Celina Agaian is a graduate student at CUNY Hunter College majoring in socio-cultural anthropology, with a concentration in Armenian culture, particularly identity. She received her Bachelor's degree in anthropology from California State University at Northridge and was awarded Outstanding Graduating Senior from the Department of Anthropology. Born in Iran and having lived in Glendale, CA, her background and experiences have influenced her interest in the field. She plans to pursue a PhD in the field of Armenian cultural studies.

Nancy Agabian is the author of Princess Freak (Beyond Baroque Books, 2000), a collection of poems and performance art texts. She is the editor of Matnashoonch (Metis Press, 2007), an anthology from the women's creative nonfiction writing project, which she facilitated in Yerevan during the summer of 2007. With Lara Aharonian and Shushan Avagyan, she is one of the tri-authors of (An)taratsutian mej (Women's Resource Center, 2007), an experimental book in English, French and Armenian. Her memoir Me as her again will be published by Aunt Lute Books, a multicultural women's press, in 2008. She is currently working on a book about her experience living in Armenia as a diasporan for a year, incorporating blog posts, interviews and journal entries. She lives in New York and teaches writing at Queens College.

Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of New Left Review and Sin Permiso , and regularly contributes to The Guardian, Counterpunch , and the London Review of Books . He is the author of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002). Bush in Babylon criticizes the invasion of Iraq by American president George W. Bush, using poetry and critical essays in portraying the war in Iraq as a failure. Clash of Fundamentalisms puts the events of September 11 in historical perspective, covering the history of Islam from its foundations. Ali has been a critic of modern neoliberal economics and was present at the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil where he was one of nineteen to sign the Porto Alegre Manifesto.

Armineh Arakelian is an international lawyer and political scientist who has worked over the past twenty years with intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, including the United Nations and European Union, in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Her work encompasses human rights, humanitarian efforts, international development, democracy building, and gender issues. She is currently the general director of the Resource Building Institute in Democracy, Governance and Elections, a non-profit organization. In 1999, Arakelian founded the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights in Armenia, a non-governmental organization based on activism and volunteerism that strives to establish a culture of democracy based on human rights, development, education, political consciousness and citizenship.

Nora Armani is an actor/director/producer with an international list of theatre and film credits. Her acclaimed award-winning self-penned stage creations include: On the Couch with Nora Armani (now on DVD), Sojourn At Ararat (with Gerald Papasian) (now on CD), Snowflakes in April in addition to her other TV (Casualty-BBC, Al Asdiquaa-EgyptTV), Film (The New Eve, Last Station-co-directed, Haifa-co-produced and Labyrinth-for which she has won the Best Actress award) and Stage (Beyond the Veil, The Lover, La Fete Virile) credits. Her films have been seen at the Berlin, Rotterdam and Cannes film festivals. She graduated with a B.A. in English and Sociology from AUC, and an M.Sc. from LSE (Univ. of London). Her theatre training includes: RADA, UCLA, Theatre du Soleil and Complicity Theatre. Nora is an Honorary Actor Member of the National Theatre of Armenia. She is a published poet and playwright. Nora recently co-produced the successful First Annual Noor Play Festival of Midde East themed plays at the Wings Theatre in New York. She is currently producing a staged reading of Richard Kalinoski's award-winning play A Crooked Man. Nora Armani is currently based in New York. www.noraarmani.com

Sevag Arzoumanian is a physicist with degrees from Harvard and Penn State, and is a PhD candidate at Cambridge University (UK). He is one of the Boston area activists who led the campaign exposing the Anti-Defamation League's hypocritical position on the Armenian Genocide. He runs the campaign's noplacefordenial.com wesbite and acted as an unofficial spokesman for the No Place for Denial Team with several newspapers including the Boston Globe, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and the Jerusalem Post. Until recently, he sat on the board of the Armenian National Committee of Eastern U.S. He hopes to complete his PhD dissertation in the very near future -- Abe Foxman allowing.

