AU Advisory Committee

International Advisory Committee

Salman Abu-Sitta

Founder and President of the Palestine Land Society

Salman H. Abu-Sitta has a PhD in civil engineering from the University of London. He is the founder and director of a construction and development company which worked for the World Bank, Arab Fund, Kuwait Fund and others in the Middle East and Africa. Dr. Abu-Sitta has also published many reports and hundreds of articles on Palestinian Right of Return among other subjects. He still currently serves as the President and Director of the Palestinian Land Society, based in Kuwait. He also served on the Palestinian National Council for 20 years.

Elizabeth N. Bouri

Senior Advisor for the Knowledge-Management UNDP-POGAR

Elizabeth Bouri is the Senior Advisor for the Knowledge-Management Unit at the United Nations Development Program’s Project on Governance in the Arab Region. She also served as Research Associate, Center for Near Eastern Studies, University of Texas. Bouri presently operates the Arab Social Science Research website, which serves as both an information gateway and a collaborative networking platform for social scientists studying the Arab region.

Hassan R. Hammoud

Lebanese American University, Department of Social Sciences

Hassan R. Hammoud is an associate professor of Social Work/Social Welfare in the department of Social Sciences at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. Professor Hammoud’s areas of research include poverty and sustainable development in the Arab countries, the problems of literacy and illiteracy, non-formal education, and other social policy issues. He works as a consultant to a number of UN agencies such as ESCWA and UNESCO.

Shurouq Muzaffar

Ministry of Culture, Kuwait

Shuourq A. Muzaffar is the Editorial Manager and Board member at Alam Al-Ma’rifah (World of Knowledge), a leading pan-Arab book series published by The National Council for Culture in Kuwait. Previously, she also had a brief stint in Public Relations. With an interest in arts, culture, and regional politics, Shurouq worked on Gulf States’ Cultural Development Plan, and was one of Kuwait’s delegates to UNESCO’s Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Ms. Muzaffar was born in Kuwait and holds a BA degree in Media and Philosophy from Kuwait University.

Baqer Salman Al Najjar

Bahrain University, Department of Sociology

Baqer Salman Al Najjar is a sociology professor in the department of Social Sciences at the University of Bahrain and a research coordinator at the Gulf Cooperation Council Joint Program Production. In the past, Professor Salman Al Najjar has served as the Chairman of the Social Sciences Department and the Dean for Faculty of the Arts. He is also the founding member of the Arab Council for Childhood and Development, and a current member of the Editorial Board for the Gulf Research Center.

Dr. Muhammad A. Shuraydi

University of Windsor, Canada, Department of Sociology

Muhammad Shuraydi is an associate professor in the Sociology department at the University of Windsor in Canada. Professor Shuraydi's specialization is in both classical and contemporary sociological theory and social psychology, with an emphasis on socialization, small group behavior, self and identity, bilingual/bicultural education, and the themes and varieties of symbolic interactionism. Dr. Shurayi's present research interests focus on gender issues in Islam and democratization studies in the Arab world.

Amer al-Tameemi

Secreatary General for the Kuwait Human Rights Society

Amer Al-Tameemi is an economist who has assumed many prominent positions in Kuwait, including serving as the CEO of United Fisheries Company of Kuwait. His passion has always been towards development and human rights and Mr. Al-Tameemi now serves as Secretary General of the Kuwait Human Rights Society and is former Chairman of the Kuwait Economic Society. He studies the issue of Arab labor, including expatriate labor, labor patterns in the region, and workers rights. Mr. Al-Tameemi is also an activist, who speaks around the world about workers rights in Kuwait and in the larger Arab World.

Alanoud Al-Sharekh

Senior Fellow for Regional Politics at the International Institute for Strategic Studies

Alanoud Al-Sharekh is a senior fellow for Regional Politics at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Alanoud received her PhD in Comparative Literature from the School of International and Oriental Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. Al-Sharekh began her career as an academic before shifting over into political consultancy. She has published several books including, Angry Words Softly Spoken: A Comparative Study of English and Arabic Women Writers. Al-Sharekh’s career in the recent past has largely focused on regional politics in the Middle East where she has held positions as senior political analyst at the Kuwait National Security Bureau, Freedom House, and the United nations Development Project among others.