Speaker biographies

Arthur C. Brooks became the president of AEI on January 1, 2009. Previously, he was Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and an AEI visiting scholar. Mr. Brooks is the author of Who Really Cares (Basic Books, 2006), which examines American charitable giving; the widely acclaimed Gross National Happiness (Basic Books, 2008); and a textbook on social entrepreneurship. The Battle (Basic Books), his forthcoming book on the coming culture war in America over free enterprise is scheduled to be published in June 2010.

Jon Entine is a visiting fellow at AEI. A former Emmy-winning producer for NBC News and ABC News, he researches and writes about corporate responsibility, science, and society. His books include Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People (Grand Central Publishing, 2007), which focuses on the genetics of race; the best-selling Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk about It (Public Affairs, 2000), based on an award-winning NBC News documentary; and No Crime but Prejudice: Fischer Homes, the Immigration Fiasco, and Extra-judicial Prosecution (TFG Books, 2009), about prosecutorial excesses. Entine is an adviser to the joint AEI–Federalist Society Global Governance Watch, a project that examines transparency and accountability issues at the United Nations, in nongovernmental organizations, and in related international organizations.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at AEI. His first book, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950–1980 (Basic Books, 1984), which argued that the antipoverty programs of the Great Society were hurting the poor, was widely criticized when it was originally published. Twelve years later, it was being credited as the intellectual inspiration for the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. His 1994 New York Times bestseller, The Bell Curve (Free Press), coauthored with the late Richard J. Herrnstein, sparked heated controversy for its analysis of the role of IQ on life outcomes in America, but it has found support from a growing body of scientific evidence in years since. Mr. Murray has written many books and scores of articles for publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, National Review, and the Washington Post, and he has been the subject of cover stories by Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. National Journal named him one of fifty people who make a difference in national policymaking.

Walter Reich is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics, and Human Behavior and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University. He is also a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and a former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Additionally, Mr. Reich is a lecturer in psychiatry at Yale University, professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and contributing editor to The Wilson Quarterly. He has written and lectured widely on the Holocaust and genocide, terrorism, human rights, national memory, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, psychiatry, medical ethics, and national and international affairs. He is the author of A Stranger in My House: Jews and Arabs in the West Bank (Holt, 1984), a coauthor of State of the Struggle: Report on the Battle against Global Terrorism (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), and the editor of Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (Johns Hopkins University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998). His articles and essays have appeared in scholarly and scientific publications as well as in such newspapers and magazines as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Commentary, and The New Republic.

Sally Satel, M.D., is a resident scholar at AEI. She is also the staff psychiatrist at the Oasis Clinic in Washington, D.C. She has served on the advisory committee for the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and, she was a member of the Fowler Commission that investigated sexual misconduct at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Previously, Dr. Satel was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow with the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee and, prior to that, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine . Dr. Satel has testified before a number of congressional committees, and she has been published widely in academic journals on topics in psychiatry and addiction medicine. She has also written articles on cultural aspects of medicine and science that have appeared in the New York Times, The New Republic, Commentary, The Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Satel is the author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine (Basic Books, 2001), coauthor of One Nation Under Therapy (with Christina Hoff Sommers; St. Martin's Press, 2005), and editor of When Altruism Isn't Enough: The Case for Compensating Kidney Donors (AEI Press, 2009).

Nicholas Wade is a scientific reporter, editor, and author who writes for the Science Times section of the New York Times. His book Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (Penguin Press HC, 2006), received a 2007 Science-in-Society journalism award. Wade worked for Nature, a weekly scientific magazine based in London, from 1967 to 1971, becoming deputy editor and Washington correspondent. In 1971 he joined the news staff of Science, a weekly scientific journal published in Washington, and in 1982 became a member of the editorial board of the New York Times, writing editorials on science, health, the environment, and military technology. He was science editor of the New York Times from 1990 to 1996, and has been a science reporter at the Times since 1997. Wade is the author of several books, including Life Script: How the Human Genome Discoveries Will Transform Medicine and Enhance Your Health (Simon & Schuster, 2001) and The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures (Penguin Press HC, 2009).