Forum Network

Susan has been published in the magazine market as well as by traditional publishing houses. She is the author of *The Deep Cut* and *12 Days OF Christmas In Georgia*. She serves as the Published and Listed Coordinator for the Southern Breeze Region (Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama) of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), a world-wide organization for children's authors and illustrators. Susan is an accomplished author for young people, she has experience teaching writing workshops and presenting programs at elementary and middle schools, passing on valuable instruction, advice and inspiration to aspiring writers of all ages. She also offers in-depth professional manuscript critiquing and editing for both published and yet-to-be-published writers.

Award winning author/illustrator, Elizabeth O. Dulemba, was beamed to this planet with a pencil in her hand. Once she stopped chewing on it, she began to draw and write. Along with creating children's books, Elizabeth speaks at schools, conferences and events, and teaches *Creating Picture Books* at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

Ronald Bruder is the founder and CEO of the Education for Employment Foundation (EFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organization with the mission of creating employment opportunities for youth in Middle East and North African countries. After identifying critical skill gaps in the local economy, EFE develops and manages targeted training programs which ensure job placement through on-the-ground partnerships with local universities and employers. Five programs are underway: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, West Bank/Gaza, and Yemen. In 1977, Bruder founded The Brookhill Group, which owns and manages properties throughout the U.S. with a primary focus on creating investment partnerships to develop and/or redevelop shopping centers, office buildings and multi-family homes. Bruder is a contributing author to numerous publications, among them, The New York Times, The New York Law Journal, The American Banker, and The CPA Journal. In his capacity as Founder of the Education for Employment Foundation, Bruder's work has been showcased by both the Christian Science Monitor and the Financial Times. Bruder is a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Association and an attendee at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He has served as a delegate of the Council on Foreign Relations to the Jeddah Economic Forum, and a contributor and attendee to the US-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar.

Jasmine Nahhas di Florio is vice president of strategic planning for the Education for Employment Foundation (EFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organization with the mission of creating employment opportunities for youth in Middle East and North African countries. After identifying critical skill gaps in the local economy, EFE develops and manages targeted training programs which ensure job placement through on-the-ground partnerships with local universities and employers. Five programs are underway: Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, West Bank/Gaza, and Yemen. Prior to joining EFE, di Florio was an international corporate lawyer at David Polk & Wardwell and an attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department. She has experience implementing programs for private donors in Afghanistan and building public-private partnerships with the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP).

Lynn Boland, the Pierre Daura Curator of European Art at the Georgia Museum of Art, received his undergraduate degree in art history from the University of Georgia in 1999. After serving as an intern at the museum during his undergraduate years at UGA and as administrative assistant to the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art following graduation, Boland went on to acquire a master’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003. Boland is set to receive his doctorate in art history this year, with a dissertation on dissonance in modern European art and music and its scientific underpinnings. In addition to his role as curator of European art, Boland also directs the activities at the Pierre Daura Center, established in honor of Catalan-American artist Pierre Daura (1896–1976) and overseeing the Daura collection of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and archives, including the artist’s correspondence with luminaries like André Breton and Joaquín Torres García. Boland’s most recent project will focus on the 1930 Paris exhibition Cercle et Carré (Circle and Square). The exhibition will highlight the work of Daura, one of three founders of this artistic group, as well as the works of other influential Cercle et Carré members, including Piet Mondrian, Fernand Léger and Wassily Kandinsky.

Thomas de Waal is a senior associate in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment, specializing primarily in the South Caucasus region comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia and their breakaway territories, as well as the wider Black Sea region. De Waal is an expert on the unresolved conflicts of the South Caucasus: Abkhazia, Nagorny Karabakh, and South Ossetia. From 2002 to 2009 he worked as an analyst and project manager on the conflicts in the South Caucasus for the London-based NGOs Conciliation Resources and the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. De Waal has worked extensively as a journalist and writer in the Caucasus and Black Sea region and in Russia. He has twice worked as an analyst and reporter for the BBC World Service in London, from 1991 to 1993 and from 1998 to 1999, and continues to make documentaries for BBC Radio. From 1993 to 1997 he worked in Moscow for the *Moscow Times*, *Times of London*, and the *Economist*, specializing in Russian politics and the situation in Chechnya. He is the co-author (with Carlotta Gall) of the book *Chechnya: Calamity in the Caucasus*, for which the authors were awarded the James Cameron Prize for Distinguished Reporting. He has also written *Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War* and *The Caucasus: An Introduction*.

Kate Zernike is a national correspondent for The New York Times and was a member of the team that shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. She has covered education, Congress, and four national elections for the Times and was previously a reporter for The Boston Globe.