The Culture of Encounter Project - Georgetown University

José Casanova is one of the world's leading scholars in the sociology of religion and a senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. He is also professor emeritus at Georgetown University, where he previously taught in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. During 2017 he was the Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the North at the U.S. Library of Congress' John W. Kluge Center, where he worked on a book manuscript on Early Modern Globalization through a Jesuit Prism. He has published works on a broad range of subjects, including religion and globalization, migration and religious pluralism, transnational religions, and sociological theory. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages, including Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish. In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology. Casanova is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Faith Cooper is the regional director, southern border-resettlement, asylum and integration, at the International Rescue Committee (IRC). She previously served as the country director for Liberia at IRC.

Aseel Elborno is an advocacy manager at Islamic Relief USA (IRUSA). In that role, she is tasked with training and activating supporters in advocacy initiatives in collaboration with IR's partners and coalitions. She has worked in the space of civic and community outreach for over 15 years. Elborno is a Palestinian refugee and has focused much of her advocacy efforts around the plight and resettlement of refugees.

Elizabeth Ferris is a research professor at and director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. In 2016, she also served as the senior advisor to the UN General Assembly’s Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York and from 2020 to 2021 as an expert advisor to the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement. Prior to joining Georgetown, she was a senior fellow and co-director of the Brookings-LSE Project on Internal Displacement and spent 20 years working in the field of humanitarian assistance, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland, at the World Council of Churches. She has written extensively on humanitarian issues and has worked on issues around disaster displacement and climate migration since 2010. Her latest book—Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts (with Katharine Donato)—was published by Routledge in July 2019. Ferris is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Ellen Goldstein is the former World Bank country director for Myanmar, Cambodia, and Lao People's Democratic Republic. Prior to this position, she was the World Bank’s country director for the Western Balkans. Other previous roles included World Bank country director for Bangladesh and Nepal, in which she led the policy dialogue with government and stakeholders and collaborated with development partners to promote greater aid effectiveness.

Noah Gottschalk is senior director for international advocacy and international Jewish community relations at HIAS, where he leads the organization’s efforts to improve policies impacting forcibly displaced people around the world and build a global Jewish movement for refugee protection and welcome. Gottschalk has over two decades of experience promoting the human rights of people impacted by humanitarian crises with a variety of national and international NGOs including Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee.

Rev. David Hollenbach, S.J., is the Pedro Arrupe Distinguished Research Professor in the Walsh School of Foreign Service; a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs; and an affiliated professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Georgetown University. His teaching and research deal with human rights, religious and ethical responses to humanitarian crises, and religion in political life from the standpoint of Catholic social thought, theology, and the social sciences. His books include Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition (2024), Humanity in Crisis: Ethical and Religious Response to Refugees (2019), Driven from Home: Protecting the Rights of Forced Migrants (2010) The Global Face of Public Faith: Politics, Human Rights, and Christian Ethics (2003), and The Common Good and Christian Ethics (2002). He has taught often at Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya, and he collaborates with Jesuit Refugee Service. From 2020 to 2022 he is a distinguished research associate with the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Hollenbach is also a research associate with the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Zambia. Hollenbach is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Azza Karam is a member of the United Nations’ Secretary General High Level Advisory Board on Multilateralism and president and CEO of Lead Integrity. She is secretary general emerita of Religions for Peace International and previously was a professor of religion and development at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. She served for nearly two decades in the United Nations (in UNDP and UNFPA), where she coordinated the Arab Human Development Reports, co-founded and chaired the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Religion (with over 20 UN system bodies), and founded and convened its Multi-Faith Advisory Council. Karam created and facilitated the peer-to-peer “Strategic Learning Exchanges” on religion, development, and diplomacy. Karam is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.