Board & Ambassadors Council

SAR Network Board

The Scholars at Risk Network Board is responsible for the overall policy and direction of the Network. Network members are invited to nominate representatives to the Board. The Board supervises the activities of the Network offices and staff and reports on these activities to the Network members and affiliates. (Affiliations are for identification purposes only.)

Lisa Anderson (Chair)
Former President, American University in Cairo
Senior Lecturer and Dean Emerita, SIPA
Columbia University

Jonathan Bagger
Chief Executive Officer
American Physical Society

Lesley Carson
Program Director, International Human Rights
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund

Joy Connolly
President
American Council of Learned Societies

Nicholas Dirks
President and Chief Executive Officer
The New York Academy of Sciences

Anastasia Efimova
Partner
Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP

Adam Falk
President and CEO of the Wildlife Conservation Society
President Emeritus, Williams College

Timothy Gladden 
Partner, Corporate and Business Transactions Group
DarrowEverett LLP

Charles Harkless
Managing Director
Satori Consulting

Kasia Kaczmarska
Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations
The University of Edinburgh

Michael Kunichika
Professor and Chair of Russian
Director, Center for Humanistic Inquiry
Amherst College

Jonathan Levitsky
Partner
Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

Lance Liebman
William S. Beinecke Professor and Dean Emeritus
Former Director, American Law Institute

Daniel Naujoks
Director International Organization and UN Studies Specialization
Columbia University

Katherine Precht
Consultant

Kenneth Roth
Former Executive Director
Human Rights Watch

Jenifer Vaughan
Chief of External Affairs
International Crisis Group

Diana Wagner
Partner and Portfolio Manager
Capital Group

Halil Yenigun
Associate Director of the Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies
Stanford University

Emeritus Members

Alfred Babo
Associate Professor of International Studies and Anthropology
Fairfield University

Jonathan R. Cole
John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University
Provost and Dean of Faculties, Emeritus
Columbia University

Harvey P. Dale
University Professor of Philanthropy and the Law
Director, National Center on Philanthropy and the Law
N.Y.U. School of Law

Irving Epstein
Rhodes Professor of Peace and Social Justice Emeritus
Illinois Wesleyan University

Jonathan F. Fanton
President
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Gilbert W. Merkx
Professor of the Practice of Sociology
Duke University

Matthew Nimetz
Lawyer & Diplomat (retired)

Catharine R. Stimpson
University Professor & Dean Emeritus
The Steinhardt Institute for Higher Education Policy
New York University

Rosalie J. Wolf
Managing Partner
Botanica Capital Partners LLC

SAR Ambassadors Council

Ambassadors Council members are scholars, higher education and public leaders, advocates and others who advise the Board and staff and raise awareness of SAR’s work. (Affiliations are for identification purposes only.)

Anthony Appiah
Cultural theorist, philosopher and novelist
Professor of Philosophy, New York University
Former President, PEN American Center

Louise Arbour
Former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada
UN Commissioner for Human Rights

Lloyd Axworthy
Chancellor of St. Paul’s University College
Former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Winnipeg

Ian Buruma
Writer and historian
Paul W. Williams Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College

Robbert Dijkgraaf
Mathematical physicist and string theorist
Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Netherlands

Ariel Dorfman
Novelist, playwright, human rights activist
Professor of Literature and Latin American Studies, Duke University

Shirin Ebadi
Judge and human rights activist
Recipient of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize

Richard Goldstone
Former justice of the South African Constitutional Court
Human rights leader

Azar Nafisi
Internationally bestselling author and professor
Executive Director of Cultural Conversations,
Foreign Policy Institute at SAIS at Johns Hopkins

Sigrid Rausing
Swedish philanthropist, anthropologist, publisher
Founder of Sigrid Rausing Trust and editor of Granta Magazine