Speakers

Johnathan Lord is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Security Program at CNAS. Before joining CNAS, Lord served as a professional staff member for the House Armed Services Committee, serving the full committee and managing the U.S. Central Command/Middle East defense policy portfolio, as well as issues related to security assistance.

Sina Azodi is a Ph.D. candidate in international affairs at the University of South Florida, where he is completing a dissertation on Iran’s nuclear program. His research interests include international security, nuclear nonproliferation, and U.S.-Iranian relations. He was a research assistant at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security and at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Sina is also a visiting scholar and a lecturer of international affairs at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he teaches a graduate course on Iran’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

Barbara Slavin is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and a lecturer in international affairs at George Washington University. Before joining Stimson, she founded and directed the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council and led a bi-partisan task force on Iran. The author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the US and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (2007), she is a regular commentator on US foreign policy and Iran on NPR, PBS, and C-Span.

Negar Mortazavi is an award-winning journalist and commentator, editor and host of the Iran Podcast, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), based in Washington DC. For over a decade, she has covered Iranian and Middle Eastern affairs and US foreign policy towards the Middle East. Mortazavi is a frequent media commentator and has appeared on CNN, NBC, NPR, BBC, France24, Aljazeera, and other global outlets. She has written for Foreign Policy magazine, Politico, The Intercept, The Independent, and other publications. She is regularly invited to speak at panels and conferences around the world about Iranian affairs and US foreign policy.