Tara Aziz has been working as Program Officer with WKI (Washington Kurdish Institute) since January 2002. Since 1991, she has worked for UNHCR, UNICEF, ICRC and other international humanitarian agencies in Iraqi Kurdistan. In these positions, she worked extensively with local and international NGOs, developing and analyzing a wide range of programs. In 2000, Ms. Aziz participated in the establishment of a local NGO that promotes women's empowerment in Iraqi Kurdistan. She received an M.A. in International Peace Studies from Notre Dame University (1998) and is fluent in English, Arabic, Kurdish and French.

Angana P. Chatterji has integrated scholarship, research, and activism in linking the roles of citizen and intellectual. A rigorous and passionate advocate for social justice, she has been working with postcolonial social movements in India and internationally, since 1984, toward enabling participatory democracy for social and ecological justice. Her work focuses on issues of globalization, identity politics, sustainable development, cultural survival, religious fundamentalism and nationalism. Dr. Chatterji has been working with issues of indigenous land rights and community governance, and with issues of gendered violence and grassroots resistance. In response to September 11, 2001, she has convened the Dialogues for Peace. She serves on the Board of Directors of Earth Island Institute and International Rivers Network. Her intellectual interests include postcolonial and poststructural thought, feminist critique, policy, participatory and action research in India. Professor Chatterji has published extensively, including 'Land and Justice: The Struggle for Cultural Survival' in press, and is completing 'Violent Gods. Hindu Nationalism in India's Present', forthcoming from Three Essays Press Collective in Delhi. For further information, please go to: http://www.ciis.edu/faculty/chatterji.html

Fredrick Cloyd is an activist living in San Francisco, California. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a program which integrates scholarship, activism, postcolonial thought, and ethnographic research for advocacy and social change. He has over 30 years' experience teaching, facilitating workshops, lecturing and consulting on anti-oppression issues, especially in the areas of race, gender, sexuality, class, intercultural communication, and identity politics. He regularly writes for the Pacific Reader in Seattle, Washington. His Ph.D. work focuses on the effects of violence and nation-building on the Kurds of Turkey.

Noura Erakat is a Palestinian-American student-activist completing her legal education at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law and intends to practice international human rights law after graduation. Prior to attending law school, she helped to launch the divestment campaign with the Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley. During her undergraduate career, Noura studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She also co-led Global Exchange's fact-finding delegation throughout the Occupied Territories and Israel proper. She has also volunteered in Palestinian refugee camps in Bethlehem, Jericho, Beirut and Tripoli. In 2002, Noura produced a radio documentary, "Sabra and Shatilla: We Refuse to Forget," commemorating the 20th year since the Sabra and Shatila massacre using interviews she collected during her stay in Beirut. Most recently, she interned at the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel in Shafa'amr, where she helped to file petitions before the Israeli High Court on behalf of the Palestinian-Israeli citizens. In the summer of 2004, she is working on secret evidence and government misconduct cases at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

Ali Ezzatyar was born in Tehran, and his parents are from Sanandaj (Sina in Kurdish language), a Kurdish city in northwest Iran. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley, where his studies concentrated on the Middle East. He received his Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University, where he concentrated on Security Policy. He also completed an Advanced Certificate in Middle East Studies from Columbia's prestigious Middle East Institute. Mr. Ezzatyar also conducted research at Oxford. He is currently pursuing a J.D. at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law.

Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, TN. He is also a former Senior Fulbright Lecturer in International Relations in Turkey, and has taught in China and Austria. He has published 11 books and more than 75 scholarly articles (many on Kurdish issues) in many prestigious publications, including the Middle East Journal, Middle East Quarterly, Orient, American Journal of International Law, and Orbis.

Rashid Karadaghi was born in the Karadagh region in Iraqi-occupied Kurdistan. He received his Ph.D. in English from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is an educator and writer on Kurdish affairs, as well as the author of a forthcoming comprehensive English-Kurdish dictionary.

Dr. Brucek Khailany is a Kurdish-American born in Ann Arbor, MI. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. He has been a lifelong supporter of Kurdish rights and an active member of the Kurdish National Congress of North America (KNC). In January, 2004, he traveled to Southern Kurdistan with several professors to discuss topics related to technology and education at Kurdish universities. In 2004, Dr. Khailany was elected to the Board of Directors of the KNC, where he has served as Communications Chair.

Diane King is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on migration and displacement, gender, kinship, violence, memory, and identity. She has conducted multi-sited research with Iraqi Kurds since 1995, and has worked on urban-rural migration in Malaysia. She is interested in the process of diaspora formation, and how non-migrants understand themselves and local social collectivities in the context of the diasporization process. She is currently working on a revision of her dissertation, "When Worlds Collide: The Kurdish Diaspora from the Inside Out", as well as on the research project "Kurdish Migration Histories." In 2001-2002 she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Kentucky, and in 2003 was awarded a fellowship funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in support of a semester at UC San Diego as a Visiting Scholar. She teaches concurrently in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and the Civilization Sequence Program, and is an affiliate of the Center for Arab and Middle East Studies at American University, Beirut, Lebanon.

