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Board of Advisors

Board of Advisors

Members of our board of advisors provide invaluable insight and strategic direction as the Religious Liberty Initiative addresses ongoing challenges to and opportunities for religious freedom.

Lord David Alton

House of Lords, United Kingdom

Lord David Alton

House of Lords, United Kingdom

For 18 years, from 1979, David Alton was a Member of the House of Commons and in 1997 was appointed as an Independent Member of the House of Lords. Lord Alton is a professor at Liverpool Hope University and formerly Professor of Citizenship at Liverpool John Moores University. Lord Alton is a co-founder of Jubilee Campaign; a recipient of the Thomas More Award for Religious Freedom; former Board Member of Aid to the Church in Need; and in 2019 he was presented with a State Department Award for his work on human rights by Ambassador Sam Brownback.
Ms. Kristina Arriaga

Intrinsic Communications

Ms. Kristina Arriaga

Intrinsic Communications

Ms. Arriaga is a respected scholar and internationally recognized advocate for expressive rights, particularly religious freedom. She has published dozens of editorials, op-eds, and book chapters on a wide range of topics related to this field. Her distinguished career includes heading a public interest law firm in the U.S. devoted to defending the free expression of all religious traditions and being a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, the U.S. delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Vice-Chair of the U.S. Commission for International Religious Freedom.

Ms. Arriaga is the CEO of Intrinsic Communications and serves on other boards including as a trustee on Meta’s Oversight Board.
Mr. Louis Brown

Christ Medicus Foundation

Mr. Louis Brown

Christ Medicus Foundation

Louis Brown serves as the Executive Director of the Christ Medicus Foundation, a Catholic health care nonprofit whose mission is to share the healing love of Jesus Christ in health care. Brown received a Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. After law school, he worked as a private practice attorney for a firm where he practiced labor law and commercial litigation. He later served as associate director of social concerns for a state Catholic conference where his work included advocating for life-affirming health care policy, co-leading a coalition in favor of housing non-discrimination legislation, and advocating for in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants. Brown went on to become a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill where he served as a U.S. Congressman’s legislative counsel and his liaison to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary.
Amb. Suzan Johnson Cook

Charisma Speakers

Amb. Suzan Johnson Cook

Charisma Speakers

Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook was the first African-American female and faith leader to hold the position of the U.S. Ambassador At-Large for International Religious Freedom.

Responsible for religious freedom globally, and having all 199 countries in her portfolio, she integrated religious freedom into the foreign policy and national security discussions, and has continued to work to empower women and business leaders around the world. She served as the Faith Advisor to two U.S. Presidents, three Cabinet members, political and celebrity leaders. President Bill Clinton appointed her as the only faith advisor to the historic “President’s Initiative on Race.” She became famous for the standing room only Lunch Hour of Power, and Wonderful Wall Street Wednesdays, televised mid week services and seminars for the business community. The New York Times described her as “Oprah and Billy Graham rolled up into one.”
Prof. Robert George

Princeton University

Prof. Robert George

Princeton University

Robert P. George is McCormick Professorship of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. He has also served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds the degrees of J.D. and M.T.S. from Harvard University and the degrees of D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., and D.Litt. from Oxford University, in addition to twenty-two honorary doctorates. He is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, and Princeton University’s President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Prof. Mary Ann Glendon

Harvard University

Prof. Mary Ann Glendon

Harvard University

Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law, emerita, at Harvard University, and a Distinguished Research Affiliate of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at Notre Dame. A former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Glendon’s government service includes chairing the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights and membership on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and the U.S. President's Council on Bioethics. She received the National Humanities Medal in 2006. Her books include The Forum and the Tower, Traditions in Turmoil, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, A Nation Under Lawyers, and Rights Talk.
Dr. Brian Grim

Religious Freedom & Business Foundation

Dr. Brian Grim

Religious Freedom & Business Foundation

Brian Grim, Ph. D., is Religious Freedom & Business Foundation president, a corporate trainer, and the leading scholar on the socio-economic impact of faith and religious freedom. He is a TEDx speaker at the Vatican and a speaker at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos. Grim’s recent research finds that religion contributes $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy annually, more than the combined revenues of companies including Apple, Amazon and Google. He is recent chair of the World Economic Forum’s faith council and he works closely with the United Nations Business for Peace platform. He is an affiliated scholar at Baylor University, Boston University, Georgetown University, and the Freedom Forum Institute.
Prof. Douglas Laycock

University of Virginia

Prof. Douglas Laycock

University of Virginia

Douglas Laycock is the Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor at Law and Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, and Alice McKean Young Regents Chair in Law Emeritus at the University of Texas. He has long advocated protecting religious liberty for all faiths and for nonbelievers, and for serious enforcement of both the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses.

