About Us - Brookings Doha Center
Based in Qatar, the Brookings Doha Center is an initiative of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., that advances high-quality, independent policy analysis and research on the Middle East. The Center maintains a reputation for policy impact and cutting-edge, field-oriented research on socioeconomic and geopolitical issues facing the broader Middle East, including relations with the United States.
The Brookings Doha Center International Advisory Council is co-chaired by H.E. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani, prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of the State of Qatar, and Brookings President Strobe Talbott. Members include: Madeleine Albright, Samuel Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Edward Djerejian, Wajahat Habibullah, Musa Hitam, Pervez Hoodhboy, Rima Khalaf Hunaidi, Nemir Kirdar, Rami Khouri, Atta-ur-Rahman, Ismail Serageldin and Fareed Zakaria. Salman Shaikh serves as the center's director.
The center was formally inaugurated by H.E. Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani on February 17, 2008. Others present included Carlos Pascual, former vice president and director of the Brookings Foreign Policy Program, Martin Indyk, current vice president and director of the Brookings Foreign Policy program, and Hady Amr, founding director of the Brookings Doha Center. The center is funded by the State of Qatar.
In pursuing its mission, the Brookings Doha Center undertakes research and programming that engages key elements of business, government, civil society, the media, and academia on key public policy issues in the following four core areas:
(i) Democratization, political reform and public policy;
(ii) Middle East relations with emerging Asian nations, including on the geopolitics and economies of energy;
(iii) Conflict and peace processes in the region;
(iv) Educational, institutional, and political reform in the Gulf countries.
Open to a broad range of views, the Brookings Doha Center is a hub for Brookings scholarship in the region. The center's research and programming agenda includes mutually reinforcing endeavors, including: convening ongoing public policy discussions with diverse political, business and thought leaders from the region and the United States; hosting visiting fellows drawn from significant ranks of the academic and policy communities to write analysis papers; and engaging the media to broadly share Brookings analysis with the public. The Brookings Doha Center also contributes to the conceptualization and organization of the annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum, which brings together key leaders in the fields of politics, business, media, academia and civil society, for much needed dialogue. In undertaking this work, the Brookings Doha Center upholds the Brookings Institution’s core values of quality, independence and impact.
Brookings Doha Center Staff
Hind Abdallah, Administrative Assistant
Vittoria Federici, Research Assistant
Samuel Heller, Research Assistant
Nadine Masri, Budget & Administration Manager
Bahaa Omran, Communications Manager
Samuel Plumbly, Senior Research Assistant
Kais Sharif, Programs & Events Manager
Jessica Sobrino, Communications Coordinator
Brookings Doha Center Experts
Salman Shaikh is director of the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Shaikh has held numerous posts of significance, both in the international system and the Middle East. Prior to joining the Center, Shaikh worked with the United Nations for nearly a decade. During his tenure there he served as special assistant to the Special Coordinator to the Middle East Peace Process, political advisor to the Secretary General’s Personal Representative for Lebanon during the 2006 war, and special assistant of the Middle East and Asia to the office of the Undersecretary General for Political Affairs. Shaikh also worked as director for Policy and Research in the Office of Her Highness, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the Consort of the Emir of Qatar.
Ibrahim Sharqieh is deputy director of the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings. Sharqieh previously served as senior project director at the Academy for Educational Development (AED), where he managed international development projects in several Arab countries, including Yemen and Qatar. He also served as an academic advisor to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Washington, D.C. and taught International Conflict Resolution at The George Washington, George Mason, and Catholic universities. Sharqieh received his Ph.D. from George Mason University in Conflict Analysis and Resolution in 2006.
Shadi Hamid is director of research for the Brookings Doha Center and a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings. His research focuses on Islamist political parties and democratic reform in the Arab world. Prior to joining Brookings, Hamid was director of research at the Project on Middle East Democracy (POMED) and a Hewlett fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. He has conducted extensive research on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, including as a resident fellow at the American Center for Oriental Research in Amman. Hamid is currently Vice-Chair of POMED, a member of the World Bank’s MENA Advisory Panel, and a correspondent for The Atlantic. He received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University and his Ph.D. in political science from Oxford University.