Natasha Hall is a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Natasha has over 15 years of experience as an analyst, researcher, and practitioner in complex humanitarian emergencies and conflict-affected areas with a specialty in the Middle East. Most recently, she has worked on the Syrian conflict with The Shaikh Group, GIZ, Mayday Rescue, Center for Civilians in Conflict, and the U.S. government’s Refugee Affairs Division. She has lived and worked in over 15 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Southern Caucasus, and Europe. Her work has focused on conflict resolution, governance, displacement, environmental issues, resilience, and civilian protection. Her reports have spurred congressional hearings and high-level donor responses on Syria.

Steven Heydemann is the Janet Wright Ketcham 1953 Chair in Middle East Studies, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government, as well as a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution. From 2007–15 he held a number of leadership positions at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., including vice president of applied research on conflict and senior adviser for the Middle East. Prior to joining USIP, he was director of the Center for Democracy and Civil Society at Georgetown University and associate professor in the government department.

Caroline Rose is the Director of the Strategic Blind Spots Portfolio at the New Lines Institute, where she leads and produces research on the intersection of defense, security, illicit trades, and geopolitical landscapes from Europe to the Middle East and North Africa. Her portfolio at the institute includes two projects: the Project on the Captagon Trade and the Project on Post-Withdrawal Security Landscapes. Previously at the institute, Rose served as the head of the Power Vacuums Program. As of fall 2023, she is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service teaching a graduate course on the nexus of illicit economies, armed conflict, and insecurity. 

Sina Azodi previously worked as a research assistant at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Sina is also visiting scholar and a professorial lecturer of international affairs at The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, where he teaches a graduate course on Iran’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Dr. Azodi is a frequent commentator on both English- and Persian-speaking media, including BBC, Sky News, Al-Jazeera, TRT World, and i24. His analysis has appeared in Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Association, Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Middle East Institute, and has been quoted by the New York Times, Newsweek, Spiegel, and Forbes. Dr. Azodi has published the chapter “The Fusion of Politics and Religion in Iran” in the edited book Political Islam in the Gulf Region. He earned his BA and MA in international affairs from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, and PhD from University of South Florida.