Shereen El Feki / @shereenelfeki is a writer, broadcaster and academic who started her professional life in medical science, with a PhD in molecular immunology from the University of Cambridge. An award-winning journalist with The Economist and presenter with Al Jazeera English, she is Vice-Chair of the UN's Global Commission on HIV and Law. Born in the UK and raised in Canada, she is half-Egyptian and half-Welsh. She currently divides her time between London and Cairo.
Discussant: Bessma Momani / @b_momani joined CIGI as a a Senior Fellow in 2004. She has a Ph.D. in political science with a focus on international political economy and is an associate professor at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. She has been a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Mortara Center and at the Amman Institute, a research centre to improve local governance in the Middle East. Bessma is a Fulbright Scholar and is undertaking an Insight Development Grant funded by Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) on change in urban development in the Middle East caused by an influx of Arab Gulf investments.