Eric G. Bing
Director for Global Health
George W. Bush Institute

Eric G. Bing, MD, PhD, MBA joined the George W. Bush Institute in December of 2010 as the Director for Global Health after nearly 2 decades at Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science (CDU) in Los Angeles where he was an Endowed Professor of Global Health. As Director, Dr. Bing will spearhead Global Health initiatives, including a program to raise awareness and improve the treatment and screening for cervical cancer and breast cancer in multiple countries on the African continent, as well as an initiative to provide integrated health services to pregnant women, new mothers, newborns and children.

Dr. Bing is a Psychiatrist and Global Health Services Researcher. He is the founder and director of multiple action-oriented researcher centers and programs including SPECTRUM, an HIV community services research program that has mental health, substance abuse, case management and social services to over 500 people per year since 1994. Dr. Bing also has directed Drew CARES/Institute for Community Services since 1998, an HIV research center that focus on health disparities in California and co-directs the NIMH-supported Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) based at UCLA, CDU and RAND. Dr. Bing has led international health efforts at CDU since 2000, developing HIV prevention, care and treatment programs in Rwanda, Angola, Nigeria, Namibia, Belize and Jamaica. For his efforts Dr. Bing was awarded the Alfred Haynes International Health Leadership Award (2002) and a Paul G. Rogers International Health Research Ambassador from Research! America (2006).

Dr. Bing has been a member of three Institute of Medicine committees and has published over 90 articles and abstracts. In 2010, Dr. Bing was honored to be selected by his peers as the Outstanding Professor of the Year at CDU.

He received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, an MPH and a PhD in Epidemiology from UCLA and an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.

Kerri L. Briggs
Director for Education Reform
George W. Bush Institute

Kerri Briggs joined the George W. Bush Institute in October 2010 as the Director for Education Reform. As the Director, Briggs’ initial focus is the implementation of The Bush Institute’s recently announced Alliance to Reform Education Leadership, the largest initiative in history to enhance the achievement of America’s children by improving the performance of America’s school principals. Additionally, Briggs oversees the Institute’s efforts in middle school reform and education productivity.

Briggs most recently served as state superintendent of education for Washington, D.C., during which Briggs worked closely with widely respected education reformer chancellor Michelle Rhee and highly respected charter school leaders. As a member of the team that won a federal Race to the Top grant for the city, Briggs was instrumental in one of the nation’s most visible education reform efforts. She led the District of Columbia into a Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) to develop a new, state-of-the-art assessment system, stabilized the organization to focus on eliminating Washington, D.C.’s federal status as a high-risk grantee, developed a policy structure to craft critical state policies, including those focused on students with disabilities, and constructed new processes to improve and consolidate data access and collections.

Briggs previously served as Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, a position she was nominated for by President George W. Bush in 2007. As Assistant Secretary, Briggs played a pivotal role in policy and management issues affecting elementary and secondary education. She directed, coordinated and recommended policy for programs designed to assist state and local education agencies with: improving the achievement of elementary and secondary school students; helping ensure equal access to services leading to such improvement for all children, particularly children who are economically disadvantaged; fostering educational improvement at the state and local levels; and providing financial assistance to local education agencies whose local revenues are affected by federal activities.

Briggs also served as Acting Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development from September 2006 through January 2007. Prior to, Briggs served for one year as senior policy adviser in the Office of the Deputy Secretary, where she worked on K-12 policy and regulations pertaining to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Briggs joined the Department of Education in 2001 as a senior policy adviser in the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, working for four years on the review and approval of state accountability plans for NCLB. She also helped write the original regulations and non-regulatory guidance for implementation of the law’s accountability, assessment, flexibility and teacher quality provisions.

The author of many articles on reading, charter schools and school-based management, Briggs was the co-editor of Reading in the Classroom: Systems for Observation of Teaching and Learning, published in 2003.

Briggs is a former chair of the Junior League of Washington: Literacy Partnerships committee and is a board member for the Aged Women’s Home of Georgetown.

A native of Texas, Briggs grew up with her family in small towns near Houston where she attended public schools. Briggs earned a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1989. She did her postgraduate work at the University of Southern California, where she earned a Master of Arts and, later, a Ph.D. in education policy and organizational studies.

Colonel Michael T. Endres
U.S. Army, Retired
Director, Military Service Initiative
George W. Bush Institute

After serving in the United States Army for 26 years, Colonel Michael T. Endres is retiring from active duty to assume the newly–created position of Director, Military Service Initiative for the George W. Bush Institute. COL Endres is a 1986 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York where he recently served as the Deputy Director of Admissions. This week, COL Endres departs West Point and is heading directly to the Bush Institute’s Warrior 100K Bike Ride in Amarillo, TX where he will have the honor of introducing his former Commander-in-Chief at the official welcome dinner. Following the weekend's activities, COL Endres will report for his new duty at the George W. Bush Institute offices in Dallas, TX.

