Hume, Khalilzad, and Nathan Join NED Board of Directors

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Annenberg Fellow Ellen Hume, Khalilzad Associates President and CEO Zalmay Khalilzad, and Columbia University Professor Andrew J. Nathan have joined the Board of Directors of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).  All three were elected for a three-year term on January 15, 2010.

"Each of these three new board members brings tremendous experience and insight to NED," said NED Chairman Richard Gephardt, who is also President and CEO of Gephardt Government Affairs. "I know that their service will greatly benefit the Endowment and our grantees, who are working to spread, strengthen and defend democracy in every corner of the world."  

Ellen Hume is an Annenberg Fellow in Civic Media at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at Central European University in Budapest.  Before beginning the post in June 2009, she served as the research director for the Center for Future Civic Media at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  In 2004, Hume founded the Center on Media and Society at the University of Massachusetts in Boston.  From 1996-1998, she served as the Executive Director of PBS's Democracy Project and oversaw election coverage for the network.  Hume also served from 1988-1993 as Executive Director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, and has worked for more than 30 years as a reporter and analyst for various news outlets. Her prizewinning study, Tabloids, Talk Radio and the Future of News was first published in 1995.  

Zalmay Khalilzad is  Counselor at CSIS and President and CEO of Khalilzad Associates, an international advisory firm.  Under President George W. Bush, Khalilzad served as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the United Nations. Ambassador Khalilzad was born and raised in Afghanistan, and studied at the American University of Beirut, where he received his BA and MA.  Later he received his PhD from the University of Chicago. From 1979-1984, Khalilzad was Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.  Khalilzad served on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and as Special Advisor to the Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs from 1985-1989.  He was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning from 1990 to 1992.  In November 2003, President Bush appointed Khalilzad Ambassador to Afghanistan, a position he held until 2005, when he became US Ambassador to Iraq.  In 2007, he was confirmed unanimously to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held until January 2009.  

Andrew J. Nathan is the Class of 1919 Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.  His research focus includes Chinese politics and foreign policy, human rights, and the comparative study of political participation and political culture.  Dr. Nathan is researching Chinese foreign policy and political legitimacy in Asia, the latter based on the multi-national collaborative Asian Barometer Survey. Nathan received his BA in history, summa cum laude, his MA in East Asian Regional Studies, and his PhD in Political Science, all from Harvard University.  From 1970-1971 he taught at the University of Michigan, and he has taught at Columbia University since 1971. Nathan has written and edited dozens of books and articles on politics and government in Asia, and sits on the editorial review board of the Journal of Democracy, The China Quarterly, The Journal of Contemporary China, and China Information among others.  

The National Endowment for Democracy was created in 1983 as a private, nonprofit, grant-making foundation with a mission to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. With an annual appropriation from the U.S. Congress, the NED Board, which is independent and bipartisan, makes more than a thousand grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in nearly 90 countries. The Endowment supports projects that promote political and economic freedom and participation, human rights, a strong civil society, independent media and the rule of law.

SOURCE National Endowment for Democracy