Dr. Michael Izady, a guest lecturer with the USACE Global Issues Seminars, visited the Humphreys Engineer Center at the Alexandria site Sept. 12. Izady is a subject matter expert on Middle Eastern studies. His presentation addressed the issues of land and resources, language, religion and ethnicities, sources of discord and rebellion, and future prospects for the immediate and long-term in the region.
Izady is a professor at Fordham University and an adjunct master professor of Middle Eastern studies and history at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School/Joint Special Operations University, Hurlburt Field, Fla. He earned a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies from Columbia University. He has taught at various American and European institutions such as Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Free University of Berlin, Germany.
"I found Dr. Izady to be a dynamic and accomplished speaker. His highly informative talk on Iraq gave me a deeper understanding of how the history, geography and culture of this region have combined to result in the current situation in Iraq," said ERDC-TEC Geospatial Applications Branch chief Robert Heidelbach.
Izady is the co-director of the Risk Reduction Strategies, LLP, an organization dedicated to the education and preparation of military, diplomatic and corporate personnel being deployed in various volatile and unstable areas of the world. He has published and lectured extensively on ethnic and socio-historical topics in Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. For six years, he served as the editor-in-chief of The International Journal of Kurdish Studies, and is presently serving as the editor for the English edition of the Encyclopaedia Cyrtica. His first book, The Kurds: A Concise Handbook, modeled after the U.S. Department of State’s country handbook series, has been exhibited by the U.S. Information Agency around the world. The first of the six volumes of his most recent book, The Sharafnama, was published in 2006.
Release no. 07-005