In an effort to lead the Bush Institute in honoring the sacrifices and service of our U.S. servicemen and women and their families, COL Endres will direct all Military Service Initiative actions to help facilitate military support organizations achieve their missions more effectively by raising awareness and spotlighting best practices. COL Endres has spent a life–time of service leading soldiers and caring for their families. He served in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom and was instrumental in establishing Family Readiness & Support in his units before they became structured Army–wide organizations. As a Field Artillery officer, he served in Korea, Hawaii, Oklahoma, New York, Kuwait and Iraq as well as an instructor and course director for West Point’s Military Instruction and Behavioral Sciences & Leadership departments.

COL Endres holds a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Virginia and a Masters Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval War College. His awards and decorations include: Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (3 OLC), Army Commendation Medal (2 OLC), Army Achievement Medal (7 OLC), Armed Forces and Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medals, Military Outstanding Volunteer Award, Overseas Ribbon (3rd Award), Air Assault Badge, Parachutist Badge, and the Ranger Tab.

COL Endres is married to the former Cheryl Ann Gregorio whom he met and married while stationed in Hawaii. They will be celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary this coming New Year’s Eve. Sixteen–year–old daughter, Taylor, will be a senior at Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas this fall. Another member of their household is a chocolate lab named Molli Koa Kamali’i Wahine.

Catherine E. Freeman
Director of Evaluation and Research
George W. Bush Institute

Catherine Freeman serves as the Director of Evaluation and Research. Catherine is developing and overseeing the analytic and measurement functions across the Institute’s areas of engagement. Additionally, she coordinates and integrates evaluation and research activities of the Institute’s Program Directors, Fellows, action partners and consultants.

Catherine came to the Bush Institute from HCM Strategists, a policy and advocacy consulting firm where she developed and managed their K12 practice. Before joining HCM in 2010, Catherine was Chief of Staff to the State Superintendent of Education for the District of Columbia, serving as the Principal Advisor on policy development and implementation, budget, and government relations.

Previously, Catherine served in senior roles at the National Academy of Sciences and the U.S. Department of Education, where she was a top advisor and researcher on early childhood and K-12 policy. At the Department, she managed the office’s implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act, including its accountability and assessment provisions. She also has advised a governor, as well as local and state superintendents, and wrote and published more than 15 research papers on education issues, including teaching, accountability, finance, equity, and governance. Catherine began her career as a Senior Research Associate at the Fiscal Research Center at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA.

Catherine earned a bachelor’s degree from Vanderbilt University, a master’s of education from the University of Texas-Austin, and a doctorate in philosophy from Vanderbilt University.

Anita Bevacqua McBride
Senior Advisor
George W. Bush Institute

Anita McBride served as Assistant to President George W. Bush and Chief of Staff to First Lady Laura Bush from January 2005 to January 2009.

Mrs. McBride was responsible for the First Lady’s policy, press, correspondence, scheduling and advance, speechwriting, and social offices and directed the staff’s work on the wide variety of issues in which Mrs. Bush was involved ? including education, global literacy, youth development, women’s rights and health, historic preservation and conservation, diplomacy, the arts, and global health issues including efforts to end pandemic diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. Mrs. McBride had primary responsibility for developing the First Lady’s global portfolio, including directing travel to 67 countries in 4 years. In March 2005 and again in June 2008, she planned and executed the First Lady’s secret, historic trips to Afghanistan. In support of Mrs. Bush’s role as UNESCO’s Honorary Ambassador for the UN Decade of Literacy, Mrs. McBride directed the planning of two international conferences on global literacy and education. She also directed the planning of the first-ever White House Summit on Malaria in 2006. As a senior member of President Bush’s staff, Mrs. McBride was responsible for working with West Wing policy advisors to coordinate the first lady’s efforts in support of specific presidential policies and initiatives.

Mrs. McBride’s White House service spans two decades and three administrations. Under President George W. Bush, Mrs. McBride served as Senior Advisor in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organizations in 2004 where she was responsible for recruiting American candidates for positions in the United Nations agencies. As the Department’s Senior Advisor to the Secretary and White House Liaison from 2001 to 2003, Mrs. McBride helped shepherd presidential appointees through the confirmation process, and oversaw the selection of American delegations to international summits and conferences. Prior to joining the State Department, Mrs. McBride also served as Special Assistant to the President for White House Management in 2001? overseeing six administrative and operational units in direct support of the President, First Lady, and White House Staff.

She joined the Reagan Administration in 1984, and from 1987 to 1992, Mrs. McBride was Director of White House Personnel under Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In this position, Mrs. McBride helped create the White House Internship program. Mrs. McBride also served as Director of the Speakers Bureau at the United States Information Agency in 1992. She has helped coordinate three presidential transitions.

Mrs. McBride’s private sector experience includes serving as project manager of the Smith Kline Beecham Foundation’s flagship philanthropic program, "Science in the Summer," an initiative in partnership with Philadelphia libraries, that encourages the study and teaching of science in the city’s public schools. She was also a management consultant for the American Automobile Manufacturers Association and an executive recruiter specializing in trade associations and non-profit organizations.

Mrs. McBride has been recognized with several awards for her service. In 2006, she received the National Guard and Reserve’s Patriot Award, bestowed upon employers who are exceptionally supportive of their reservist employees’ military service. In 2008, the University of Connecticut awarded her with The President’s Award of Distinction, for her professional accomplishments and her efforts in support of the University of Connecticut.

