{"id":8614,"date":"2009-01-01T22:27:17","date_gmt":"2009-01-01T11:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groundreportindia.org\/monthly\/?page_id=8614"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:35:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T02:35:43","slug":"international-board","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/groundreportindia.org\/monthly\/home\/international-board\/","title":{"rendered":"The International Board (2018 Onwards)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Board of Advisors, BoA <\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

John Szemerey, Belgium<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

The Chairperson – Honorary<\/em><\/p>\n

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John Szemerey is a political journalist. He retired in summer 2005 after working over 30 years in the information services of the European Commission, Brussels. Before that he had been features writer with a Fleet Street agency and he had been Westminster columnist for two newspapers. He is now Chairman of the International Division of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, the oldest and most senior professional organisation of journalists in the world.<\/p>\n

John, 69, was born in Hungary but escaped to England with his parents in 1949, when the Communists were tightening their grip on the country. He had most of his education in England, although he also won an exchange scholarship for a year at a top school in the USA. He studied financial and administrative management at the University of Louvain, Belgium.<\/p>\n

When Britain joined the European Community in 1973 he immediately applied for a job with the European Commission. As a political columnist he felt he must know at first hand how the EC worked.  He was successful and was one of the first Brits to work for the Commission when he started there in January 1974.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntending to stay at the Commission for two or three years,\u201d says John, \u201cI found the work so interesting and the international situation \u2013 working alongside colleagues from other European countries \u2013 so challenging and stimulating, that I stayed for over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof Rudolf J. Siebert PhD, USA\/Germany<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

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Rudolf J. Siebert was born in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. He studied history, philology, philosophy, sociology, psychoanalysis, and theology at the University of Frankfurt a.M.<\/a>, the University of Mainz<\/a>, the University of Munster<\/a>, and the Catholic University of America<\/a>, Washington D.C. from 1947 – 1955.<\/p>\n

Professor Siebert has taught, lectured, and published widely in Western and Eastern Europe, the United States, and Canada. He is a professor of Religion and Society in the Department of Comparative Religion<\/a> at Western Michigan University<\/a>, Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA. <\/p>\n

He is the director of the Centre for Humanistic Future Studies at Western Michigan University since 1980, the director of the international course on the “Future of Religion” in the Inter-University Centre<\/a> for Post-Graduate Studies in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia\/Croatia since 1975, and the international course on “Religion and Civil Society” in Yalta, Crimea, and Ukraine since 1999. The Inter-University Centre is sponsored by the University of Simferopol, Simferopol, Ukraine, and Western Michigan University. <\/p>\n

Professor Siebert’s main works are The Critical Theory of Religion: Frankfurt School, and From Critical Theory to Critical Political Theology: Personal Autonomy and Universal Solidarity. From 1955 to the present, Professor Siebert has developed the critical or dialectical theory of religion out of the critical theory of society, from the endeavours of the Institute for Social Research at the University of Frankfurt, globally known as the “Frankfurt School,” and in continual discourse with sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, economists, philosophers, religiologists, and theologians from the United States, Canada, England, Belgium, Holland, France, Germany, Yugoslavia \/ Croatia, Israel, and Columbia.<\/p>\n

The dialectical theory of religion emphasises the three global alternative futures of society: Future I – the totally administered society; Future II – the entirely militarised society; and Future III – the reconciled society. It stresses the three global alternative futures of religion: Future I – religious fundamentalism; Future II – total secularization; Future III – the open dialectic between the religious and the secular aiming at a post-modern reconciliation between a reformed religion and a transformed secular enlightenment.<\/p>\n

Prof Michael Brenner PhD, USA<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

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Michael Brenner is a recognised authority on risk assessment & management, American foreign policy, and geopolitics. He is a “Fellow” of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and a Fellow at the Centre for Transatlantic Relations SAIS-Johns Hopkins.  He also is Emeritus Professor of International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. He was the Director of the International Relations & Global Studies Program at the University of Texas until 2012.<\/p>\n

He has been an advisor to the United States government, a consultant to global corporations, a prominent participant in the programs of leading Washington think tanks and a prolific commentator on public affairs. His record of publication on a broad span of international issues is complementary to his extensive activities in the policy realm. <\/p>\n