He served as lead counsel in six cases in the Supreme Court of the United States: Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, City of Boerne v. Flores, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, Town of Greece v. Galloway, and Holt v. Hobbs, and filed amicus briefs in many other cases.
Mrs. Samah Norquist

The Wilson Center

Mrs. Samah Norquist

The Wilson Center

Samah Norquist is a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center. She served as the Chief Advisor for International Religious Freedom to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She spearheaded USAID’s contributions to the implementation of President Trump’s Executive Order 13926 on Advancing International Religious Freedom that elevated the protection of religious freedom worldwide as priority for U.S. foreign policy.

In her previous capacity, Norquist led the USAID’s Middle East Religious Freedom and Pluralism portfolio, which promotes efforts to strengthen religious freedom and pluralism in the region starting with the Genocide Recovery and Persecution Response (GRPR) program that provides direct assistance to victims of ISIS-led genocide in Iraq. In September 2019, Norquist oversaw the Middle East Bureau’s programming of more than $50 million in activities to promote religious liberty and pluralism and to combat discrimination, repression, or persecution of ethnic or religious communities across the Middle East.
Dr. Peter Petkoff

Brunel University London

Dr. Peter Petkoff

Brunel University London

Dr. Peter Petkoff is an Associate Professor at the Brunel Law School. He is also Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme, a collaborative international research network at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, and Managing Editor of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion. He is Legal Consultant on Media Freedom and Freedom of Expression for the Representative on Freedom of the Media at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a member of the Executive Board of the European Academy of Religion and of the Executive Board of the G20 Interfaith Forum (IF20). Peter is involved in cutting edge research on the relationship between religion and politics and law and religion. In his capacity as Director of the Religion, Law and International Relations Programme at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, he brings together lawyers, theologians, philosophers, social and political scientists and aims to develop innovative interdisciplinary strategies for studying law, religion and international relations from legal and theological perspectives.
Grandmother Mona Polacca

International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers

Grandmother Mona Polacca

International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers

Mona Polacca is an educator, facilitator and speaker. She has held posts of responsibility within her own community, such as Treasurer for her tribe, the Colorado River Indian Tribes. She has a master’s in social work and justice studies (ABD) at Arizona State University and has over thirty years of experience working, presenting and publishing on health and social issues affecting Native American peoples. She is serves as a tribal liaison of the Healing the Border Project of the Indigenous Alliance Without Borders. She is currently a Senior Fellow overseeing the Original Caretakers Program for the Center of Earth Ethics. As the President of the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, she works with Indigenous women to preserve, and protect Indigenous practices and ceremonies, including the right to use their earth-based medicines. She is a participant in the United Nations Permanent Forum of Indigenous Peoples Issues and has assisted in listening sessions with Indigenous Peoples. Her spiritual practice is grounded in the Havasupai, Hopi and Tewa Original Instructions and the Native American Church.
Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou

Boston College

Dr. Elizabeth Prodromou

Boston College

Dr. Elizabeth H. Prodromou is a visiting professor in the International Studies Program at Boston College. Her research interests and policy work focus on the intersections of geopolitics, religion, and human rights, with particular focus on the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East and on global Orthodox Christianity. Prodromou served a diplomatic appointment on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and she was a member of the U.S. Secretary of State’s Religion & Foreign Policy Working Group. She is widely published in academic and policy journals, and is active in policy and practitioner initiatives. She sits on the editorial board of The Review of Faith & International Affairs and The Journal of World Christianity and co-chairs the Orthodoxy, Politics, and International Relations Group of the International Orthodox Theological Association. Currently, she is non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center (non-resident senior fellow), as well as Religions for Peace (co-president), and the Freedom of Religion or Belief Women’s Alliance (alliance advisor). Her current research focuses on two areas: religious geopolitics and typologies of power in global Orthodox competitive pluralism; and, the effects of cultural heritage policy on institutional religious freedom and religious pluralism, with comparative case studies from the Near East. She earned a Ph.D. and an S.M. in political science from MIT.
Dr. Jim Rice

Gallagher Consulting

Dr. Jim Rice

Gallagher Consulting

Jim Rice, PhD, FACHE, is Senior Adviser with the Governance & Leadership service line of Gallagher’s Human Resources & Compensation Consulting practice. He focuses his consulting work on strategic governance structures and systems for high performing, tax-exempt nonprofit, credit union and health sector organizations and integrated care systems; visioning for large and small not-for-profit organizations; and leadership development for physicians, boards and C-Suite senior leaders.