Mrs. McBride served as a member of the U.S. delegations to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in 2002; the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2003; and the UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS in 2006.

The daughter of Italian immigrants, Mrs. McBride was born and raised in Bridgeport, Connecticut. She received her B.A. in International Studies from the University of Connecticut in 1981, and studied international relations and foreign languages at the American University in Washington, D.C. and the University of Florence in Italy.

Mrs. McBride is a member of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, a historic public-private partnership between the U.S. and Afghan governments, Georgetown University, and private-sector institutions that helps Afghanistan’s women rebuild their country and reclaim their place at the center of post-Taliban society. At their Embassy in Washington in 2008, Mrs. McBride was honored by the Afghan government for her commitment to Afghan issues.

In January 2009, she was appointed by President George W. Bush to the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board for a term of three years and became Chair on January 1,2010.

Mrs. McBride was also appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDs in 2010 and also serves on the board of the National Italian American Foundation.

Mrs. McBride currently serves as a Senior Advisor to the George W. Bush Institute and is a strategic planning consultant to several foundations, non-profits, and non-governmental organizations. She is the Co-Director of the RAND African First Ladies Initiative, a mentored fellowship designed to assist African first ladies and their senior advisors to establish and manage effective first ladies’ offices as well as enhance their capacity in policy and program development.

Mrs. McBride also serves as Executive in Residence at the Center for Presidential and Congressional Studies in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC and is directing the planning for a conference that will examine the role of American First Ladies through U.S. history and their impact on politics, policy and global diplomacy.

Anne McClellan
Director, Middle School Matters
George W. Bush Institute

Dr. Anne McClellan joined the George W. Bush Institute in June 2011 as the Director for Middle School Matters. As the Director, Dr. McClellan is responsible for leading the Middle School Matters initiative, which seeks to leverage research– and evidence–based practices to expand the capacity of middle grade students to be active and confident learners – young people who are resilient, and persist through middle school to college, career, and life. She brings broad experience to the development of the Middle School Matters program in: business planning, fundraising, school design/curricular innovation, traditional/charter school, and non-profit leadership.

Dr. McClellan has led a number of organizations in achieving a common goal of improving student and faculty performance, laying the groundwork for their continued success. Prior to joining the Education Reform team at the George W. Bush Institute, McClellan served as Vice President for Growth at YES Prep Public Schools, a nationally recognized network of charter schools that currently serves over 5,200 low-income students in Houston, Texas prepared to compete in the global marketplace. During her tenure at YES Prep, the school system more than doubled in size and opened six new campuses (grades 6-12).

Before joining YES Prep, McClellan was a program officer at the Texas High School Project, a public–private alliance designed to prepare teenagers for the challenges of college and the job market. She served as principal of Houston’s Challenge Early College High School from 2003 to 2005, during which time she was a Houston Independent School District “master principal.”

Dr. McClellan served as principal of Edgar Allan Poe Elementary School in Houston for ten years. Under her tutelage, the school consistently earned “Exemplary” status, and earned Poe the distinction of an “Annenberg Beacon School”. As a Beacon School, Poe was partnered with its middle school and surrounding community to ‘light the way’ in building an even stronger learning environment. After leaving Poe, she became a principal coach at the Houston A+ Challenge Leadership Academy and co–founded the Center for the Reform of School Systems with Dr. Don McAdams, which focused on the improvement of district and school board governance.

In 1989, as lead assistant principal at Robert E. Lee Senior High School, McClellan received the Hamman Foundation’s Outstanding Educator Award. She has provided consulting services to a wide range of school, districts and foundations such as Bellwether Education Partners, National Governors Association, Boston Public Schools, Ohio Board of Regents, DC Public Schools, TIES, Envision, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Amanda W. Schnetzer
Director for Human Freedom
George W. Bush Institute

Amanda Schnetzer serves as the Director for Human Freedom at The George W. Bush Institute, bringing more than a decade of experience supporting pro-freedom advocates and monitoring transitions to democracy. As Director, Schnetzer leads the Institute’s efforts to extend the reach of freedom through nonviolent means by empowering and educating pro-democracy dissidents and helping develop networks of activists around the world.

Schnetzer most recently served as president of the Dallas Committee on Foreign Relations. Previously she was director of studies and senior fellow with Freedom House in New York, where she guided research, methodology, and outreach activities for the organization’s definitive studies of human freedom. Freedom House’s "Nations in Transit" series, which Schnetzer edited, informed decisions of the U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development on assistance to 29 post-authoritarian states in the areas of democratic governance, civil society, independent media, and rule of law. She also co-organized the first World Forum on Democracy in Warsaw, Poland, bringing together government leaders, NGO experts, and pro-democracy activists from 85 countries supporting the global struggle for freedom.

Schnetzer also conducted in-depth research on U.S. foreign policy, human freedom, and the impact of ideas and values on international politics at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. She specifically directed programming for the New Atlantic Initiative, which engaged the new democracies of Eastern Europe and championed their entry into NATO and the European Union.

