Keynote Time: Friday, 4:00 - 5:30 PM in Loosemore Auditorium

Edward B. Westermann received his doctorate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is a Regents Professor of History and a Piper Professor of 2023 at Texas A&M University-San Antonio.  He has published extensively on the Holocaust and military history, and he is the author of Hitler’s Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars: Comparing Genocide and Conquest (Oklahoma, 2016), Hitler’s Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East (Kansas, 2005), Flak: German Anti-aircraft Defenses, 1914-1945 (Kansas, 2001) and the co-editor of Expeditionary Police Advising and Militarization: Building Security in a Fractured World (Helion, 2018) and Air Force Advising and Assistance: Developing Airpower in Client States (Helion, 2018).  He is a former Fulbright Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, a US Holocaust Memorial Museum Fellow, a three-time fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service, a Clements Center Fellow of the DeGolyer Library at SMU, and a Fellow of Keene State College’s Genocide Studies and Prevention Program.  He has won numerous teaching awards and was inducted into Texas A&M University-System Chancellor’s Academy of Teacher Educators in 2018.  Dr. Westermann’s areas of expertise include modern European history, the Holocaust, and war and society.  His newest book, Drunk with Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany is with Cornell University Press in association with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and was published in March 2021.  He was a J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Fellow at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum for AY 2018-2019.  From January 2019 unit September 2021, he served as a Commissioner on the Texas Holocaust and Genocide Commission.

Keynote Time: Saturday 1:45 - 3:15 PM in Loosemore Auditorium

Dessa Bergen-Cico is a Professor in the Department of Public Health, Coordinator of the Addiction Studies program and faculty in the Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program at Syracuse University. She holds a Research Appointment at the Syracuse Veterans Administration Medical Center and Fellow of the American Academy of Health Care Providers in the Addictive Disorders. Professor Bergen-Cico is a Certified Addiction Specialist (CAS), Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES) and a Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Teacher. She completed her MBSR Teacher Training through the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dessa has been selected for two Fulbright Scholar and was selected as a Rotary Peace Fellow in the International Rotary Peace Program at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.

Keynote Time: Saturday 9:30-11:00 AM, ON ZOOM (link coming soon)

Peter Andreas is the John Hay Professor of International Studies. He joined the Institute in the fall of 2001, and holds a joint appointment with the Department of Political Science. Previously, Andreas was an academy scholar at Harvard University, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and an SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Fellow on International Peace and Security. He holds an MA and PhD in government from Cornell University and a BA in political science from Swarthmore College.

Andreas is the author, co-author, or co-editor of eleven books. These include Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America (Oxford University Press, 2013, selected by Amazon and by Foreign Affairs as one of the best books of the year), Blue Helmets and Black Markets: The Business of Survival in the Siege of Sarajevo (Cornell University Press, 2008); Policing the Globe: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2006); and Border Games: Policing the U.S.-Mexico Divide (Cornell University Press, 2000, 2nd ed 2009, 3rd ed 2021). He has also written a political memoir, Rebel Mother: My Childhood Chasing the Revolution (Simon & Schuster, 2017, selected by Foreign Affairs as a best book of the year). His most recent book, Killer High: A History of War in Six Drugs (Oxford University Press, 2020), explores the relationship between warfare and mind altering substances, from ancient times to the present. 

Andreas has also written for a wide range of scholarly and policy publications, including International Security, International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, Harper's, Slate, Time Magazine, and The Nation. Other writings include congressional testimonies and op-eds in major newspapers, such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and The Guardian.