memri staff

MEMRI's dedicated staff, of over 80 employees worldwide, works around the clock, translating from hundreds of Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashtu, Dari, Hindi, and Turkish, newspapers, magazines, television shows and websites. This staff includes people from all ethnic, religious, racial and socio-economic backgrounds.

• Yigal Carmon*

  Yigal Carmon is MEMRI's President and founder. Mr. Carmon is frequently relied upon by leading media sources and government officials as an authority on current developments in the Arab and Muslim world. Mr. Carmon has briefed governments worldwide on issues ranging from jihad and terrorism to reform in the Arab world. In the United States, Mr. Carmon has given testimony on Capitol Hill and conducted briefings before Congress as well as at the State Department, Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security, Justice Department, Library of Congress, FBI, National Security Council, and NYPD counterterrorism division, and is frequently interviewed on a variety of Western channels, as well as on Arab TV. Internationally, Mr. Carmon has briefed world bodies and leaders who use MEMRI research, including the European Union, the European Parliament, the U.K. Parliament, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Germany's Foreign Ministry, the Foreign Office of the German government, Russia's Interior Ministry, Sweden's parliament, NATO-affiliated groups, France's Interior Ministry, Norway's parliament, UNESCO, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Petra (Jordan) Conference of Nobel Laureates, the King Juan Carlos Terrorism Conference in Spain, and others. Mr. Carmon was formerly chief counterterrorism advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Yitzhak Shamir, and was a senior delegate to the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference. He left government service nearly two decades ago.

• Alberto M. Fernandez

  Ambassador Alberto M. Fernandez is MEMRI Vice President. Amb. Fernandez served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer from 1983 to 2015, and as the State Department's Coordinator for the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications from March 2012 to February 2015. From 2009-2012, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea; prior to that, he was U.S. Charge d'Affaires to the Republic of Sudan (June 2007-May 2009), Director for Near East Public Diplomacy (2005-2007), Director for Iraq Public Diplomacy (2004-2005) and in senior public diplomacy positions at the U.S. Embassies in Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria, and Guatemala. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister-Counselor, he was a recipient of a 2008 Presidential Meritorious Service Award, the 2006 Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Public Diplomacy, and a 2003 Superior Honor Award for his work in Afghanistan, among other awards. His performance garnered Senior Foreign Service performance recognition in 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2002. Mr. Fernandez has also served as a Foreign Service officer in Iraq, Kuwait, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and the United Arab Emirates, and as USIA desk officer for Egypt, Yemen, and Sudan. He is a graduate of the 46th (2003-2004) Senior Seminar, the State Department's premier senior management course. A graduate of the University of Arizona and the Defense Language Institute, he served in the U.S. Army (1976-1979), having come to the United States as a refugee from Cuba in 1959. He has published in Brookings: Markaz, ReVista: the Harvard Review of Latin America, Middle East Quarterly, and Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (JAAS), and has lectured and debated on U.S. foreign policy in numerous public venues. Mr. Fernandez speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic.

• Steven Stalinsky*

  Steven Stalinsky has been Executive Director of MEMRI since 1999. Mr. Stalinsky's expertise on the Middle East is sought after throughout Washington, D.C., where he has briefed staff of the White House; the U.S. Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Justice; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the Government Accountability Office; and other institutions. On Capitol Hill, Mr. Stalinsky frequently briefs Members of Congress and staff on issues related to the Middle East and to the fight against terrorism. His research has been used in major legislation centering on Iran and Egypt, and also for the Saudi Accountability Act, and he was invited to testify about Saudi Arabia before Congress.

  Mr. Stalinsky's research has focused on detailing and developing strategies against cyber jihad, describing how terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others use the Internet, social media, and encryption for propaganda, recruiting, and hacking. He was an early advocate of calling on the tech community to take stronger action on removing terrorist content from their platforms and for creating industry standards to combat it. Stalinsky has published extensive research and documentation of the use of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr and other social media by the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and its affiliates, Hizbullah, Hamas, and other jihadi groups.

  In addition to over 100 original research reports he has authored for MEMRI, Mr. Stalinsky has published articles in multiple newspapers, magazines, and journals, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Forbes, The Weekly Standard, The Middle East Quarterly, National Review, Fox News, The Jerusalem Post, and others.

  Mr. Stalinsky's research has also made an impact internationally. His articles have been cited in official United Nations documents, as well as by members of the U.K. and Canadian parliaments. Leading media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, the Associated Press, The Telegraph (UK), The Daily Mail (UK), Wired, Fast Company, and many others have interviewed Mr. Stalinsky on issues surrounding the Middle East, counter-terrorism policy, and terrorist use of the Internet and combating it. His research has been cited by USA Today, The Guardian (UK), The Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, NPR, Fox News, the BBC, and Wired, as well as by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Defense News, and others. He has also been cited by leading Arabic media outlets, including Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (UK), Al-Ahram (Egypt), Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Al-Hayat (UK), Al-Raya (Qatar), Al-Khaleej (UAE), and many others. From 2003 through 2007, Mr. Stalinsky wrote a weekly column for the New York Sun focusing on the Arab and Iranian media.