Mustafa Mirzeler is a Kurd from Northern Kurdistan (Turkey) and is currently a professor of Africana Studies at Western Michigan University. He has written articles on Kurdish cultures and people, including "Kurdish Stories and Storytellers" and "Legends of Kurdistan and My Childhood Memories".

Dr. Mirzeler is best known for his work as an Africanist anthropologist, specializing in African historical ethnographies that focus on myths and rituals. He conducted fieldwork with communities in Kenya and Uganda for several years. Dr. Mirzeler's extensive peer-reviewed journal publications on Africa include "Oral Tradition of Origin as Repeated Event and Remembered Memory". He recently edited the volume Cultural Histories of Sub Saharan East Africa: Lake Rudolf and Beyond, soon to be published by Duke University Press.

Soraya Mofty was born in the Hewraman region in Eastern Kurdistan and attended the American University in Beirut, Lebanon. She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of San Francisco, and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from San Francisco State University. Her Master's thesis was on the Kurdish political movement. Her work was placed on the list of references at SFSU's department of International Relations (a great honor). In 1997, Soraya Mofty published an audiotape, accompanied by a booklet, for Westerners traveling to Kurdistan. She has also served on the Board of Directors for both the Kurdish National Congress and the Washington Kurdish Institute.

Robert Olson is a professor of Middle East History and Politics at the University of Kentucky. He received his Ph.D. in 1973 from Indiana University. Olson is the author of The Siege of Mosul and Ottoman-Persian Relations, 1718-1743: A Study of Rebellion in the Capital and War in the Provinces of the Ottoman Empire (1975), translated into Arabic (1983); The Ba'th and Syria, 1947-1979: An Interpretative Historical Essay (1980); The Ba'th and Syria from the French Mandate to the Era of Hafez al-Asad, 1947-1982 (1982); The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion: 1880-1925 (1989); translated into Turkish (1989); translated into Persian (1999); translated into Kurdish (2000); translated into Arabic (2003); (paperback) The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism (1991); Imperial Meanderings and Republican By-Ways: Essays on Eighteenth Century Ottoman and Twentieth Century History of Turkey (1996); The Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian Relations: From World War I to 1998 (1998); revised and translated into Arabic under the title The Kurdish Question and Turkish-Iranian Relations: From World War I to 2000 (2001), translated into Persian (2002); Turkey's Relations with Iran, Syria, Israel and Russia, 1991-2000: The Kurdish and Islamist Questions (2001) and Masale Kurd va Revabet-e Iran va Turkiye/The Kurdish Question in Turkish-Iranian Relations in the Twentieth Century (In Persian, 2002). Turkey's Relations with Iran, 1979-2004: War, Revolution, Ideology, War, Coups and Geopolitics (2004). Editor: Islamic and Middle Eastern Societies: A Festschrift in Honor of Wadie Jwaideh (1987); The Kurdish Movement in Turkey in the 1990s: Its Impact on Turkey and the Middle East (1996); Co-editor: Orientalism, Islam and Islamists (1985), translated into Turkish (1992), and Iran: Essays on a Revolution in the Making (1981).

Professor Olson is the author of some 70 research articles, 80 essays and reference works and 190 book reviews. He has been Fulbright Senior Professor of Research in the Middle East Civilization Program Fellowship (1990-91); University Research Professor, (1995-96); Albert D. and Elizabeth H. Kirwan Memorial University Professor (1999-2000) and Distinguished Professor of the College of Arts and Sciences (2000-01). He received the Best Book Award from the Third World Studies Association in 1999-2000. From 2000-2004 Professor Olson has served on the Strategic Assessment Group for the Central Intelligence Agency's Turkey Future Panel: 2000-2010 and the Kurdish Question.

Mitchell Plitnick, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)'s Director of Education and Policy, has been a key organizer in growing JVP into the largest Jewish peace organization of its kind in the U.S.. He is an editor of Jewish Peace News and his articles have appeared in many publications, including Jewish Currents, Outlook, The UN Observer, Israel Insider, the San Francisco Chronicle and many others. He has been active for many years on a wide variety of issues, including anti-racism work, women's rights, LGBT rights, and international issues including Central America and South Africa. Mitchell was born in New York City, raised an orthodox Jew and educated in Yeshiva. He has been fascinated by and engaged in the study of Israeli and Jewish history since he was a child. He comes from a community that supports much of the radical Israeli right, giving him a unique and rounded perspective and understanding of a wide spectrum of views on Israel. Mitchell graduated with honors from UC Berkeley in Middle Eastern Studies, having written an honors thesis on Israeli and Jewish historiography. He has been a key organizer in bringing Jewish peace groups together nationally.

