Board of Directors

The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings, Founding Chair

Ernest F. Hollings, a Democrat, represented South Carolina in the United States Senate from 1966 until his retirement in 2005. He served as chairman of the Committee on the Budget and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Senator Hollings was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and graduated from The Citadel in 1942 and from the University of South Carolina Law School in 1947. Prior to his election to the U.S. Senate, he served in the South Carolina general assembly, including as speaker pro tem; as the lieutenant governor and then governor of South Carolina; and as a presidential appointee to several federal commissions. As a senior member of the Committee on Appropriations, Senator Hollings played a key role in creating the Hollings Center. Senator Hollings’s abiding interest in U.S. relations with the Middle East began with his military service in North Africa during World War II.

Ambassador Nicholas A. Veliotes, ret., Chair

During his diplomatic career, Ambassador Veliotes served in Naples, Rome, New Delhi, Vientiane, and Tel Aviv. He was ambassador to Egypt and Jordan and Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and South Asia. After service in the U.S. Army, he earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, and while a Foreign Service officer he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. After retirement from the Foreign Service, he served as president of the Association of American Publishers until 1997. Ambassador Veliotes is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Middle East Institute, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Association of Berkeley Fellows. He also serves on the boards of the American Academy of Diplomacy, AMIDEAST, ANERA, and the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Mary Ellen Lane, Vice Chair

Dr. Mary Ellen Lane is the Executive Director of the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, which currently has 22 members in the Near and Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, Europe, West Africa and Central America. Dr. Lane has helped to secure support for existing centers and worked to establish centers in areas of the world where infrastructure was lacking to support research exchange. She has worked with U.S. and host-country scholars and officials to establish and make viable the West African Research Association, the Hong Kong-America Center, the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies, Mexico-North Research Network, the Center for Khmer Studies, the Center for South Asia Libraries, the Palestinian American Research Center, the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq, and the American Institute for Afghanistan Studies. Along with the doctorate in Egyptology she received from the University of Paris IV Sorbonne, Dr. Lane has also earned degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Katherine H. Gronberg, Treasurer

Since January 2006, Katherine H. Gronberg has served as Vice President of Morhard & Associates, L.L.C., a government affairs consulting firm. Previously, Ms. Gronberg served as the clerk of the Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, where she was responsible for appropriations for the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, portions of the Department of Justice, U.S. trade agencies, and several independent agencies, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Small Business Administration. Prior to her position in the Senate, Ms. Gronberg worked on the New Hampshire primary campaign of then-Governor George W. Bush. She graduated from Yale University and was a Fulbright Scholar in Bologna, Italy, in 1998-1999. Ms. Gronberg received her MBA from the University of Virginia in May 2009.

Ambassador Wendy J. Chamberlin, ret.

Wendy Chamberlin has served as President of the Middle East Institute since March 2007. She previously served as deputy high commissioner for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees where she helped provide vision and leadership for humanitarian operations. As assistant administrator in the Asia-Near East Bureau for the U.S. Agency for International Development, Ambassador Chamberlin promoted the expansion of civilian reconstruction programs in Iraq as well as development assistance programs in South Asia and the Middle East. Ambassador Chamberlin was in the U.S. diplomatic service from 1975 to 2004, serving as U.S. ambassador to Pakistan as well as to the Laos People’s Democratic Republic. Her assignments also included deputy in the Bureau of International Counter-Narcotics and Law Programs, deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, director of press and public affairs for the Near East Bureau, and director of global affairs and counter-terrorism at the National Security Council. A graduate of Northwestern University, Ambassador Chamberlin has a Master’s degree in education from Boston University and participated in the Executive Program at Harvard University. She also holds an honorary Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Richard Ekman

Richard Ekman has been President of the Council of Independent Colleges since 2000. He previously served as vice president for programs at Atlantic Philanthropies and, from 1991 to 1999, as secretary of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. From 1982 until 1991, he was a member of the staff of the National Endowment for the Humanities, first as director of the Division of Education Programs and subsequently as director of the Division of Research Programs. His previous experience includes service as vice president and dean of Hiram College, where he was also a tenured member of the Faculty of History. Earlier, he served as assistant to the provost at the University of Massachusetts Boston and as associate director of the Department of Expository Writing at Harvard University. Dr. Ekman holds a Ph.D. in the history of American civilization from Harvard University, the institution from which he also received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees (magna cum laude). Dr. Ekman has been awarded honorary degrees by Georgetown and Marywood Universities and Alderson-Broaddus, Bethany, Hastings, Otterbein and Ursinus Colleges. He is co-author, with Richard E. Quandt, of Technology and Scholarly Communication (1999).

Steve Hartell

Steve Hartell is Director of Government Affairs for Cisco Systems, a San Jose, CA-based information technology company. Prior to joining Cisco, Hartell served in a similar capacity for EMC Corporation as head of their DC Office.  Prior to joining the private sector, Hartell served in the United States Senate on the staff of Senator Ernest F. Hollings and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Hartell joined the staff of the Commerce Committee, which Senator Hollings served as Chairman, in 1996 before moving to the Senator’s personal office. Steve served as Senator Hollings’ Legislative Director while handling national security and foreign policy for the Senator.  Steve graduated from the University of South Carolina with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. He later earned a Master’s in International Finance from the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.  Steve serves on the Board of New Hope Housing, a Fairfax, VA non-profit focused on combating homelessness in Northern Virginia and has previously served on the Fundraising Committee for the National Capital Area Leukemia Ball in 2008 and 2009.  Steve lives in Alexandria, VA with his wife Holly and two daughters.

Phebe Marr

Phebe Marr is a prominent historian of modern Iraq. A retired professor, she was research professor at the National Defense University and a professor of history at the University of Tennessee and at Stanislaus State University in California. From October 2004 to July 2006, Dr. Marr was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. In 1999 and 2000, Dr. Marr was a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. She frequently contributes to media discussions about Iraq, is the author of the seminal volume The Modern History of Iraq, as well as numerous articles on Iraq, and has testified before many congressional committees in recent years. She served as an expert advisor to the Iraq Study Group. Dr. Marr received a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from Harvard University and a Master’s degree in Middle East Studies from Radcliffe College.

Ambassador Bob Pearson

Bob is currently serving as the fourth president of IREX.  He joined in 2008 as the organization was broadening its programs and becoming an organization with global reach. Focusing IREX’s mission and presenting strategies to make best use of IREX’s talents and experience are Bob’s priorities as IREX takes on new challenges around the world.  As Director General of the US Foreign Service from 2003 to 2006, Bob introduced critical changes in America’s diplomacy, twice earning national awards for innovation and management improvement and preparing the United States for the challenges of the 21st Century. He served as Ambassador to Turkey from 2000 to 2003 during a critical period and was previously posted in Paris, Brussels, Beijing, Taipei and Auckland, New Zealand, in addition to other senior positions at the Department of State. From 2006 to 2008, he headed the international business division of The Spectrum Group in Alexandria, Virginia.  In March 2011, Bob was appointed to the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, supporting worldwide humanitarian development and values. He speaks French, Turkish, and Chinese (mandarin) and brings a wide and deep understanding of the domestic and international foreign affairs scene.

Harold Saunders

Harold “Hal” Saunders is a veteran high-ranking U.S. diplomat who participated in the 1978 Camp David Peace Accords involving U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, and later co-chaired the Dartmouth Conference Regional Conflicts Task Force. Currently, he is President of the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue, which conducts dialogues designed to make constructive social change possible in international and domestic conflicts. The topics discussed range from the “Inter-Tajik Dialogue,” addressing the Tajikistan civil war, to racial conflicts on U.S. college campuses.