The Culture of Encounter Project - Georgetown University

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.

Manzoor Hasan, OBE, is the founding executive director of the Centre for Peace and Justice at BRAC University in Bangladesh and was instrumental in establishing the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development in 2005. He is a lawyer cum economist trained at the Lincoln’s Inn and the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is known for his multidisciplinary contributions to development, governance, and justice in Bangladesh. Previously he was the deputy executive director, BRAC; regional director (Asia-Pacific) of Transparency International in Berlin, Germany; and the founding executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh (1996 to 2003). Queen Elizabeth II awarded him the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 2003 for his promotion of transparency in Bangladesh. Hasan is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun is a professor of ecclesiology, international relations, and ecumenism at Sankt Ignatios College, University College Stockholm, and a director of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. A graduate of the Theological Academy in Kyiv and National University in Athens, he completed his doctoral studies at Durham University under the supervision of Fr. Andrew Louth. He was a chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, first deputy chairman of the Educational Committee of the Russian Orthodox Church, and later a research fellow at Yale and Columbia Universities, visiting professor at the University of Münster in Germany. He is an international fellow at Chester Ronning Centre for the study of religion and public life at the University of Alberta in Canada and an invited professor at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. Hovorun is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Cynthia Juárez Lange is a senior fellow at Brigham Young University's International Center for Law and Religion Studies, representing the center and Latter-day Saint Charities at the Organization of American States in Washington, DC. She has almost 40 years of experience in international immigration law in leadership, strategic growth, and advising international organizations on global mobility programs. She began her career at the U.S. Department of Justice as a United Immigration and Naturalization Service trial attorney in the Attorney General Honors Program. Cynthia was also a long-time adjunct professor at Southwestern University School of Law, where she taught for 18 years. She is a thought leader in the industry and dedicates much of her time to pro bono work. She has been a board member of both the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), the nation’s leading organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants in the United States, and of the NILC Immigrant Justice Fund. Lange is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center’s work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006. Marshall is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values and the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, both part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Ruth W. Messinger is the global ambassador of American Jewish World Service (AJWS), the world’s leading Jewish organization working to end poverty and realize human rights in the developing world. She previously served as AJWS president from 1998 to July 2016, coming to the organization following a 20-year career in public service in New York City. Messinger is a member of the Working Group on Child Rights and Family Values and the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, both part of the Culture of Encounter Project.