Schnetzer received a Master of Arts from Georgetown University and Bachelor of Arts from Southern Methodist University, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. She serves on the board of directors of Dallas Chamber Music and on the advisory committee of Chiapas International, which supports microfinance projects in Latin America. She is a term member in the Council on Foreign Relations and has been elected to the 2011 class of the Texas Lyceum.

Amity Shlaes
Director for the 4% Project
George W. Bush Institute

Amity Shlaes comes to the Bush Institute from the Council on Foreign Relations, where she served as senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and within the Center for Geoeconomic Studies (CGS) for the past decade. Currently, she is at work on a biography of Calvin Coolidge that tells a story about the 1920s, as well as a cartoon version of The Forgotten Man, her history of the 1930s.

Miss Shlaes teaches the 1930s at New York University’s Stern School in the M.B.A. program. A columnist for the past ten years, Miss Shlaes writes on issues surrounding the political economy. For the past six years, Bloomberg News has syndicated her column, which appears both on Bloomberg terminals and websites, and in papers such as the Orange County Register, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the San Francisco Chronicle, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Before that the Financial Times carried the column for five years. In addition, Miss Shlaes rotates with Lee Kwan Yew, David Malpass, and Paul Johnson in writing a print column for Forbes Magazine. Miss Shlaes is also a commentator for Marketplace, the radio show. Since starting her column, Miss Shlaes has twice been named a finalist for the Loeb Prize in commentary.

In 2002, she won the international Frederic Bastiat Prize for writing on political economy, and in 2003 she was J.P. Morgan fellow in economics and finance at the American Academy in Berlin. In 2007, she won the Deadline Club award and the Newswomen’s Club of New York’s Front Page award. In the spring of 2007, her book The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression was published by HarperCollins and Jonathan Cape. It is a U.S. bestseller with well over 250,000 copies in print. The Forgotten Man has been published in Korean, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), German and Italian. It is 2009 winner of the Hayek Prize, the most prestigious prize for conservative books. Novelist Mark Helprin has said of The Forgotten Man, “Were John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman to spend a century or two reconciling their positions so as to arrive at a clear view of the Great Depression, this would be it.“

Her previous book, The Greedy Hand: Why Taxes Drive Americans Crazy (Random House/Harvest paperback, 1999) was likewise a national bestseller. Miss Shlaes also recently coauthored, with the late Robert Bartley of the Wall Street Journal, a piece on tax philosophy in Intellect into Influence, a Manhattan Institute retrospective volume.

She was a contributor to the special 30th anniversary edition of the scholarly journal Tax Notes, “The Future of American Taxation.” In the early 1990s, Miss Shlaes published a book on German national identity, Germany: The Empire Within (Farrar, Straus/Jonathan Cape, 1991).

Before beginning her current column, Miss Shlaes was an editorial board member at the Wall Street Journal in the 1990s, writing on such areas as economics and school reform. Over the years, her work has appeared in periodicals as diverse as The New Republic, National Review, New Yorker, Fortune, Financial Times and Foreign Affairs. Miss Shlaes is chairman of the board of the Bastiat-IPN Hoiles prizes. She serves on the jury for the Friedrich von Hayek Prize. She is a trustee of the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation.

Julia D. Taylor
Director of Strategy and Operations
George W. Bush Institute

Julia Taylor serves as the Director of Strategy and Operations for the George W. Bush Institute, working across the Institute’s focus areas on organizational development, strategic planning, and program implementation. In this role, Julia also integrates the Institute’s work with the Bush Center?s broader goals and activities.

Most recently, Julia worked as a Consultant for Deloitte LLP in Corporate Strategy where she implemented a new client service strategy to 30,000 professionals across four Deloitte U.S. firms. Previously, she worked as a Business Analyst for Deloitte Consulting’s Strategy and Operations practice. In that role, Julia managed key operational improvement projects for clients across multiple industries, including a Fortune 50 computer manufacturer.

Julia holds a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where she graduated with high distinction as a George F. Baker Scholar, and a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in Economics and Psychology from Vanderbilt University.

While at Harvard Business School, Julia served as the Chief Operating Officer of the Social Enterprise Club and led the Marketing and Communication efforts for the Social Enterprise Conference, the largest student-run conference in the world. Julia competed in equestrian sports for eighteen years, winning two World Championships and five Reserve World Championships.

Charity N. Wallace
Director for the Women’s Initiative
George W. Bush Institute
Senior Advisor to Mrs. Laura Bush

Charity Wallace serves as the Director of the Women’s Initiative at the Bush Institute and Senior Advisor to Mrs. Laura Bush. As the Director, Wallace is responsible for setting the vision and creating the programming for the Women’s Initiative, including the empowerment of women in the Middle East. As the Initiative cuts across all Institute programs, Wallace works closely with the directors of each area of engagement to ensure that a focus on women and girls is a central component in every program.

Most recently, Wallace served as the Chief of Staff to Mrs. Laura Bush. In her role, Wallace managed the team that supports Mrs. Bush and oversaw Mrs. Bush’s initiatives - from her wide ranging policy agenda to her recent book tour. Wallace oversaw all policies and initiatives championed by Mrs. Bush as First Lady of the United States, including international and domestic policies related to education and literacy, human rights, women’s empowerment, health, historic preservation, national parks, and arts and culture. In addition, Wallace served as Mrs. Bush’s representative, when appropriate, to various organizations and individuals that may be related to Mrs. Bush’s policy initiatives or interests.