  Mr. Stalinsky is the author of the book American Traitor – The Rise and Fall of Al-Qaeda's U.S.-Born Leader Adam Gadahn, which provides insight into the mind of the terrorist who led Al-Qaeda media efforts and Internet policy, and into his reasoning for supporting jihad against the U.S. Gadahn, who was also known as Azzam Al-Amriki, was the only American since World War II to be charged with and found guilty of treason.

  Prior to joining MEMRI, Mr. Stalinsky spent a decade in Washington, D.C. at various private and government think-tanks. Before coming to Washington DC, he performed public service within the U.S. through a year in AmeriCorps (often considered the urban Peace Corps) as a City Year member. Directly out of college, he worked on the Clinton/Gore presidential campaign. Mr. Stalinsky, who is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in Homeland Security Studies, holds a M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies and a B.A. in Religious Studies.

• Professor Menahem Milson

  Professor Menahem Milson is chairman of MEMRI's Board of Advisors. Prof. Milson has taught Arabic literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel since October 1963. He has been a visiting fellow at well-known academic institutions in the United States and England. Most of Professor Milson's research has been in the field of modern Egyptian literature. He is the author of (among other publications) Najib Mahfuz: The Novelist Philosopher of Cairo (1998) – a comprehensive study of the Egyptian Nobel laureate. In recent years, his research interest has been directed towards issues of Arab antisemitism and reform versus Islamism in the Muslim world. At the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Professor Milson served as head of the Department of Arabic Language and Literature, as Director of the Institute of Asian and African Studies, and as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities (1991/2 to 1997/8). From October 1999 to September 2002, he was Provost of the Rothberg International School. He was President Anwar Sadat's aide-de-camp during the latter's historic visit to Jerusalem in November 1977. Professor Milson was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Harvard (Ph.D. 1964).

• Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli

  Dr. Nimrod Raphaeli is a Senior Analyst at MEMRI and editor of MEMRI's Economic Blog (http://memrieconomicblog.org/) Most of Dr. Raphaeli's professional career was spent at the World Bank. He also was a consultant for the International Monetary Fund. He received a Ph.D. in development planning from the University of Michigan. Dr. Raphaeli has conducted groundbreaking work at MEMRI on Iraq, and was the first to translate the "Oil for Food" list of 270 prominent individuals and companies who were helping Saddam Hussein subvert UN sanctions against him. He has since focused on the fall of Saddam and the fledgling democracy in his native Iraq, including the historic elections of which he assisted in voting campaigns for Iraqi expatriates.

• Dr. Mirza A. B. Baig

  Dr. Mirza A. B. Baig is a Senior Analyst at MEMRI's South Asia Studies Project. He monitors the South Asian media, particularly the Urdu- and Hindi-language newspapers and websites. Prior to joining MEMRI, Dr. Baig worked for a number of media organizations, including All India Radio and the BBC's Urdu and Hindi services, for over a decade. Author of a book on the 13th century Persian poet Jalaluddin Rumi, he has also translated several books on history for the National Book Trust of India. Dr. Baig earned an MA in Urdu and another MA in English literature from the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Later, he completed an M. Phil degree in comparative literature from New Delhi-based Jawaharlal Nehru University, where he successfully defended his PhD. He also holds an Advanced Diploma in Journalism.

• Mansour Al-Hadj

  Mansour Al-Hadj is the director of MEMRI's Reform Project. Before joining MEMRI, Mr. Al-Hadj was the senior reporter for AAFAQ Magazine (www.aafaqmagazine.com), an Arabic news website that focuses on Reform and Human Rights in the Middle East. Mr. Al-Hadj has participated in multiple briefings on Capitol Hill, including on the topic of "Movement of Extremism in the Muslim World: Struggle between States and Citizens." Mr. Al-Hadj grew up in Saudi Arabia, an experience he wrote about in a dispatch on MEMRI's website (https://www.memri.org/reports/reformist-writer-mansour-al-hadj-my-youth-i-was-taught-love-death). He obtained his B.A. in law from the International University of Africa in Khartoum, Sudan in 2003.

• Tufail Ahmad

  Tufail Ahmad is Senior Fellow for the MEMRI Islamism and Counter-Radicalization Initiative; former Director of the MEMRI South Asia Studies Project (SASP), which monitors the media of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His research is focused on jihadist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, as well as on counterterrorism policies and issues of cultural and religious freedom in the South Asian region. Prior to joining MEMRI, he worked for the BBC Urdu Service in London for approximately eight years; there he was in charge of coverage of Pakistan. A British journalist of Indian origin, Mr. Ahmad studied Social Systems for an M.A. at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, and received an M.A. in War Studies at the Department of War Studies, King's College London. He also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Journalism from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi.