Andrew F. March is Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Yale University. He is the author of Islam and Liberal Citizenship: The Search for an Overlapping Consensus (OUP, 2009), “Islamic Foundations for a Social Contract in non-Muslim Liberal Democracies (American Political Science Review, Vol. 101, No. 2, May 2007), “Liberal Citizenship and the Search for Overlapping Consensus: The Case of Muslim Minorities,” (Philosophy & Public Affairs, 34.4, Fall 2006) and “Sources of Moral Obligation to Non-Muslims in the ‘Jurisprudence of Muslim Minorities’ (Fiqh al-aqalliyyat) Discourse.” (Forthcoming in Islamic Law and Society).

He is working on a new book project entitled Explaining Disbelief: Moral Epistemology and the Moral Other in the Islamic Tradition.

Prof. Fogg will speak on the topic of: "Mass Interpersonal Persuasion"

In 2007 a new form of persuasion emerged: mass interpersonal persuasion (MIP). The advances in online social networks now allow individuals to change attitudes and behaviors on a mass scale. MIP has six components: persuasive experience, automated structure, social distribution, rapid cycle, huge social graph, and measured impact. Before the launch of Facebook Platform, these six components had never come together in one system. As tools for creating MIP become available to ordinary people, individuals and small groups can better reach and persuade masses. This new phenomenon will change the future of persuasion.

Secondhand smoke (SHS) is a known cause of cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, and other ailments. However, these diseases have a multiplicity of causes. Defendants claim SHS exposures are "low" and other sources created the illness. Plaintiffs claim "high" exposures to SHS caused their disease. In the world of toxic torts litigation involving allegations of injury from secondhand smoke, how does the expert witness use multidisciplinary science and technology in the investigation and establishment of facts and evidence in a court of law? Cases have been brought on behalf of railroad conductors, casino dealers, flight attendants, laborers, nurses, barbers, bartenders, prisoners, office workers, and even condo owners. How have they fared in high stakes litigation, and what does it take to prove a case?

James Repace, MSc., is a biophysicist and an international secondhand smoke consultant who has published 83 scientific papers, 70 of which concern the hazard, exposure, dose, risk, and control of secondhand smoke. He has received numerous national honours, including the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute Distinguished Professor Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Innovator Award, the Surgeon General's Medallion, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association. He holds an appointment as a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine, and is a consultant to Stanford doing research on secondhand smoke in casinos. He is a former senior policy analyst and scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, serving on both the Air Policy and Indoor Air Staffs, Office of Air and Radiation, and in the Exposure Analysis Division, Office of Research and Development. He served as a consultant to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. Department of Labor, on its proposed rule to regulate secondhand smoke and indoor air quality. He was also a research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Ocean Sciences and Electronics Divisions. His degrees are from the Polytechnic University of New York; he has also pursued post-masters' studies at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

Manana Aslamazyan, a media and television expert who has worked with Russian journalists for more than 15 years, is Executive Director of Internews Europe based in Paris.

Aslamazyan and Alexei K. Simonov launched Russia's first freedom of speech organization in 1991, the Glasnost Defense Foundation (GDF). In 1992, Aslamazyan began to work with Internews Network to organize events for newly formed independent TV stations around the former Soviet Union. She became its first foreign staff person and by 1994, was managing the Russian operation, which in 1997 registered as a fully independent Russian non-commercial organization. In 2006, in response to changing legislation and its increased focus on training, Internews Russia re-organized as the Educated Media Foundation (EMF).

As director, Aslamazyan led Internews Russia/EMF in the creation of numerous innovative and ambitious projects. Aslamazyan's constant drive to respond to the changing needs of Russian media led to the launch of Internews Russia/EMF's month-long Journalism School, the News Factory newsroom automation project, and the Russian-American Media Entrepreneurship Dialogue. Internews Russia/EMF was forced to shut down in 2007 following a raid on its Moscow headquarters and filing of criminal charges against EMF and Aslamazyan that were widely seen as politically motivated. In 2008, the Constitutional Court of Russia ruled that the charges against Aslamayan had no legal basis.

Aslamazyan has served as an expert to the Russian Duma Committee on Information Policy, and from 2000 to 2004, she was one of three representatives of civil society on the influential Federal Competition Commission of Ministry of Press, TV Broadcasting and Mass Media. She is a board member of the prestigious Academy of Russian Television and served for three years as a Vice-President of the National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters (NAT).

Aslamazyan serves on the boards of several Russian nonprofit organizations, Internews Network, and Internews International, which unites local Internews organizations around the world.

Co-sponsored by CREES and Internews Network