Wallace also served as Deputy Chief of Protocol of the United States during the George W. Bush Administration. As Deputy Chief, Wallace served as the chief operating officer of the Office of the Chief of Protocol, as well as Acting Chief of Protocol in the absence of the Chief. In this role, Wallace oversaw the visits of chiefs of state, heads of government and other international dignitaries who were in the United States to meet with the President, Vice President or Secretary of State. She also accompanied delegations representing the President at official ceremonies abroad.

Wallace also created a new Outreach division within the Office of the Chief of Protocol. The Outreach division operated as the public diplomacy arm which served the diplomatic corps assigned to Washington, DC. Wallace established "Experience America" trips, designed to engage the diplomatic corps through travels to various regions of the United Stated by highlighting companies and industries of particular relevance and interest to the diplomats. Due to their enormous success, these trips continue in the Obama Administration.

Prior to working in the Office of the Chief of Protocol, Wallace served for three years as the Director of Advance for First Lady Laura Bush. In this role, she was responsible for the execution of Mrs. Bush’s 300-plus annual events outside the White House and served as her primary negotiator, and protocol and logistics advisor for all foreign trips as well as domestic visits. During her tenure, Wallace traveled to more than 60 countries, working with foreign leaders and officials and Embassy staff from around the world.

Wallace served in the Bush Administration from January 2001 to January 2009. In addition to her time at the U.S. Department of State and Mrs. Bush’s office, Wallace served in public liaison positions in Presidential Advance, the U.S. Department of Education, the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and USA Freedom Corps.

A native of California, Wallace graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine University, with a Bachelor of Arts in political science, with a focus in international relations. Following graduation, Ms. Wallace began a career in professional musical theater. After two years, Wallace left musical theater to work on the Bush-Cheney campaign in January 2000.

Beth Ann Bryan
Policy Associate for Education Reform
George W. Bush Institute

Beth Ann Bryan serves as Policy Associate for Education Reform at The George W. Bush Institute. Through the Middle School Matters program, Bryan guides the Bush Institute in achieving its goal of ensuring that every American high school graduate is college-ready and prepared for a good job.

Bryan also serves as senior education advisor to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where she assists both private and public entities with the implementation of education reforms and counsels clients on education policy issues. Her recent experience includes helping to develop initiatives to improve secondary school literacy, navigating policy issues affecting students in pre-k through college for higher education officials and ensuring that instructional practice in education is driven by high quality research.

Prior to joining Akin Gump, Bryan served as a senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Education Roderick Paige from 2001 to 2003. She also served as a member of the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education and worked closely with the First Lady’s office on education initiatives in Texas and nationwide. After leaving Washington in 2003, Bryan served as the volunteer Executive Director of the Laura Bush Foundation for America’s Libraries. Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Education, Bryan worked as an education advisor to the Texas Governor’s Business Council. Bryan previously worked as a Psychological Associate in private practice for 12 years and as a public school teacher in Houston, Texas for seven years.

Bryan received her Bachelor of Arts from Houston Baptist University in 1969 and her Master of Education from the University of Houston in 1978. She has served as Vice Chair of the National Board for Education Sciences.

The Honorable Mark R. Dybul
Fellow in Global Health
George W. Bush Institute

Ambassador Mark R. Dybul is the inaugural Fellow in Global Health at The George W. Bush Institute. The Global Health initiative works to improve the health of impoverished people throughout the world. The Institute is leading an effort to develop an approach to integrated health services in Africa, focused on pregnant woman and newborns as an entry point for healthy families. The work builds on the massive expansion in global health and development under President Bush. As a Fellow, Dybul is coordinating leading academic and programmatic experts from around the world to support partners who will implement the program on the ground under the strategic direction of the national government. A key component of the work is real time evaluation of the effectiveness of interventions and an analysis of the cost savings and efficiencies of leveraging multiple health interventions at important moments before, after and around the time of childbirth.

Dybul previously served as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator from 2006 to the end of the George W. Bush administration. In that role, he led the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the largest international health initiative in history for a single disease. Dybul oversaw the United States government engagement in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and was the Chair of the Finance and Audit Committee. He also served as chair of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS’ coordinating board and as a member of the board of trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Prior to assuming the post of Ambassador, Dybul was Acting, Deputy and Assistant U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and was a member of the Planning Task Force that created PEPFAR. He also led President Bush’s International Prevention of Mother and Child HIV initiative at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was the Executive Secretary for HHS guideline for adult and adolescent HIV therapy, and was a member of the writing committee for the World Health Organization’s guidelines on the use of antiretroviral therapy. At HHS, Dybul served as the Assistant Director for Medical Affairs at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the National Institutes of Health, and was the principal investigator of basic and clinical research with a particular emphasis on HIV treatment in Africa. He is well published in scientific and policy literature, has received several honorary degrees and significant awards, and has served on numerous national and international boards.