Rice holds masters and doctoral degrees in management and health policy from the University of Minnesota. He has received the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Leadership Award; a National Institute of Health Doctoral Fellowship; a US Public Health Service Traineeship in Hospital Management; a Bush Leadership Fellowship at Stanford and the National University of Singapore; and the American Hospital Association’s Corning Award for Excellence in Hospital Planning. He is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).
Dr. Jacqueline Rivers

Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies

Dr. Jacqueline Rivers

Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies

Jacqueline C. Rivers is currently a lecturer in Sociology at Harvard University. She is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow for Social Science and Policy of the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies. She is also a Senior Fellow at The King’s College in New York City. She was a Hutchins Fellow in the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at Harvard University. She has presented at Princeton University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, the Vatican, Stanford University, the United Nations and in several other venues.

Rivers works with leaders in the ecumenical black church to promote a philosophical, political, and theological framework for a pro-poor, pro-life, pro-family movement. She has worked on issues of social justice and Christian activism in the black community for more than thirty years. She serves on the Board of Advisors for the Religious Freedom Institute, the Board of Directors for Becket Law, the Board of Directors for the Center for Early African Christianity.
Mr. David Trimble

Religious Freedom Institute

Mr. David Trimble

Religious Freedom Institute

David K. Trimble serves as the Vice President for Public Policy and Education at the Religious Freedom Institute. After serving as a principal and Of Counsel at the leading D.C. firm of Van Scoyoc Associates for many years, David Trimble now leads the Religious Freedom Institute’s public policy work, as well as its nationwide and international initiatives in secondary and higher education. With a degree in law, expert knowledge from working with the executive and legislative branches of state and federal government at the highest levels, and years of teaching at the graduate level, Mr. Trimble understands the critical role of sound policy and education in stable societies and the myriad threats that challenge religious conscience. Throughout his career, Mr. Trimble has focused on the intersection between religious freedom and policy. He is recognized in the U.S. and abroad for his international religious freedom advocacy on behalf of ethnic and religious minorities worldwide and for his acute knowledge of the legislative process. He has demonstrated an understanding of how to get laws passed. During the 114th Congress, Mr. Trimble provided leadership in the drafting and passing of H.Con.Res.75, expressing the sense of Congress that the atrocities perpetrated against Christians, Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria constitute genocide; and H.R. 1150, Pub.L. 114-281, The Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, signed into law on Dec. 16, 2016.
Commissioner Nury Turkel

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Commissioner Nury Turkel

U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Nury Turkel is the first U.S.-educated Uyghur-American lawyer, foreign policy expert, and human rights advocate. He was born in a re-education camp at the height of China’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution and spent the first several months of his life in detention with his mother. He came to the United States in 1995 as a student and was later granted asylum by the U.S. government. As an attorney, he specializes in regulatory compliance, federal investigation and enforcement, anti-bribery, legislative advocacy, and immigration.

In May 2020, Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appointed Turkel as a Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). In September 2020, Turkel was named one of the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World.
Ms. Asma Uddin

Religious Liberty Lawyer and Scholar

Ms. Asma Uddin

Religious Liberty Lawyer and Scholar

Asma Uddin is the author of When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America's Fight for Religious Freedom (2019) and The Politics of Vulnerability: How to Heal Muslim-Christian Relations in a Post-Christian America (2021). She is an Inclusive America Project Fellow at the Aspen Institute, where she is leading a project on Muslim-Christian polarization in the U.S. Uddin was formerly legal counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and has held academic fellowships at Georgetown and UCLA. She is also an expert advisor on religious freedom to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Uddin is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi

House of Lords, United Kingdom

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi

House of Lords, United Kingdom

A lawyer, a businesswoman, a campaigner, and a cabinet minister, Sayeeda Warsi has had many roles, but she is best known for being the first Muslim to serve in a British cabinet. In 2007 she was elevated to the House of Lords aged 36, making her the youngest peer in Parliament, and in 2010 she was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Minister without Portfolio.

She is an International Advisor to Australia Catholic University, a Visiting Professor at St Marys – the oldest Catholic university in the UK, an Advisor to Georgetown University, Washington D.C, a member of International Advisory Board on FORB, University of Notre Dame and Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton. She has also been awarded Honorary Doctorates from Aston, Birmingham City, and Bolton universities, as well as from the University of Law.
Prof. Paul Yowell

University of Oxford

Prof. Paul Yowell

University of Oxford

Paul Yowell is the Benn Fellow and Tutor in Law of Oriel College at Oxford and Associate Frofessor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. He is also an adjunct professor of Notre Dame Law School, where he teaches for the London Law Program. His postgraduate studies were at Oxford (DPhil, MPhil, BCL); previously he practiced law and studied in the U.S. (BA, JD, Baylor University). He is the author of Constitutional Rights and Constitutional Design: Moral and Empirical Reasoning in Judicial Review and co-author of Legislated Rights: Securing Human Rights Through Legislation. He researches in public law and legal theory, with interest in the separation of powers, constitutional theory, comparative constitutional law, and human rights.