Soraya Serajeddini is a human rights and Kurdish political activist living in California. She was born in Iran and lived briefly in Iraq before attending San Francisco State University and Northeastern University.

She joined the Kurdish National Congress of North America (KNC) in 1991 and has been active in bringing about unity among Kurds and advocating for the formation of a united, free Kurdistan. She is currently serving as an executive board member with the KNC while continuing her work with the larger Kurdish community. She is a strong advocate of building bridges between Kurds and other progressive groups in the world.

Richard Shapiro has been the Director of the Social and Cultural Anthropology program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) since 1997. Professor Shapiro has been involved in shaping emancipatory education in the Bay Area, particularly in developing critical, interdisciplinary, activist and multicultural education at CIIS since 1986, and as the Director of Humanities at New College of California from 1986 to 1994. Professor Shapiro is an original member of Todos: The Sherover-Simms Institute for Alliance Building, an organization that works with youth, engaging issues of social oppression, cultural identity, and political empowerment. His work spans the historical and cross-cultural study of subjectivity, intersections of race, class, sexuality and gender, critical traditions of European thought, social movements, and anthropology as cultural critique. Professor Shapiro has been working in India with issues of cultural survival. His intellectual interests include: Philosophical anthropology, poststructural and critical social thought, multicultural education, alliance building, ethnographic research; US, Europe.

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Birusk Tugan has reported, written and edited for several Kurdish, Turkish and English magazines and newspapers. In his work as a journalist, he endured arrests, torture and death threats, and was facing years in prison before he was forced to leave Turkey in 1994. Tugan graduated from Istanbul University and also has a Master of Arts degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. He is on the board of directors and the secretary of the Washington Kurdish Institute.

Nicole Watts is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at San Francisco State University. Her research focuses on pro-Kurdish politics in Turkey, with particular emphasis on pro-Kurdish political parties, transnational pro-Kurdish activism, and human rights organizations in Turkey. She worked as a newspaper correspondent from Turkey for the San Francisco Chronicle and has published articles on pro-Kurdish politics in Turkey in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, New Perspectives on Turkey, and in other collections. She is currently working on a book manuscript analyzing different types of pro-Kurdish activism in Turkey. She completed her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Middle East Studies at the University of Washington in 2001 and has an Master of Arts degree in Modern Turkish Studies from the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

Kani Xulam is a Kurd from Turkish-occupied and -misruled Kurdistan. He runs a small advocacy office, the American Kurdish Information Network (AKIN), in Washington, D.C. to offer a Kurdish perspective on Kurdish politics and affairs. His work includes a 40-day hunger strike on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, which was featured in the documentary, "Good Kurds, Bad Kurds: No Friends but the Mountains". He and his friends also completed a 221 day (24/7) vigil in front of the Turkish Ambassador's residence to free Kurdish parliamentarians. His activism continues. Most of it is listed on AKIN's site: http://www.kurdistan.org.

Kerim Yildiz is the founder and Executive Director of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, an independent non-political human rights organization founded in London in 1992. Following on his lecturing work in Turkey and postgraduate studies in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex, Mr. Yildiz is now responsible for the development and implementation of the KHRP program. This work includes Mr. Yildiz's preparation of cases before the European Court of Human Rights and his work as a representative at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) where he has made annual presentations since 1993.

Having fled Turkey in 1986 after being one of Amnesty International's Prisoners of Conscience there, Mr. Yildiz now lives as a refugee in London. He has served as a consultant to the Education Project of the British Refugee Council and to the Southeast branches of Insan Haklari Dernegi (IHD), the largest human rights organization in Turkey.

Mr. Yildiz has written extensively on matters of human rights, minority rights and international law, particularly as they affect the Kurds, most recently The Kurds in Iraq: Past Present and Future published by Pluto Press.

Stephen Zunes received his B.A. from Oberlin College, his M.A. from Temple University, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Dr. Zunes serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project and was a senior policy analyst during his 2001-2002 sabbatical year. He also serves an associate editor of Peace Review and as a research associate at the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is currently an Associate Professor in Politics and Latin American Studies and the Program Coordinator of Peace and Justice Studies at the University of San Francisco.

Dr. Zunes has presented numerous lectures and conference papers in the United States and over a dozen foreign countries. He is active in several professional organizations, including the governing council of the International Peace Research Association. He has traveled frequently to the Middle East and other conflict regions and has served as a political analyst for National Public Radio and Pacifica Radio, the British Broadcasting Corporation and MSNBC. He has appeared on numerous television and radio talk shows and has published scores of articles in academic journals, anthologies, magazines, and newspaper op-ed pages on topics such as U.S. foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics, Latin American politics, social movements and nonviolent action.