EducationCity

Confirmed Speakers

• Matthew Szudzik
  Matthew Szudzik is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Mathematics at Carnegie Mellon University in Doha, Qatar. His work focuses on the mathematical foundations of computer science. Formerly, he held a position at Wolfram Research Inc., where he worked closely with individuals responsible for the initial development of Wolfram|Alpha.
• David Gray
  David Emmanuel Gray, Ph.D. is a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar and a Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy at Northwestern University in Qatar. He holds Bachelor's degrees in Philosophy and Computer Science from the University of Montana and a Ph.D. in Logic, Computation, and Methodology from Carnegie Mellon University. His research focuses on foundational issues arising within the overlapping domains of ethical theory, political philosophy, and decision theory.
• Rodney Sharkey
  Dr. Rodney Sharkey is a native of Dublin in Ireland where he studied literature at University College Dublin (B.A. and M.A.) and Trinity College (Ph.D.). Having taught around the world, in 2006 he moved to Weill-Cornell Medical College - Qatar where he teaches writing in the pre-medical program. His specialised fields of interest are in Anglo-Irish literature, critical theory, performance dynamics and popular culture. He publishes in a wide diversity of fields, from ancient Greek comedy to modern comics, and he also produces and directs theatrical and musical events, such as recent productions of "Hair", "Catastrophe", "Glengarry Glen Ross" and "Baggage".
• Ann Woodworth
  Ann Woodworth, MA, Theatre, is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication. Woodworth received her BS and MA at Northwestern and studied privately with master teacher, Alvina Krause. She has worked professionally as an actress, director, and as a teaching consultant conducting numerous presentations of her workshop, The Classroom as Stage. Thirty-five years of experience in teaching acting, mime, and movement have included invitations to work with the Teatro Cadafe and La Compania Nacional in Caracas, Venezuela, and the British/American Drama Academy in England, where she taught for seven summers with English artists such as Ben Kingsley, Jeremy Irons, Vanessa Redgrave, and Alan Rickman, as well as members of the Berliner Ensemble and the Moscow Art Theatre. In 1989, Woodworth established a directing collaboration with movement director Dawn Mora, integrating movement techniques and original musical composition into a physical approach to classical texts, with acclaimed productions of Euripides’ Medea, Iphigenia in Aulis, Shakespeare’s Hecuba, Hamlet, King Lear, and Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull. She is also a founding member of the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble, under contract for an acting book, ACTING: The Study of Life, and a recipient of numerous teaching awards including the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship for Teaching Excellence.
• Law Alsobrook
  Law Alsobrook is Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar (VCUQatar). He received an MFA in Graphic Design from Rhode Island School of Design (risd) in 2005. Prior to that he received his BA from the University of Alabama in 1994. His research concentrates on integrative heuristics, or the experimental fulcrum between art and craft wherein design theory and practice merge. He is particularly interested in forms of cognition that focus on the role of thinking through the hand and materials.
• Byradley Yyelland
  Byrad Yyelland is a Canadian working in an American university in Doha, Qatar. He entered university as an older student after having worked for 10 years, and gained a Bachelor degree with Honors in Psychology and then a Master degree in Sociology at the University of Saskatchewan. Byrad began teaching early in his MA program and has taught ever since. In 2000 he left the U of S to teach in a collegesituated uniquely on the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta. There he continued to teach undergraduate courses in Psychology and Sociology, and became Chair of the University Studies program. This is when he began work on his doctorate in Educational Leadership at the University of Calgary. In 2008, Byrad brought his wife and 3 sons to Doha where he became Director of the Liberal Arts & Sciences program and Coordinator of the Honors Program at VCUQatar. Byrad has extensive experience as a reasercher for both academic and professional research, and cheerfully describes his research interests as wide-ranging, including emotion in the workplace, organizational culture change, identity but also areas such as serial murderers and vampirism in society.
• Robert Wirsing
  Dr. Wirsing is a Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Qatar (SFS-Q), Georgetown University. Earlier he was a member of the faculty of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu, Hawaii (2000-2008) and of the Department of Government & International Studies, University of South Carolina (1971-2000). A specialist on South Asian politics and international relations, he has made over forty research trips to the South Asian region since 1965. His publications include: Pakistan’s Security Under Zia, 1977-1988 (St. Martin’s Press, 1991); India, Pakistan, and the Kashmir Dispute (St. Martin’s Press, 1994); Kashmir in the Shadow of War (M. E. Sharpe, 2002); Religious Radicalism & Security in South Asia, co-editor (Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 2004); Ethnic Diasporas & Great Power Strategies in Asia, co-editor (India Research Press, 2007); Baloch Nationalism and the Geopolitics of Energy Resources: The Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan (Carlisle: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, April 2008); and Fixing Fractured Nations: The Challenge of Ethnic Separatism in the Asia-Pacific, co-editor and co-author (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2010). His most recent research focuses primarily on the politics and diplomacy of river resources. His latest (co-authored) book is International River Rivalry in Himalayan Asia (Palgrave/Macmillan, in press).
• Arash Rafii Tabrizi
  Dr. Rafii received an MD from the Université Paris V René Descartes and a PhD in molecular oncology from the Université Paris XI, Kremelin Bicetre. He is an assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar in the department of genetic medicine. Dr. Rafii's research has focused on stem-cell science and gynecologic oncology, in particular the role of the interaction between mesenchymal stem cells and cancer cells in the acquisition of chemoresistance. His recent work demonstrate the role of the microenvironement in the resistance and progression of ovarian cancer. He is also involved in many global health project in particular in Haiti and Tanzania.
• Arun Srinivasa
  Dr. Srinivasa is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University in Qatar. He obtained his PhD from the University of California Berkeley in 1991. While at UCBerkeley, he was one of the founding members of the charitable group ASHA for education. He is currently working on the design and development of components made from a new class of materials collectively called ‘smart materials’ that are able to respond to changes in their environment without human intervention (self sensing, self-diagnostic and self-actuation).