Dybul currently co-directs the Global Health Law Program at Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, where he is also a Distinguished Scholar.

Dybul received his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and M.D. from Georgetown University before completing a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Medical Center in 1992 and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1995.

Jay P. Greene
Fellow in Education Policy
George W. Bush Institute

Jay P. Greene serves as a Fellow in Education Policy at The George W. Bush Institute. As a fellow, Greene will contribute to the Bush Institute’s goal of excellence in American education by working to improve the leadership capacity of America’s school principals and strengthen schools to ensure every American high school graduate is college-ready and prepared for a good job.

Greene is one of the nation’s most highly regarded empirical analysts of education issues and is skilled in the construction of data-based indicators that enable policy makers and interested lay persons to more quickly and deeply grasp complex trends and trouble spots in America’s education landscape.

Greene is also department head and 21st Century Chair in Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Greene conducts research and writes about education policy, including topics such as school choice, high school graduation rates, accountability and special education.

Greene’s research was cited four times in the Supreme Court’s opinions in the landmark Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case on school vouchers. His articles have appeared in policy journals, such as The Public Interest, City Journal, and Education Next, in academic journals, such as The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Education and Urban Society, and The British Journal of Political Science, as well as in major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He has appeared on numerous national television and radio shows, such as CBS’s 60 Minutes, ABC’s 20/20, and NPR’s Talk of the Nation. Greene is the author of Education Myths: What Special-Interest Groups Want You to Believe About our Schools?and Why It Isn’t So.

Greene has been a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston. He received his Bachelor of Arts in history from Tufts University in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the Government Department at Harvard University in 1995. He lives with his wife and three children in Fayetteville, AR.

James W. Guthrie
Senior Fellow and Director of Education Policy Studies
George W. Bush Institute

James W. Guthrie, the first appointed senior fellow at the George W. Bush Institute, guides the research and implementation of programs to achieve the Bush Institute’s goal of excellence in American education by working to improve the leadership capacity of America’s school principals and strengthen schools to keep students on the path toward college and career readiness.

Guthrie holds a concurrent position as a professor of education policy and leadership at the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University.

Formerly, Guthrie was the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy, and director of the Peabody Center for Education Policy at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. From 1999 through 2009, he served as chair of Peabody College’s Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations, the nation’s highest ranked university educational administration department. He instructed both undergraduate and graduate courses, and conducted research on education policy and finance.

Guthrie is founder and chairman of the board of Management Analysis & Planning, Inc., a private sector management consulting firm specializing in public finance, organizational studies, and litigation support, located in Davis, California. He is the founder and president of Class Act Partners, a corporation specializing in the printed and electronic provision of research based materials for education professionals.

Guthrie has been a consultant to the governments of Armenia, Australia, Chile, Guyana, Hong Kong, Pakistan, Romania, and South Africa, and has had extensive experience in consulting for The World Bank, UNESCO, OECD, and the Organization of American States.

He is the author or co-author of 20 books, and more than 200 professional and scholarly articles. He is past president of the American Education Finance Association, former vice president of the American Education Research Association, served as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Education, published in 2002, and is series editor of the multi-volume Peabody Education Leadership Series. He served as principal investigator for the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University, a federally funded research center concentrating on educator performance incentives, and as policy director for the Center for Educator Compensation Reform (CECR), a federally funded effort to assist schools in altering their personnel practices and remuneration patterns.

Guthrie serves as editor-in-chief for the Oxford Bibliography Online, an Oxford University Press project to organize, appraise, and distribute evidence and information regarding all facets of education in the United States and worldwide.

Previously a professor at the University of California, Berkeley for 27 years, Guthrie holds a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts, and doctorate from Stanford University, and undertook postdoctoral study in public finance at Harvard. He also was a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford Brookes College, Oxford, England, and the Irving R. Melbo Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California.

Joel Hirst
Fellow in Human Freedom
George W. Bush Institute

Before joining the George W. Bush Institute as a Fellow in Human Freedom, Joel Hirst was a recipient of the prestigious International Affairs Fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. As a fellow at the Council, he researched the Cuba/Venezuela sponsored Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and wrote the first English language book on the subject titled “ALBA: Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alliance and its New World Order.”

Hirst worked for six years with USAID’s Office of Transition Initiative in Uganda, focusing on post conflict transition in Lord’s Resistance Army affected areas and received the Field Team of the Year Award. In Venezuela, he worked for four years on democracy promotion, elections, civil society, and human rights; receiving a Superior Honor Award for work on the 2007 constitutional referendum. Prior to this, Hirst worked as a humanitarian relief worker with World Vision in countries such as Pakistan, Venezuela, Kosovo, DR Congo, Chad, Honduras and Nicaragua.

Hirst has written chapters for books by the International Republican Institute and the University of Miami on Latin American policy, as well as many articles for Americas Quarterly, Fox News, International Business and Development Exchange, The Commentator, and El Universal. He blogs for Huffington Post. Hirst has also done TV interviews for Nuestra Tele Noticias 24, Univision, Globovision, and Voice of America, and is a frequent public speaker in Washington and Latin America.

