The conference's Organizing Committee is pleased to announce that Dr. William A. Rugh is the keynote speaker for AUSACE 2007. Following is biographical information about Dr. Rugh and his distinguished career.

William A. Rugh was a career U.S. Foreign Service Officer from 1964 until 1995. He had nine different assignments abroad, serving in Beirut, Cairo and Jidda (twice each), Riyadh, Damascus, Sanaa and Abu Dhabi, the last two as United States Ambassador. In Washington he served in the Near East, North Africa and South Asia Bureau of the U.S. Information Agency three times, including as Bureau Director 1989-92.

From 1995 until 2003 he was President and CEO of the American non-profit organization AMIDEAST that undertakes educational projects throughout the Middle East. Currently he is an Associate of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, an Executive Committee member of the Public Diplomacy Council, a member of the Suffolk University International Advisory Board, a Trustee of the American University in Cairo, and a Board Member at AMIDEAST.

He holds an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins, and a PhD in political science from Columbia University; his PhD dissertation was on the Politics of Broadcasting in Germany. He was an adjunct professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University, 1987-89.

He has published a number of books, monographs and articles on Middle Eastern subjects.

On Arab media, his publications include the following. In 1979, Syracuse University published his book The Arab Press: News Media and Political Process in the Arab World , and in 1987 Syracuse published a second, revised edition. In 2004, Praeger/Greenwood published an updated and completely revised version of the book, entitled Arab Mass Media: News Media and Political Process in the Arab World . His book chapters on Arab media include "Saudi Mass Media and Society in the King Faisal Era", in Beling, Willard A. (ed.), King Faisal and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia , Westview, 1980; "Newspapers and Print Media", and "Radio and Television", in Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa , New York: Thomson Gale, 2004; and "Arab Cultures and Newspapers", in Shannon E. Martin and David A. Copeland, Eds., The Function of Newspapers in Society: A Global Perspective , Praeger, 2003. His articles on Arab media have been published in: The Middle East Journal , vol.29, no.5, 1975; The Carnegie Endowment's Arab Reform Bulletin, December 2004; Global Media Journal , Fall 2004; Transnational Broadcasting Studies nos.14 and 15, and Arab Media and Society , May 2007.

On other subjects, Praeger/Greenwood published his book, American Encounters with Arabs: the 'Soft Power' of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab World (2005); the Public Diplomacy Council published Engaging with the Arab and Islamic Worlds Through Public Diplomacy , 2004, that he edited; and the Emirates Studies and Research Center published his book Diplomacy and Defense Policy of the United Arab Emirates , 2002. He has contributed chapters to several publications, including the following books:  Perspectives on the United Arab Emirates , 1997; King Faisal and the Modernization of Saudi Arabia , 1980; A Century in Thirty Years: Shaykh Zayed and the United Arab Emirates , 2000; and A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism , 2004. For seven years he also wrote the Encyclopedia Britannica yearbook entries for the UAE and Yemen.

In addition, he has published opeds in various American and Arab newspapers, as well as articles in Middle East Policy, the Middle East Journal, the Arab Reform Bulletin , the Wilson Quarterly, The Fletcher Forum, Transnational Broadcasting Studies and the Global media Journal.

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Pulitzer-Prize winning Anthony Shadid, Islamic affairs correspondent for the Washington Post, will speak the morning of Oct. 28 at the first plenary session of the 12th annual conference of AUSACE.

Besides his Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for International Reporting, Mr. Shadid has been recognized by many organizations that matter in the field of journalism, including the Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award, the George Polk Award and the Michael Kelly Award. The Citation of the Pulitzer Prize read: “Awarded to Anthony Shadid of The Washington Post for his extraordinary ability to capture, at personal peril, the voices and emotions of Iraqis as their country was invaded, their leader toppled and their way of life upended.”

Before joining the Post, he worked for two years in Washington with the Boston Globe, where he covered diplomacy and the State Department. Prior to working for the Globe, he was news editor of the Los Angeles bureau of The Associated Press (AP). From 1995 to 1999 he worked as a Middle East correspondent for the AP in Cairo , reporting and writing from most countries in the region.

His book Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War (Henry Holt and Co., 2005) has won wide praise and is now available in paperback. He is also author of Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats and the New Politics of Islam (2000).

Shadid is an American of Lebanese descent. He speaks and reads Arabic. A native of Oklahoma City , Okla. , he studied Arabic at the University of Wisconsin and later was a recipient of a fellowship in 1991-92 at the American University in Cairo . He gained additional understanding of the region through graduate work at Columbia University in New York in 1993-94.