Florence Avakian is a free-lance writer based in New York . She is also an accredited United Nations journalist, and has interviewed various world leaders at the UN. Ms. Avakian is a frequent contributor to Armenian-American newspapers, and to Ararat Magazine. She is also the news reporter in English every week on the Armenian Radio Hour of New Jersey. She holds a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree in Political Science from Michigan State University . She was also awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship in Journalism to Cornell University , and an English Union Speaking Fellowship to Oxford University in England . During her studies, she did professional speechwriting for three members of Congress. In the last several years, Ms. Avakian has had op-ed articles on the Armenian Genocide and Armenian issues published in The New York Times, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Examiner, Baltimore Sun, and the Hearst Feature Service.

David Barsamian is founder and director of Alternative Radio, the independent award-winning weekly series based in Boulder, Colorado. He is a radio producer, journalist, author and lecturer. He has been working in radio since 1978. His interviews and articles appear regularly in The Progressive and Z Magazine . Recent books include Targeting Iran, Imperial Ambitions with Noam Chomsky, and Speaking of Empire & Resistance with Tariq Ali. Barsamian lectures on U.S. foreign policy, the media, propaganda, and corporate power in the U.S., Canada, Brazil, India and Europe. He is the winner of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Award for independent journalism and of a Democracy Media Award. www.alternativeradio.org/barsamian

Laura Boghosian is a writer and former editor of the Armenian Weekly. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Master’s in Journalism from U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She has worked for a variety of nonprofits, including Mass Audubon where she wrote and edited for the advocacy department. Politically involved in her community of Lexington, Massachusetts, she served nine years as an elected Town Meeting Member. She has been active in the movement to dissociate towns from the Anti-Defamation League since last summer.

Levon Chorbajian is a professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he teaches courses on genocide, politics and mass media. He has edited, translated, and written seven books including Armenia in Crisis ; The Caucasian Knot , Studies in Comparative Genocide; The Making of Nagorno-Karabagh ; and, most recently, Power: A Critical Reader with Daniel Egan. Dr. Chorbajian is a two-time Fulbright Senior Lecturer in Armenia.

Elizabeth S. Chouldjian currently serves as Communications Director of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) in its Washington, D.C. headquarters. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Materials Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990, and has had the privilege to serve in various capacities for the ANCA, both locally and nationally, since that time.

Karen Hakobyan is a musician and researcher, as well as a human rights advocate/trainer from Armenia. He is the president of Hujs (Hope), a human rights non-governmental organization (NGO). Karen has worked in both the government and NGO sectors in Armenia, including with UNDP Armenia and USAID. He is the author of a manual for trainers, Advocacy for Public Policy Making, published for Armenia's NGOs. He was invited to New York by the International Center of Tolerance and Education to implement a project for human rights protection of soldiers in the Armenian army. Hakobyan is a graduate of Yerevan Sate University, St. Petersburg Academy of Civil Service, and the University of Twente, the Netherlands; he is currently a PhD candidate at Yerevan State University, where he is writing his thesis on Aspects of Ethnic Mentality in Public Administration.

Nubar Hovsepian is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Chapman University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Graduate Center--City University of New York. He edited The War on Lebanon (2007), and has a forthcoming book, Palestinian State Formation: Education and the Construction of National Identity (2008). He is currently working on a book on Edward Said as a public intellectual. Hovsepian has written and edited four books in Arabic, most notably on the Iranian revolution of 1979. He served as political affairs officer at the United Nations (1982-84), and has worked as publisher, journalist, and development specialist.

John Hughes "discovered" Armenia in 1996 when an assignment by a California newspaper sent him there to report on a group of eye doctors representing the Armenian Eye Care Project. This became a life-changing experience, as the veteran journalist found in Armenia an unexpected familiarity to the environment of his own youth, growing up in the U.S. deep south and struggling for survival, for acceptance, for understanding. That his heritage is Irish also probably played a part. In 1998-99, he lived in Armenia where he researched and later wrote a book of essays, "Armenia: The Story of A Place in Essays and Images." He returned to Armenia in 2001 to begin a journalism training project that evolved into ArmeniaNow.com, an internet journal produced by local Armenians trained through the founding NGO (New Times Journalism Training Center). ArmeniaNow.com, produced in three languages, has been read in at least 154 countries, and seeks to introduce western-style journalism to the Armenian community worldwide.

