About the Speaker

Dr. Tamar Gutner is a Professor of International Relations at American University’s School of International Service (SIS), and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development. She is an expert on the performance and effectiveness of international organizations, particularly international financial institutions, and their roles in global and regional governance. Dr. Gutner is the author of The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank: China’s Multilateral Experiment (2025), International Organizations in World Politics (2023 and 2016) and Banking on the Environment: Multilateral Development Banks and Their Environmental Performance in Central and Eastern Europe (2002). Her scholarly articles have appeared in journals such as World Development, International Organization, Review of International Organizations, Review of International Political Economy, and Global Environmental Politics.

Dr. Gutner previously served as a Council on Foreign Relations fellow at the IMF’s Independent Evaluation Office, and her research has been funded by fellowships and grants from The Brookings Institution, MacArthur Foundation, International Studies Association, and American Council of Learned Societies/Social Science Research Council. She is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee.

Dr. Gutner holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

About the Topic

World politics are being reshaped by global crises and geopolitical tensions. This lecture will examine how major multilateral institutions are navigating these tricky waters, speaking to debates over whether we are watching their decline, disappearance, fragmentation, or resilience.

Doug Livermore is a Division Chief (GG-15) at the Department of War, where he focuses on senior-level operational and strategic initiatives. He previously served as Senior Vice President for Solution Engineering at the CenCore Group and as Deputy Commander for Special Operations Detachment – Joint Special Operations Command in the North Carolina Army National Guard. He is also the Director of Development for the Corioli Institute and serves as National Director of External Communications for the Special Forces Association, National Vice President for the Special Operations Association of America, and Director of Engagements for the Irregular Warfare Initiative. He sits on the Board of Directors for No One Left Behind and serves as Chair of the Advocacy Committee.

Erin McFee is the Founder of the Corioli Institute and a Professor of Practice at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University. A political anthropologist, she specializes in climate security, migration, and the reintegration of formerly armed actors (FAA), including military veterans and ex-insurgents. Since 2010, she has conducted extensive fieldwork across multiple regions, from living alongside ex-guerrillas in Colombia to consulting on al-Shabaab reintegration in Somalia. Her work also includes research with former cartel members in Mexico, support for NGOs working with ex-gang members in El Salvador, and restorative justice initiatives for U.S. military veterans. She has published widely in peer-reviewed, practitioner, and public-facing platforms in over 20 countries.

About the Topic

This panel explores Ukraine’s war as both a test of battlefield adaptation and a foundation for long-term recovery and security. Drawing on research and analysis of veteran reintegration and wartime innovation, the discussion examines how Ukraine’s choices will shape post-war stability, deterrence, and the credibility of the transatlantic security order.

About the Speaker

Dr. Zongyuan “Zoe” Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. She teaches in the capacity of an adjunct faculty member at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) of Columbia University and Columbia Business School. She is also a Senior Research Scholar at the Institute of Global Politics at SIPA and a Wilson China Fellow. Dr. Liu’s work focuses on international finance, sovereign wealth funds, industrial policies, and the geoeconomics of energy transition. Her regional expertise is in East Asia and the Middle East. Dr. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions. The book Sovereign Funds is the 2024 Winner of the PROSE Best Book Award in Business, Finance, and Management. Dr. Liu received her PhD in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder. Her paper on BRICS Collective De-dollarization Statecraft received the 2021 Best Paper Award from the International Studies Association (West).

About the Topic

In this week’s lecture, Dr. Liu will examine the interplay of complementarity and diversion within the U.S.–China economic and financial systems, and explore what these dynamics mean for the long-term trajectory of U.S.–China rivalry.

About the Speaker

Dr. Todd S. Sechser (Ph.D., Stanford University) is Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia. An expert in nuclear security and foreign policy, his books include Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy and Emerging Technologies and International Stability. Before entering academia, Dr. Sechser worked as a nuclear policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he is now a Non-Resident Scholar.

About the Topic

American security guarantees once prevented Germany, Japan, South Korea, and other allies from building nuclear weapons. But this fragile architecture may be unraveling. Dr. Sechser traces how American alliances transformed from vectors of proliferation to bulwarks against it, and why these nonproliferation guardrails may now be facing their greatest test.

About the Speaker

Dr. Kelebogile Zvobgo is the Mansfield Associate Professor of Government at William & Mary and Director of the International Justice Lab. Her research centers on human rights, transitional justice, and international law and courts. She is the author of Governing Truth: NGOs and the Politics of Transitional Justice (Oxford University Press, 2026) and more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and has coedited three collections.

About the Topic

Drawing on her new book, her talk will discuss how the future of human rights and international law will—and continue to—be shaped by victims of human rights abuse and civil society movements.

About the Speaker

Dr. Soji Akomolafe is Professor of International Relations and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Norfolk State University. He earned a B.A. in French and English from the University of Lagos, an M.S. in International Relations from the University of Ife, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Bordeaux, France.

Dr. Akomolafe has held several leadership roles in higher education, including Director of the Center for Global Education at Norfolk State University and Director of International Programs at LeMoyne-Owen College. He has served intermittently on the Board of Directors of the World Affairs Council of Hampton Roads since 2004, including two terms as Vice President.

He is the co-author of two books, has contributed nine chapters to edited volumes, and is currently completing a book on the Nigerian government’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency. His international experience includes extensive professional engagement across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas, where he has established lasting academic partnerships.

About the Topic

American influence in Africa is not disappearing, but it is no longer dominant. It is contracting, shifting, and fragmenting across sectors—strong in some areas, lagging in others. What is emerging is a selective, often contested influence shaped by rising African agency. This reflects not simple decline, but a broader rebalancing in a multipolar environment.

About the Speaker

Dr. C. Fred Bergsten was Founding Director for 30 years of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the world’s leading think tank on the global economy, and author of 47 books on those issues. He was previously economic deputy to Dr. Henry Kissinger at the National Security Council, Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and a member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (appointed by both Presidents Obama and Trump).

About the Topic

Dr. Bergsten will discuss the role of international trade and trade policies in both the U.S. and global economies, as well as their impact on U.S. foreign policy. He will focus on the tension between the traditional U.S. and global commitment to open trade and the protectionist policies of the Trump and Biden administrations.

About the Speakers

Ambassador Piper Campbell is the inaugural Chair of the Department of Foreign Policy and Global Security at American University’s School of International Service (SIS), where she also directs the ASEAN and Indo-Pacific Studies Initiative. She joined AU in 2020 following a distinguished 30-year diplomatic career, which included serving as Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Consul General in Basrah, Iraq, and head of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, Indonesia. She retired from the State Department in 2019 with the rank of Minister Counselor.

Dr. Susan Colbourn is associate director of the Program in American Grand Strategy and associate research professor at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. A historian of contemporary international relations, she focuses on transatlantic relations and the politics of European security since 1945. She is the author of Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO, published by Cornell University Press in 2022.