World Class Experts

Jared Diamond is a Pulitzer-prize-winning author of six best-selling books, translated into 38 languages, about human societies and human evolution: Guns, Germs, and Steel, Collapse, Why Is Sex Fun?, The Third Chimpanzee, The World until Yesterday, and Upheaval.

As a professor of geography at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), he is known for his breadth of interests, which involves conducting research and teaching in three other fields: the biology of New Guinea birds, digestive physiology, and conservation biology.  His prizes and honors include the U.S. National Medal of Science, the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Science, and election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.  He is a director of World Wildlife Fund/U.S. and of Conservation International.

As a biological explorer, his most widely publicized finding was his rediscovery, at the top of New Guinea’s remote Foja Mountains, of the long-lost Golden-fronted Bowerbird, previously known only from four specimens found in a Paris feather shop in 1895.‍

Karen Armstrong OBE FRSL is the author of numerous books on religion, including A History of God, which became an international bestseller. Her other works include The Battle for God, A History of Fundamentalism; Islam; Buddha; The Great Transformation; The Case for God; Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence; as well as a memoir, The Spiral Staircase. Her most recent work, published in 2019, is The Lost Art of Scripture; Rescuing the Sacred Texts.  Her books been translated into 45 languages.

She has addressed members of the US Congress on three occasions and lectured to policy makers at the US State Department. In 2006, she was invited by Kofi Anan to join the High-Level Group of the new UN Alliance of Civilisations; in 2008; She was awarded the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Medal; in 2009, she won the TED Prize and with TED founded the Charter for Compassion, which is now a global movement. From 2008- 2016, she was a Trustee of the British Museum; in 2013, she was awarded the inaugural British Academy Al-Rodhan Prize for Improving Intercultural Relations; in 2017, she was awarded the Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences and an OBE. Her new book, Sacred Nature, How Can We Recover Our Reverence for the Natural world will be published in the Netherlands in May 2022, in June (UK) and the USA and Canada in September.

Admiral James Stavridis is an Operating Executive of The Carlyle Group, following five years as the 12th Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.  A retired 4-star officer in the U.S. Navy, he led the NATO Alliance in global operations from 2009 to 2013 as Supreme Allied Commander with responsibility for Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, piracy, and cyber security.  He also served as Commander of U.S. Southern Command, with responsibility for all military operations in Latin America from 2006-2009.  He earned more than 50 medals, including 28 from foreign nations in his 37-year military career.

Earlier in his military career he commanded the top ship in the Atlantic Fleet, winning the Battenberg Cup, as well as a squadron of destroyers and a carrier strike group – all in combat.  In 2016, he was vetted for Vice President by Hillary Clinton and subsequently invited to Trump Tower to discuss a cabinet position in the Trump Administration.

Admiral Stavridis earned a PhD in international relations and has published eight books and hundreds of articles in leading journals around the world.  His 2012 TED talk on global security has over 800,000 hits.  Admiral Stavridis is a monthly columnist for TIME Magazine and Chief International Security Analyst for NBC News, and has tens of thousands of connections on the social networks.

Emily Wilson is a Professor in the Department of Classical Studies and Chair of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Her books include The Death of Socrates: Hero, villain, chatterbox, saint (2007) and The Greatest Empire: A life of Seneca (2014). Her verse translations include Six Tragedies of Seneca, four translations of plays by Euripides in the Modern Library The Greek Plays, and Oedipus Tyrannos.

She is the Classics editor of the revised Norton Anthology of World Literature. Her 2017 translation of the Odyssey was met with wide acclaim, and she is now at work on a new translation of the Iliad and translations of select dialogues of Plato. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2019, and won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020.

Bart D. Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he has taught since 1988. Professor Ehrman has published extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity, having written or edited thirty-three books, including six New York Times Bestsellers: Misquoting Jesus; God’s Problem; Jesus Interrupted; How Jesus Became God; and The Triumph of Christianity. His Introduction to the New Testament has been the most widely used textbook in colleges and universities for over twenty years and he has recorded ten lecture courses for The Great Courses (The Teaching Company). More than two million copies of his books and courses have been sold, and his books have been translated into twenty-seven languages.

Ehrman’s work has been featured in the New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other print media. He has appeared on NBC’s Dateline, CNN, The History Channel, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel, the BBC, Fresh Air, other major NPR shows, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report, and other top media outlets. A widely sought after lecturer, and winner of numerous university awards and grants, Professor Ehrman also has a weekly podcast, Misquoting Jesus, runs a daily blog on the New Testament and early Christianity (The Bart Ehrman Blog), and produces online courses connected with the historical study of the Bible and Christian antiquity (bartehrman.com).

Ambassador Richard Erdman is a retired career diplomat with over 45 years of service.  In recent years, he has been called out of retirement to serve in temporary ambassadorial assignments: Senior Area Adviser for the Middle East on the U.S. Delegation to the annual fall UN General Assembly (2008 to the present); interim ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2009); Acting Deputy Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (2012); and Acting U.S. Representative to the UN Economic and Social Council (2015).

Ambassador Erdman served as U.S. ambassador to Algeria, 2003-2006; Director for Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan Affairs (2001-2002); and U.S. Special Envoy and Head of the five-nation Israel-Lebanon Monitoring Group (1998-2000).  His earlier postings included Portugal, Washington, Yugoslavia, Cyprus, and Turkey.

Ambassador Erdman has received two Presidential Meritorious Service awards as well as several Department of State awards for distinguished service.  He and his wife Sibyl have traveled widely, both personally and professionally.  They have two adult children and three grandchildren.