Lori Janbazian is currently finishing her Master's degree in Political Science focusing on international human rights and genocide. As an undergraduate, she double majored in political science and law and society. She is a member of the Armenian Relief Society Roubina chapter in Toronto and served on the executives of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Youth Organization of Canada, the Simon Zavarian Toronto chapter, and the Armenian Students' Association at York University. Additionally, she was a leader of the Scouts Canada (Division 285) as part of the Homenentmen.

Antranig Kasbarian is a former editor of The Armenian Weekly, based in Watertown, MA, and currently is a member of the Armenian National Committee, Eastern United States. He holds a PhD in Geography from Rutgers University. His doctoral dissertation deals with the geography of nationalism surrounding the 1988-94 war in Nagorno-Karabagh. Kasbarian currently works as a Program Director for the New York-based Tufenkian Foundation, supervising activities in Nagorno-Karabagh focusing on economic recovery and refugee resettlement.

Joey Kurtzman is president of Jewcy Media. Prior to joining Jewcy, he was an on-air contributor to Ireland's political and cultural radio program, The Wide Angle. He was one of the first voices to speak out on the ADL issue; in a July 8, 2007 feature, Kurtzman called for the firing of National Director Abraham Foxman, writing that his denial of the Armenian Genocide was a “scandal of unprecedented proportion.” Jewcy then launched an online petition calling on the ADL to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide and to apologize to both the Armenian and Jewish communities. He has since written numerous pieces on this issue and has participated in demonstrations and discussions. For more on Jewcy’s coverage go to: www.jewcy.com

Markar Melkonian is a teacher, writer and veteran solidarity worker. He holds several graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Melkonian's books include My Brother's Road , Marxism: A Post-Cold War Primer, and Richard Rorty's Politics: Liberalism at the End of the American Century. Markar Melkonian will not be appearing in person at the conference. He has, instead, sent in a paper to be read.

Simon Maghakyan , a native of Armenia, holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, summa cum laude, from University of Colorado, where he wrote a thesis on cultural genocide and was named Outstanding Undergraduate Student. He is also a graduate of the International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies. He has been published in a number of periodicals including History Today , which printed his article on the deliberate destruction of Djulfa cemetery. Maghakyan is a recipient of several prestigious awards including USA TODAY 's 2006 All-USA Academic First Team scholarship. His blog on Armenia and the world, www.blogian.net , records over 30,000 visitors a month. He plans to start graduate coursework at University of Colorado in August 2008 and then transfer to University of Denver for a PhD program in International Studies.

Pedro Mouratian was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and completed his studies in Social Communication. He is a member of the Presidential Board of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly in Argentina, and was part of the Argentinean delegation to the World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa in 2001. Mouratian served as former regional director of the National Armenian Committee from 1993 to 2003. Currently, he is the vice-president of the National Institute against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism of the Ministry of Justice, Security and Human Rights.

Jack Nusan Porter , writer, sociologist and social activist, is treasurer and former vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He is a former professor of social science at Boston University and former Research Associate in Ukrainian Studies at Harvard University. In 2004, he received the Distinguished Scholarly Career Award from the American Sociological Association Section on the History of Sociology. His latest books include Genocide and Human Rights , The Genocidal Mind , and Is Sociology Dead?

Zohrab Sarkissian graduated from Karen Yeppeh Armenian High School in Aleppo, Syria.   He received his undergraduate degree in business administration from American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2002 and his graduate diploma in management from McGill in 2004.   Sarkissian was one of the founding members and president of the Lebanese-Armenian Heritage Club at AUB, has been a member of the Armenian Youth Federation (AYF) Badanegan of Aleppo, and has held many executive positions in the Syrian and Lebanese youth organizations.   He was also a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Youth Organization of Canada (ARFYOC) and served as president of the organization's central executive from 2005 to 2007.

Neil Smith is an expert in geography, social theory and urban anthropology. He has taught at Columbia University and at Rutgers University, and now is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Geography at CUNY Graduate Center. He also serves as director of CUNY's Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. He has authored/edited a number of books including Uneven Development , Geography and Empire , and New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City . He won several prizes (including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography) for his 2003 book, American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude of Globalization . His most recent book is The Endgame of Globalization .