Columbia

Jeffrey Sachs

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Jeffrey Sachs

Economist, policy analyst

Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries. He is the co-recipient of the 2015 Blue Planet Prize, the leading global prize for environmental leadership, and has twice been named among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential world leaders.

Professor Sachs served as the Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University from 2002 to 2016. He was appointed University Professor at Columbia University in 2016 and also serves as Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Sustainable Development Goals, and previously advised both Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria.

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be one of the world’s leading experts on economic development, global macroeconomics, and the fight against poverty. His work on ending poverty, overcoming macroeconomic instability, promoting economic growth, fighting hunger and disease, and promoting sustainable environmental practices has taken him to more than 125 countries. Over the past thirty years, he has advised dozens of heads of state and governments on economic strategy in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He was among the outside advisors to Pope John Paul II on the encyclical Centesimus Annus and currently works closely with the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences on issues of sustainable development.

Jefrey Pollock

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Jefrey Pollock

Founding Partner and President of Global Strategy Group

Jefrey Pollock is Founding Partner and President of Global Strategy Group (GSG), a premier public affairs, research and communications firm that the 2014 Holmes Report named Public Affairs Agency of the Year (Americas). He has twice been named “Pollster of the Year” (2015, 2011) by the bi-partisan American Association of Political Consultants; has been included in the Crain’s NY Business “40 under 40”; and was most recently named to City & State’s Albany Power 100. Jefrey also serves as an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where he has taught for over 15 years and from which he earned his Master’s degree.

Pollock spoke on the Midterm Elections Panel alongside Patrick Caddell, Carol E. Lee, Steve Kornacki, Jim McLaughlin, and Anna Greenberg, moderated by John Harwood, at The Common Good in 2014.

Twitter: @jefpollock

Gary Sick

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Gary Sick

Academic

Gary Sick is a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs.

Sick served on the National Security Council under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He was the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis. Sick was a captain in the U.S. Navy, with service in the Persian Gulf, North Africa, and the Mediterranean.

From 1982 to 1987, Sick served as deputy director for international affairs at the Ford Foundation, where he was responsible for programs relating to U.S. foreign policy. He is a member (emeritus) of the board of Human Rights Watch in New York and founding chair of its advisory committee on the Middle East and North Africa. He is the executive director of Gulf/2000, an international online research project on political, economic and security developments in the Persian Gulf, being conducted at Columbia University since 1993 with support from a number of major foundations.

Tim Weiner

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Tim Weiner

Journalist

Tim Weiner is a reporter, author of three books and co-author of a fourth, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. He is a graduate of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and has worked for the Times since 1993, as a foreign correspondent in Mexico, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC.

Weiner won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting as an investigative reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer, for his articles on the black budget spending at the Pentagon and the CIA. His book Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget is based on that newspaper series.

He won the National Book Award in Nonfiction for his 2007 book Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA.

He is featured along with other foreign affairs experts in interviews in Denis Delestrac’s 2010 “Pax Americana and the Weaponization of Space”. Enemies: A History of the FBI, Tim Weiner’s latest book, traces the history of the FBI’s secret intelligence operations, from the bureau’s creation in the early 20th century through its ongoing fight in the current war on terrorism. He explains how Hoover’s increasing concerns about communist threats against the United States led to the FBI’s secret intelligence operations against anyone deemed “subversive.”