Pulat Shozimov is Head of the Department of the Western Philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of Tajikistanís Academy of Sciences and served as a Fulbright Scholar at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the Johns Hopkins Universityís Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in 2005. He is author of the book: Tajik Identity and State Building in Tajikistan and the editor of a several books on such problems as identity, state and religion, and secularism and Islam in the context of Central Asia.
Steven Clemons is Director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation and also serves as a Senior Fellow. He is the publisher of the political blog The Washington Note and is the director of the Japan Policy Research Institute, which he co-founded. Mr. Clemons is a long-time policy practitioner and entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. He has served as Executive Vice President of the Economic Strategy Institute, Senior Policy Advisor on Economic and International Affairs to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and was the first Executive Director of the Nixon Center. Prior to moving to Washington, Mr. Clemons served for seven years as Executive Director of the Japan America Society of Southern California. Mr. Clemons received his B.A. and M.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Clemons writes frequently on matters of foreign policy, defense, and international economic policy. His work has appeared in many of the major op-ed pages, journals, and magazines around the world.
S. Frederick Starr is founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute and a Research Professor at SAIS. He began work in the Turkic world as an archaeologist in Turkey and went on to found the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, which opened U.S. research contact with Central Asia. He served as vice president of Tulane University and president of Oberlin College and the Aspen Institute, and has advised three U.S. presidents on Russian/Eurasian affairs and chaired an external advisory panel on U.S. government-sponsored research on the region. He organized and co-authored the first comprehensive strategic assessment of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1999, and has followed up by close involvement in the drafting of recent U.S. legislation affecting the region. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and is the author or editor of twenty books and more than two hundred articles on Russian and Eurasian affairs.
The Fergana Valley is the heart of Central Asia, a microcosm of the regionís problems and also of its prospects. The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, backed by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA, has undertaken a multi-year analysis of the regionís past, present and possible future. Twenty-four scholars from Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have teamed up to carry out the study. Dr. Shozimov, a leading Tajik academician and one of the national editors of the study, will report on its findings todate. In addition, he will offer his own observations as an anthropologist and ethnographer.
