on a book chapter which compares lawyers’ movements for political liberalism in Pakistan and Egypt.
Farah Naim is a senior from Miami, Florida in the Near Eastern Studies Department, and is pursing a certificate in Finance. Her academic research interests lie in the relationship between religion and government in South Asia during colonial times. Last April, she organized and managed “Visions and Revisions: Charting a Common Future Between the U.S. and Arab World,” with the purpose of creating dialogue between Princeton students and their peers in the Middle East. On campus, Farah is a member of Business Today and the Religious Life Council.
Jacob Olidort is a first year Ph.D. student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, where his interests include Islamic political thought and Judeo-Islamic legal exchanges. Prior to coming to Princeton, he earned his A.M. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard and his B.A. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Brandeis. From 2007-2008, he was a Fulbright scholar in the United Arab Emirates, where he conducted research on local marriage laws and customs.
Christian Sahner is a first-year doctoral candidate in Princeton’s Department of History, where he is interested in the intersection of religion and politics both past and present. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University, and earned an M.Phil with distinction in Islamic History and Arabic from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He has worked for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and his articles have appeared in the Journal, RealClearPolitics, First Things, and Public Discourse. At Princeton, his research focuses on the early Islamic world, late antiquity, and the role of religion and politics in America and the modern Middle East. He has spent time living in Syria, and undertaken research throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. He a member of the Aquinas Institute, Princeton’s Roman Catholic chaplaincy.
Rahul Subramaniam is a junior in the Politics department. Born in Hyderabad, India, he immigrated to the United States after a year and grew up in Northern California, where his family still resides. Rahul was brought up in a Hindu household; as a young child, he was enamored by the stories of great mythological kings who were both just and powerful. These seemingly trivial early exposures instilled in him an understanding of the innate connection between religion and politics. He spent summer 2009 as an intern at Institutions for Fragile States, a program affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson School. He is also a member of the Interfaith Youth Core. He is very interested in constructing mechanisms to stimulate international cooperation, and also wishes to encourage public-private partnerships for development. He hopes to integrate myriad variables and disciplines to formulate a comprehensive understanding of global politics, and ultimately of history.
Ezra Tzfadya is a first year student in the Religion department's Religion, Ethics, and Politics subfield. Prior to arriving at Princeton, he studied German, Arabic, and Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Free University of Berlin in Islamic and Jewish philosophy. Ezra’s interests lie primarily in the Shiite-Islamic and Jewish traditions, focusing upon how philosophers, theologians, jurists, and political thinkers have responded to the challenges posed by the State in the modern era. He is also interested in the ramifications of the Jewish and Shiite political experience for current debates in political theory centered upon sovereignty, authority, pluralism, democracy, and legitimacy.
Dennis Yap is a graduate student in political theory who also has interests in religion, ethics, international political theory and comparative political thought. For his dissertation, he is working on a theory of global justice based on the ideal of common ownership. He hopes to show that it is shared widely across cultures and times and argue that it is well-suited to being the foundation of our common morality.
C. Logan Anderson is a senior in the Near Eastern Studies department with a regional focus on Turkey. He is also pursuing a certificate in Portuguese language and culture. His main academic interest is national identity creation and formalization through institutional mechanisms. Logan plans to attend law school next fall.
Bilkan Erkmen is a junior in the Economics department with certificates in finance, applications of computing and applied and computational mathematics. he is currently writing a junior paper on theoretical finance, developing valuation techniques for certain types of bonds. His research interests focus on the impact of the international economic and financial system on the diplomatic dynamics between Christianity and Islam. He is involved in the European Union Undergraduate Fellows Program, and is a peer tutor in economics and finance. Erkman is from Turkey and speaks English, Turkish, German, conversational Italian and basic Spanish.
Simon Wolfgang Fuchs is a first year Ph.D. Student in Near Eastern Studies. Before coming to Princeton he studied at the University of Tübingen and Duke University as well as in Damascus and Tehran. He has had several internships at institutions like the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and the German Institute for International and Security Affairs which fostered his interest in foreign policy consulting. Additionally, he is a regular contributor for the Economic Platform Iraq, a website covering the reconstruction in Iraq that is funded by the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His current work at Princeton focuses mainly on the construction of religious authority in Islam during the modern period.
Ana Gonzalez is a junior in the Woodrow Wilson School with a certificate in Near Eastern Studies. She is currently preparing to write her thesis on modern day slavery and Islam in Northern African countries, particularly Mauritania. To that end, she is currently a second year Arabic student. She is a native Spanish speaker and learned English and French in school. Her faith in Jesus Christ frames the way she engages the world; it fashions her actions and demeanor towards life, people, the environment and everything around her, and spurs her to understand other people's convictions as well. Being born to two immigrant parents has given her an innate desire to understand human interactions better, particularly those between different cultures. To see distinct cultures in their most pure, beautiful forms, to see the richness that they offer the world, is one of the greatest privileges she has experienced. Her faith and her love of culture have turned her attention to the Middle East, arguably the region where the divide between culture and religion is hardest to distinguish. 
Nazir Harb is a first-year MPA student at the Woodrow Wilson School concentrating in International Relations, with a particular focus on U.S.-Middle East diplomacy. He focuses on the enhancement of non-violent methods as a means to durable conflict resolution toward the demilitarization of the Middle East, as a strategic region and a complex repertory of divergent socialities. His research is in sociology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, Middle East political discourse analysis, and currently, the intersections of neurocognitive linguistics and international relations. As a person of mixed heritage, half Mexican and half Lebanese, he speaks Spanish and Arabic fluently. He is a certified Arabic teacher and enjoys studying languages. He researches the philosophy and anthropology of religions, and has been a leader in the Muslim and interfaith communities in and around Seattle. His interests in examining the role of religion in diplomacy and international relations are both academic and practical as he aims to work in foreign policymaking and education.