He contributes essays regularly to the Huffington Post, the National Journal, and the Pakistani Spectator and also has written for al-Arabiya. Prof Brenner\u2019s consulting includes the United States Department of State and Defence, the Foreign Service Institute, Westinghouse Corporation and Mellon Bank.<\/p>\n

Professor Brenner has worked in the energy field for 30 years. He directed a project on International Energy & Natural Resources Issues sponsored by the Exxon Educational Foundation that produced a series of 20 case studies. He contributed studies of the Persian Gulf Reflagging Crisis, Oil as a Coercive Instrument in the 1970s, United States \u2013 China Bilateral Nuclear Accord, and US-France Dealings in Nuclear Energy. In addition, he organised the Pittsburgh Energy Seminar while at the Graduate School of Public & International Affairs, was Rapporteur for the Conference on Technology Transfer: Government & Industry in the Energy Sector at M.I.T. In the environmental policy field, he has conducted research on environmental management issues at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography (La Jolla), Natural Sciences Research Council (London), and the Center For International Affairs (Harvard University).<\/p>\n

He is the author of America\u2019s Environmental Dilemma (Lexington Books) and The Scientific Advisory Function (Scripps Brenner is the author of numerous books, and over 70 articles and published papers on a wide range of topics. His most recent works are:; Democracy Promotion and Islam; Fear and Dread In The Middle East (also translated into Arabic);; Toward A More Independent Europe  (Royal Institute of International Relations), Brussels), Narcissistic Public Personalities & Our Times.<\/p>\n

His writings include books with Cambridge University Press (Nuclear Power and Non-Proliferation), the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University (The Politics of International Monetary Reform);  Institute of International Affairs at Cornell University (The Functionalist Theory of European Integration); the Brookings Institution (Reconcilable Differences, US-French Relations In The New Era) and publications in major journals in the United States and Europe, such as World Politics, Comparative Politics, Foreign Policy, International Studies Quarterly, International Affairs, Survival, Politique Etrangere, and Internationale Politik. Prof Brenner has directed multinational research projects with colleagues in France, England, Germany and Italy supported by grants from the Ford Foundation, NATO and the Commission of the European Union.<\/p>\n

Brenner is an invited lecturer at major universities and institutes in the United States and abroad, including Georgetown University, UCLA, the National Defence University, the State Department, Sorbonne, Ecole des Sciences Politiques, Royal Institute of International Affairs, International Institute of Strategic Studies (London), King\u2019s College of the University of London, German Council on Foreign Relations, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and Universita di Firenze.<\/p>\n

Brenner has held previous teaching and research appointments at Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Brookings Institution, University of California \u2013 San Diego, University of California \u2013 Berkeley, and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the National Defence University.  He also has been a Fellow of the Centre on France & the United States in Paris.<\/p>\n

His memberships include: APSA, ISA, IISS, Forum du Futur (Paris).<\/p>\n

Prof Brenner is proficient in French and English.<\/p>\n

  • Ph.D. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley<\/li>\n
  • M.A. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley<\/li>\n
  • B.A. Political Science, Summa Cum Lauda, Phi Beta Kappa , Brooklyne College \u2013 CUNY<\/li>\n
  • Certificate, International Relations, Stockholm University, Sweden<\/li>\n

    Prof Willem Vervoort PhD, Australia\/Netherlands<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

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    Willem Vervoort has an undergraduate degree from Wageningen University<\/a> in the Netherlands and a PhD in field hydrology from the University of Georgia<\/a>, USA. He has been working at the University of Sydney<\/a>, Australia since 1999.<\/p>\n

    He works with variety projects related to water, agriculture and the environment as groundwater interactions in stochastic ecohydrological models to predict vegetation distributions, measuring transmission losses from semi-arid rivers, probabilistic forecasting of rainfall, droughts and river flows, managing uncertainty in hydrological modeling, identifying spatial and temporal variability in groundwater levels and quality.<\/p>\n

    He works internationally with capacity building projects and research projects, collaborating with various universities and research organisations in Mexico, the UK, the Netherlands, and in India. <\/p>\n

    Prof Kamal Kishore Sharma PhD<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

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