Most of our AM students enter our program with a specific career goal in mind. CMES and Harvard offer a number of career planning resources for all of our students.

Through CMES, we offer Career Exploration Workshops, a Job and Fellowships Board where we list any jobs and fellowships we are made aware of, and a network of alumni working in many job sectors that have agreed to talk with students who contact them.

Harvard also offers an array of career services. For more information check out the Office of Career Services page.

On the right you’ll also find a list of online job search tools that may also be of use.

AM Career Exploration Workshops

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies hosts multiple career workshops throughout the year specifically for CMES AM students. These workshops offer AM students the opportunity to meet with a variety of professionals who work in some area of Middle Eastern Studies. Guest speakers meet with students in an informal setting to discuss career planning and goals. Past workshops have included visits from journalists, policy makers, U.S. State Department officials, scholars in Washington D.C. think tanks, etc. This is a wonderful opportunity for AM students to learn first-hand about careers in government, journalism, public policy, business, NGOs, to name but a few

In the 2006-2007 academic year we will welcome the following distinguished speakers to address our students:

Ambassador Barbara Bodine, a former career diplomat who served in 2003 as coordinator for post-conflict reconstruction for Baghdad and the central governates of Iraq, and from 1997-2001 as U.S. Ambassador to Yemen, is currently a Visiting Fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies (CIS).

Michael Connell is an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). He earned his Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and his B.A. in Near Eastern Studies from Brandeis University. He also studied Persian at Tehran University and while serving in the U.S. Army. While at CNA, Dr. Connell has directed or authored several studies that focus on political, military, and security issues related to the Middle East and South Asia. During the course of his military and academic careers, he has traveled extensively in those regions. He specializes in Iranian history and politics, and is currently conducting research on the role of the Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iranian national security decision-making. Prior to joining CNA, Dr. Connell served as a military intelligence officer in the U.S. Army.

Dexter Filkins has served as Baghdad correspondent for The New York Times. As a 2006-2007 Nieman Fellow he will study the interaction between the West and Islamic world since the September 11 attacks, with special emphasis on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Eliza Griswold is a freelance journalist who has written for The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and The New York Times Magazine. As a 2006-2007 Nieman Fellow she will study the hardening of political and religious fault lines between Christianity and Islam along the Tenth Parallel and their global impact. Ms. Griswold's poems have appeared in the Yale Review, the New Republic, the Paris Review, the Antioch Review, and Western Humanities Review, and will be published in the Spring.

David Miller M.S.W., University of Michigan. M.A. Northeastern University. B.A. Brown University. Former Research Fellow at Brown University Watson Institute for International Relations(1990-2000). Past employment includes: deputy vice president for Programs, Save the Children Federation; Rural Development Officer, Near East Bureau within the United States Agency for International Development; acting country director, Peace Corps Tunisia; training officer, Peace Corps Afghanistan; Peace Corps Volunteer, Morocco; Teaching Fellow, University of Michigan; written extensively on local participation and scaling up strategies in the NGO sector.

Paul Smyke will present an overview of his work with the World Economic Forum, and will engage students in thinking about different career opportunities for people with Middle Eastern-related skills and experience, career paths and advancement.

John Walsh (AM ’04), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Biography currently unavailable.