Hirst has his Masters degree in International Development from Brandeis University. He grew up in Argentina, Costa Rica and Venezuela where his parents were Baptist missionaries.

Sandy Kress
Fellow in Education Policy
George W. Bush Institute

Sandy Kress was appointed Fellow in Education Policy at The George W. Bush Institute in January 2010. As a fellow, Kress will focus on the Middle School Matters program by conducting research and directing policy for initiatives to achieve the aim that every American high school graduate is college-ready and prepared for a good job.

Kress concurrently serves as a Senior Counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, where his practice focuses on public law and policy at the state and national levels with a strong focus on education matters, including policies, reform and accountability.

Previously, Kress served as senior advisor to President George W. Bush on education with respect to the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. He also previously served as president of the board of trustees of the Dallas Public Schools.

In 1991, Kress was appointed by Texas Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock to the Educational Economic Policy Center. He was later asked to chair the Center’s Accountability Committee. This committee produced the public school accountability system that was later adopted into Texas state law and recognized as one of the most advanced accountability systems in the nation. Lieutenant Governor Bullock also appointed Kress to serve in 1994 on the Interim Committee to study the Texas Education Agency. In December 2007, Kress was appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to serve on the Select Committee on Public School Accountability which is tasked with thoroughly reviewing the public school accountability system.

Governor Perry appointed Kress in April 2007 to chair the Commission for a College Ready Texas. This commission issued recommendations to promote greater college/work readiness among Texas high school graduates. Kress was also appointed by Governor Perry in December 2007 to serve on the Governor’s Competitiveness Council, which was launched to identify obstacles to global competitiveness and to seek recommendations on ways Texas can enhance its economic footing for long-term, sustained success.

Kress formerly served on the Education Commission of the States, and he currently serves as counsel to the Governor’s Business Council. He is also a life member of the board of directors of the Texas Business & Education Coalition. Kress was named a senior fellow of the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership in 2009.

Kress received a Bachelor of Arts in 1971 from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. with honors in 1975 from the University of Texas School of Law, where he served as president of the student government. He is a member of the Texas and District of Columbia Bars.

Joshua Muravchik
Fellow in Human Freedom
George W. Bush Institute

Joshua Muravchik joined the George W. Bush Institute as a Fellow in Human Freedom in September 2011. As a fellow, he will contribute to the Institute’s goal of expanding the reach of liberty by fostering democracy and supporting advocates of freedom. Muravchik’s most recent book (2009) is “The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East,” which he will update to reflect the events of the Arab Spring. He is the author of eight previous books, including “Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism” (2001), and “Exporting Democracy: Fulfilling America’s Destiny” (1991). He has also published more than 400 articles on politics and international affairs, contributing to, among others, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New York Times Magazine, Commentary, The New Republic, and The Weekly Standard. His blogs appear regularly at www.worldaffairsjournal.org.

Muravchik received his Ph.D. in international relations from Georgetown University and is an adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and an adjunct professor at the Institute for World Politics. He is also a fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.

Muravchik serves on the editorial boards of World Affairs, the Journal of Democracy, and the Journal of International Security Affairs. He formerly served as a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion; the Commission on Broadcasting to the People’s Republic of China; and the Maryland Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Previously he was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Some years back, The Wall Street Journal’s op-ed editor wrote: “Muravchik may be the most cogent and careful of the neoconservative writers on foreign policy.”

Michael J. Podgursky
Fellow in Education Policy
George W. Bush Institute

Michael J. Podgursky serves as a Fellow in Education Policy at The George W. Bush Institute. As a Fellow, Podgursky will contribute to the Bush Institute’s goal of excellence in American education by working to improve the leadership capacity of America’s school principals and strengthen schools to ensure every American high school graduate is college-ready and prepared for a good job.

Podgursky is regarded as one of the nation’s foremost economists in education matters. His research in areas such as education finance, education productivity, and educator compensation systems is published throughout the world and frequently cited as the intellectual underpinning for reform legislation and innovative government programs.

Podgursky is Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri ? Columbia, where he served as department chair from 1995-2005. Dr. Podgursky serves on the board of editors of Education Finance and Policy, Peabody Journal of Education, and the advisory boards for the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Research Council, the National Council on Teacher Quality, American Board of Certification of Teacher Excellence, and various research institutes.

Dr. Podgursky has published many articles and reports on teacher compensation, teacher quality, and teacher labor markets, and co-authored a book, Teacher Pay and Teacher Quality.  His research has been supported by federal and state agencies as well as several private foundations. He is also a co-investigator at the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University and the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research (CALDER) at the Urban Institute.

Prior to the University of Missouri-Columbia, Podgursky was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst from 1980-1995. He is a member of the American Economic Association, American Education Finance Association, and the Society of Labor Economists.

Podgursky earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Mohsen Sazegara
Visiting Fellow in Human Freedom
George W. Bush Institute

Mohsen Sazegara was appointed the second Visiting Fellow in the Human Freedom area of engagement at the George W. Bush Institute in 2010. In this role, Sazegara helps further the Institute’s efforts to empower and educate pro-democracy dissidents and freedom advocates, and to develop networks of activists around the world.

