POLICY FORUM ARMENIA

Better Policies. Better Future.

Biographies of Presenters

Ani Kalayjian

Ani Kalayjian is a psychology professor, American Board Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress, psychotherapist, Genocide Scholar, conflict resolution expert, researcher, and international consultant. She has over twenty years of experience in disaster management, mass-trauma interventions & conflict resolution as well as two decades of university teaching experience and psychotherapy practice in both NY/NJ. Dr. Kalayjian conducts workshops around the world healing the wounds of generationally transmitted trauma of wars, genocides, and Holocaust. She has presented her research papers, conducted workshops, and chaired panel discussion nationally and internationally. She has published widely in scholarly journals, as well as authored and edited several books the most recent being the two volume Emotional Healing Around the World: Rituals and Practices for Resilience and Meaning-Making (Praeger Publishing, November 2009).

J. Antranig Kasbarian

John Antranig Kasbarian holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Rutgers University, where he studied under Neil Smith. His doctoral dissertation dealt with the geography of nationalism during the 1988-1994 war in Nagorno-Karabagh, based largely on his own experiences on the ground. It is entitled "We Are Our Mountains: The Geography of Nationalism in the Armenian Self-Determination Movement, Nagorno-Karabakh, 1988-98." He has published widely on Nagorno-Karabagh in both academic journals and the press. Professionally, he serves as Executive Director for the New York-based Tufenkian Foundation, supervising a variety of programs in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh. He is also active within the Armenian-American community, currently serving as Chairman of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Eastern USA.

Asbed Kotchikian

Asbed Kotchikian is a lecturer at the Global Studies Department at Bentley University. He has written, lectured, organized conferences and delivered presentations on topics such as foreign policies of small and weak states, national identity, and regional developments in the Middle East and Eurasia within academic and public venues in the South Caucasus, Middle East, US and Europe. He has published articles and book chapters in various media, among which Demokratizatsya, Insight Turkey andCentral Asia and the Caucasus. His book titled The Dialectics of Small States: Foreign Policy Making in Armenia and Georgia was published in 2008 by VMD Verlag. He is currently the editor of the academic peer reviewed journal Armenian Review. Dr. Kotchikian holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston University and is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Forum Armenia.