Peter Wien, president of the board
Dr. Peter Wien is Professor for Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Maryland in College Park. He received his PhD in 2003 from the University of Bonn, Germany, and Master degrees from the University of Oxford, UK, and the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1999. He taught at Al-Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, and was a fellow of the Centre for Modern Oriental Studies in Berlin. His publications include the books Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East (London: Routledge, 2017), and Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941 (London: Routledge, 2006).
Augusta Mcmahon, Vice President of the Board
Dr. Augusta McMahon is Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures – West Asia and North Africa at the University of Chicago. From 1995 to 2022, she taught in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, UK. Her research interests include ancient urbanism, social stress and violent conflict, and sensory archaeology, or the daily lived experience of people in the past. She is Director of the ISAC Nippur excavation in South Iraq, examining the cycles of urban expansion and contraction in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BCE, and the effects of government-led urban renewal on ancient city planning, immigration, neighbourhoods and households.
arbella bet-shlimon, secretary of the board
Dr. Arbella Bet-Shlimon is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Washington. In her research and teaching, she focuses on twentieth-century Iraq and the broader Persian Gulf region, as well as Middle Eastern urban history. She is the author of City of Black Gold: Oil, Ethnicity, and the Making of Modern Kirkuk (Stanford University Press, 2019).
Kevin Jones, Treasurer of the board
Dr. Kevin Jones is Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Georgia’s Department of History. He earned his PhD in History from the University of Michigan in 2013 and was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the George Washington University Institute for Middle East Studies in 2013-2014. His work on Iraqi cultural history and Middle Eastern labor history has appeared in Social History and his book, The Dangers of Poetry: Culture, Politics, and Modernity in Iraq, was published by Stanford University Press in September 2020.
Amanda Long, executive Director
Amanda Long has a degree in International Relations, focusing on the Middle East and Islamic Diplomacy, from American University’s School of International Service and an MA in Egyptian Archaeology from University College London's Institute of Archaeology. She first began working around antiquities in 2003 and has been actively involved in cultural heritage preservation projects since 2014, including the Preventing Trafficking/Protecting Cultural Heritage training at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute. In 2016, Amanda was awarded a fellowship at the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany. She joined TARII in 2018.
Lanah haddad, erbil regional director
Lanah Haddad is an archaeologist specializing in the art and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia. She studied in Germany and was a PhD Candidate at the interdisciplinary graduate program “Value and Equivalent” at the University of Frankfurt. She has participated in several international archaeological excavation and heritage preservation projects in the MENA region. Most of her work focuses in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She has published several articles and contributed in two exhibitions. She joined TARII in 2022.
Julie Maxwell, social media & outreach manager
Julie Maxwell has been the Program Coordinator at Duke Islamic Studies Center since 2015 and joined TARII as the Social Media and Outreach Manager in December 2022. Her background is in Religious Studies, with an emphasis on Interfaith Relations. She has a Masters of Divinity from Iliff School of Theology. She lives in the mountains of North Carolina with her family and loves to cook and travel.