Sazegara is an Iranian dissident, writer, and political activist. He was a founding member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and key aide to Ayatollah Khomeini before becoming disillusioned with Iran’s regime and its brutal repression of Iran’s people. His reformist policies eventually resulted in his arrest in early 2003, after which he left the country. He has since actively worked for greater freedom and democracy for his native Iran and has become a major figure in the country’s Green Movement.

Sazegara also serves as president of the Research Institute on Contemporary Iran (RICI).

Sazegara has been a visiting professor at several universities in Iran and has held visiting scholar positions at Yale University and Harvard University. He also served as publisher of several reformist newspapers closed by regime hardliners and was managing director of Iran’s press cooperative company.

Sazegara earned a Master of Arts in history at Shahid Beheshti University in Iran and completed his doctoral thesis focusing on religious intellectuals in Iran at the University of London, Royal Holloway. Sazegara is an exiled Iranian citizen currently living in the United States.

Eric J. Smith
Fellow in Education Policy
George W. Bush Institute

Eric Smith began his education career in Florida as a classroom teacher more than 30 years ago. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Physical Science and Education from Colorado State University, Commissioner Smith was eager to share his love of science with students of all ages. He accepted a position at Union Park Junior High School in Orange County, Fla., where he remained for seven years teaching mathematics and science, eventually serving as the science department chair. Commissioner Smith moved to Oak Ridge High School in 1979 to serve as Assistant Principal of Curriculum and Instruction and became principal of Winter Park High School in 1982. During his tenure, he implemented the International Baccalaureate program, and the school was recognized by the National Education Association as one of the top eight schools in the nation. In 1986, he continued his career in Volusia County as a Regional Assistant Superintendent and in 1988 became the district’s Chief Officer for Management Planning. He earned a Doctorate in Education in curriculum and instruction from the University of Florida in 1984.

Eric’s unwavering commitment to affecting positive change in the field of education led him to Virginia, North Carolina and Maryland where he served as a district superintendent for the next 16 years, and eventually to the national stage with the College Board in 2006 as Senior Vice President for College Readiness. He was responsible for leading the EXCELerator project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which aims to prepare all students for college. The project is now implemented in five school districts across the country, including Duval and Hillsborough in Florida, inspiring nearly 45,000 students.

Central to his work, beginning at Winter Park High School in 1982, and continuing in each district thereafter, has been the expansion of Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs. His leadership in each school district led to significant gains in academic achievement, increased enrollment in rigorous coursework and advanced studies, improved reading and math scores among elementary students, and meaningful progress toward lessening the achievement gap among minority student populations. He also created meaningful working relationships with members of the diverse communities he served, the business community, the faith community, and the district’s elected officials to cultivate a shared commitment to education of the highest quality.

Throughout his career, Commissioner Smith’s goals have remained constant: to increase the academic achievement of all students and to reduce the disparity in achievement among student subgroups. His success in consistently meeting these goals in Florida and other states, as well as at the national level, bears testimony to his own passion to change students’ lives, the urgency he brings to the challenges involved, and the leadership he demonstrates in ensuring the involvement of all stakeholders.

Eric has previously served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees for The College Board, and was a member on the Board of Directors for the Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program. He was the Chair of the National Assessment of Title 1 Independent Review Panel in 2003 and was named Florida’s Commissioner of Education in 2007.

Matthew G. Springer
Fellow in Education Policy
George W. Bush Institute

Matthew G. Springer serves as a Fellow in Education Policy at The George W. Bush Institute. As a Fellow, Springer will contribute to the Bush Institute’s goal of excellence in American education by working to improve the leadership capacity of America’s school principals and strengthen schools to keep students on the path toward college and career readiness.

Springer is the nation’s leading expert on performance incentives as applied to education. He is also an expert in education finance and policy. He is particularly well known among researchers for his analytical grasp of state, national, and international education data systems and their application towards productive policy paths. Springer is also known for his creative application of evaluation to appraise the success or failure of complicated education reform strategies and practices.

Springer, director of the federally-funded National Center on Performance Incentives, is an assistant professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College. Springer’s research interests involve educational policy issues, with a particular focus on the impact of policy on resource allocation decisions and student outcomes. His current research includes studies of the impact of performance-based incentives on student achievement and teacher turnover, mobility, and quality; the strategic resource allocation decision-making of schools in response to No Child Left Behind; and the impact of school finance litigation on resource distribution.

Springer’s work has appeared in numerous academic journals, including Economics of Education Review, Education Economics, Education Next, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ Regional Economic Development, Journal of Education Finance, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management and Peabody Journal of Education. He is co-author of a leading education finance textbook, Modern Education Finance and Policy, and editor or co-editor of four more books, including Performance Incentives: Their Growing Impact on American K-12 Education and Handbook of Research on School Choice.

Springer has also served on several advisory committees charged with designing performance-based compensation systems for teachers and principals at the state and district level, and conducted analyses of school finance systems in Alaska, Kentucky and South Carolina.

Prior to joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University, Springer was a teacher and administrator at a boarding school in upstate New York. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in education and psychology from Denison University and a Ph.D. in education finance and policy from Vanderbilt University.