Michelle Margot Kayser is currently a second year Master's student studying International Relations at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Originally from Essex Junction, Vermont, she attended a Catholic liberal arts college, Saint Michael's College, where she received a B.A. in Political Science with minors in Global Studies and International Business. Her interest in the role of religion in diplomacy and historical and contemporary conflicts began with a World Christianity course she took during her time at Saint Michael's College and her study of Islam in France, Germany and Turkey. Michelle has served in the Bureau of European Union Regional Affairs at the U.S Department of State and most recently at the U.S. Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. Upon earning her Master's degree at Princeton this June, Michelle will return to the U.S. Department of State to become a Foreign Service Officer.
Chris Lumry is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School. His primary area
of focus is international development work, particularly in sub-Saharan
Africa. He is particularly excited to focus on the work of
non-governmental organizations, particularly faith-inspired ones,
through this program, given their importance in fighting poverty and
improving health and education opportunities in the developing world.
This past summer he interned with the World Faiths Development Dialogue, researching the impact of faith-inspired organizations in the fight
against tuberculosis, and organizing a conference for faith and
development leaders in Accra, Ghana.
Julia Morse is a second-year MPA student studying international relations and politics in the Middle East. Her academic interests include conflict resolution, U.S. national security, and the changing nature of the international system. She spent this past summer at Search for Common Ground in Washington, D.C., working on a project designed to facilitate constructive dialogue and improve relations between the West and the Muslim world. Prior to coming to the Woodrow Wilson School, Julia worked as an analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation for three years. 
Daud Munir is a doctoral student in the Politics department at Princeton, concentrating on the politics of the contemporary Middle East and Central Asia. His current research focuses on political movements in the region, especially on the contrast between secularly and religiously framed movements. He previously studied philosophy at Bowdoin College. Before coming to Princeton, Daud worked with various civil society organizations in Pakistan. He also led a research project (sponsored by the Gates Foundation) in the areas affected by the Great Kashmir earthquake of 2005. Daud’s articles have appeared in Dawn, The News International and the Middle East Report. He is currently working on a book chapter which compares lawyers’ movements for political liberalism in Pakistan and Egypt. 
Farah Naim is a senior from Miami, Florida in the Near Eastern Studies Department, and is pursing a certificate in Finance. Her academic research interests lie in the relationship between religion and government in South Asia during colonial times. Last April, she organized and managed “Visions and Revisions: Charting a Common Future Between the U.S. and Arab World,” with the purpose of creating dialogue between Princeton students and their peers in the Middle East. On campus, Farah is a member of Business Today and the Religious Life Council.
Jacob Olidort is a first year Ph.D. student in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, where his interests include Islamic political thought and Judeo-Islamic legal exchanges. Prior to coming to Princeton, he earned his A.M. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Harvard and his B.A. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Brandeis. From 2007-2008, he was a Fulbright scholar in the United Arab Emirates, where he conducted research on local marriage laws and customs.
Christian Sahner is a first-year doctoral candidate in Princeton’s Department of History, where he is interested in the intersection of religion and politics both past and present. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University, and earned an M.Phil with distinction in Islamic History and Arabic from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He has worked for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, and his articles have appeared in the Journal, RealClearPolitics, First Things, and Public Discourse. At Princeton, his research focuses on the early Islamic world, late antiquity, and the role of religion and politics in America and the modern Middle East. He has spent time living in Syria, and undertaken research throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. He a member of the Aquinas Institute, Princeton’s Roman Catholic chaplaincy. 
Rahul Subramaniam is a junior in the Politics department. Born in Hyderabad, India, he immigrated to the United States after a year and grew up in Northern California, where his family still resides. Rahul was brought up in a Hindu household; as a young child, he was enamored by the stories of great mythological kings who were both just and powerful. These seemingly trivial early exposures instilled in him an understanding of the innate connection between religion and politics. He spent summer 2009 as an intern at Institutions for Fragile States, a program affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson School. He is also a member of the Interfaith Youth Core. He is very interested in constructing mechanisms to stimulate international cooperation, and also wishes to encourage public-private partnerships for development. He hopes to integrate myriad variables and disciplines to formulate a comprehensive understanding of global politics, and ultimately of history.
Ezra Tzfadya is a first year student in the Religion department's Religion, Ethics, and Politics subfield. Prior to arriving at Princeton, he studied German, Arabic, and Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Free University of Berlin in Islamic and Jewish philosophy. Ezra’s interests lie primarily in the Shiite-Islamic and Jewish traditions, focusing upon how philosophers, theologians, jurists, and political thinkers have responded to the challenges posed by the State in the modern era. He is also interested in the ramifications of the Jewish and Shiite political experience for current debates in political theory centered upon sovereignty, authority, pluralism, democracy, and legitimacy. 
Dennis Yap is a graduate student in political theory who also has interests in religion, ethics, international political theory and comparative political thought. For his dissertation, he is working on a theory of global justice based on the ideal of common ownership. He hopes to show that it is shared widely across cultures and times and argue that it is well-suited to being the foundation of our common morality.
