6:00 pm on Sunday, Nov. 13, at the JH Center for the Arts

Teton County Model UN will once again kick off our conference with a free public keynote event at the Center for the Arts. To celebrate Model UN’s spirit of dialogue and collaboration, this year’s event will feature a conversation between two international affairs experts with diverse backgrounds: Ambassador Ed Gabriel and Professor Eric Nigh. Amb. Gabriel and Prof. Nigh will discuss the concept of American exceptionalism as it relates to U.S. foreign policy in a changing world order. The conversation will be moderated by former Jackson Hole High School student America Martinez.

Amb. Gabriel has an extensive background in international affairs, having convened multilateral policy forums involving national security, trade, and energy issues. He has been involved in matters of Russian nuclear non-proliferation, and he has been active in advising the U.S. government on Middle East policy concerns. In 1997, he became the 16th U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco. Currently, Ambassador Gabriel is the volunteer President and CEO of the American Task Force on Lebanon, a nonprofit organization that seeks to build greater understanding and cultural ties between the United States and Lebanon. He was also recently appointed as a board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Amb. Gabriel is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and ACCESS Arab American of the Year.

Prof. Nigh is the Director of the Arabic and Middle East Studies Program at the University of Wyoming. Prof. Nigh’s research focuses on the complicating factors of the United States’ post-conflict development policies in the Middle East. Prior to joining the University of Wyoming, Prof. Nigh was a program manager and civil society development expert with over 12 years of experience managing large-scale donor-funded programs in Iraq. He was instrumental in the start-up of the Iraqi American Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Baghdad and served four years as Chief of Party of the USAID-funded Access to Justice Program (A2J) in Iraq that produced two pieces of legislation and provided direct legal assistance to more than 30,000 vulnerable Iraqi families.

Last year, we welcomed Kristjan Archer, senior communications consultant at Gallup, Inc. for a presentation titled “The Rise of Global Suffering and Wellbeing Inequality.” You can view Kristjan’s presentation on our YouTube channel.