Weiser Diplomacy Center

Stephen E. Biegun is the Weiser International Policymaker in Residence with the Weiser Diplomacy Center at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He has more than three decades of international affairs experience in…

Joining the Foreign Service in 2002, Fintor, a UM alumni and Detroit native, served as U.S. Embassy spokesperson in the Middle East, South Asia, and Europe. As Diplomat in Residence (DIR), Fintor provides information on State Department opportunities…

Ambassador Mark Pekala (BA Political Science '81) has served as Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) in Paris, DCM in Tallinn, Deputy Assistant Secretary (DAS) in the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, and Senior Director for…

Ken Roy is a U.S. State Department Diplomat in Residence at the Ford School. He is the new Diplomat in Residence for the North Central Region. He worked as a lawyer and is now on a political officer career track, and he is fluent in Spanish, basic…

Ambassador (Ret.) Daniel Shields is a visiting policy practitioner at the Ford School's Weiser Diplomacy Center. He consults, teaches courses and conducts simulations relating to diplomacy and U.S.-Asia relations. From 2015-18, while on detail from…

Kseniya Yurtayeva a visiting scholar at the University of Michigan, with support from the Weiser Diplomacy Center. Her current scientific interests focus on cyberaggression as a method applied in contemporary warfare and on engaging post-truth for…

Levitsky serves as senior associate of the school's International Policy Center, and senior advisor to the Weiser Diplomacy Center. During his 35-year career as a U.S. diplomat, Levitsky was ambassador to Brazil from 1994-98 and held such senior positions as Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, ambassador to Bulgaria, deputy director of the Voice of America, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights.

Lin, a political scientist, studies how people experience policy implementation. Her current work examines racial and ethnic difference in the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic; bias reduction against Muslims; national security scapegoating of immigrant groups; conservatism among immigrants; and subnational labor migration policy.

Page applies her vast foreign policy experience to the Weiser Diplomacy Center. She has served the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations in senior roles for decades, across East, Central, and Southern Africa, and in Haiti and Nepal. Page was the first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan and served as Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations in Haiti.

Nayab brings hands-on policy and research experience from her previous roles at The Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress. She completed her undergraduate studies at Pitzer College in California. She holds a diploma in Politics,…

Basma holds a BA in Language and Literature and an MA in Cultural Studies from Cairo, Egypt. She recently joined the Weiser Diplomacy Center (WDC) as an Administrative Assistant. Prior to this, she was a fellow at the Center for Interreligious and…

Zuzana Selcova Wiseley is the Senior Assistant to the Dean. Zuzana has over 20 years of experience in public and private fields of international relations and higher education. She manages WDC's international policy program development, student…