Biography provided by participant
All of Dr. Sullivan's comments and opinions are his alone, and do not represent the National Defense University or any other organization he may be associated with.
Dr. Paul Sullivan has been a professor of economics at the National Defense University (NDU) since July 1999. He is an Adjunct Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University, where he teaches classes on energy and security. He is also an Adjunct Professor in Georgetown's Department of Science, Technology and International Affairs, where he teaches about energy security in the Middle East, and natural resources and conflict in Africa and the Middle East.
He was Senior Fellow at the East West Institute (EWI) during 2007. As part of his responsibilities he co-lead an EWI delegation to Jordan, where he met with some present and past senior leaders of the country, including members of the Royal Family, to discuss western-Arab relations. He was also part of the first meeting of the EWI Trialogue21 with high-level delegations from China and the EU. He was a central speaker at the EWI conference on natural resources and security in Berlin, Germany in December 2006. Sullivan has also been a research fellow at the Independent Institute, for whom he has written articles on Middle East issues.
Sullivan has also been involved in the energy work at the UNCTAD with a focus on energy cooperation issues and Africa. In December 2006 he was part of an expert meeting on energy issues in developing countries for UNCTAD in Geneva, Switzerland. In late May 2007, he was a central participant in UNCTAD's Oil and Gas conference in Nairobi, Kenya.
Sullivan has been part of the Energy Consensus Group of Washington, DC. He regularly briefs various groups in the Washington, DC area on various energy, Middle East and Islamic issues. Sullivan has been the lead of the Energy Industry Study and the North Africa and Levant Regional Security Study. He is now part of the Environment Industry Study at NDU.
This summer he was 9 weeks in Egypt and Jordan meeting with high-level officials, members of the Jordanian Royal Family, academics, military officials, diplomats from the EU and the Arab world, business persons, and more. He also gave talks at the Institute of Diplomacy in Amman, The Arab Thought Forum (a member of the Royal Family introduced him), The Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, and an all-hands talk at the Jordan National Defence Academy.
Recently he was part of a 3.5-hour debate filmed by NHK TV of Japan on oil markets, speculators, and the future of energy with energy experts from Japan, China, the UAE and Russia. Sullivan was also one of the discussion leads of the breakout session "the nuclear imbalance in the Middle East" at a major UN conference on nuclear disarmament. He was recently part of a high level, small discussion, which included many former and present senior officials in the US Government, on the financial crisis and green energy at the Brookings Institution.
Recently he ran a workshop on "Energy Systems and Economic Development" for students in the Certificate Program on International Development at Georgetown University. This workshop presented the problems and possibilities found in the energy-development nexus, examples of energy systems (from oil and gas to solar towers, geothermal, ocean energy, efficiency efforts, CSP, wind power, hybrid power systems, and much more), energy-water-food connections, the resource curse, and what is needed to move alternative energy technologies forward in the developing world. In March 2009 he gave numerous talks and briefings on energy, water, political, economic and other issues in Africa, the EU, Central Asia, and more during a visit to Naples, Italy. In early May 2009 he was a featured speaker at the St. Andrews Economic Forum on a panel looking into oil conflicts. (www.saef.co.uk)
He was a member of the seminar on religion and development at Georgetown, and he has been an active member of the working groups on Iraq, Iraq, Libya and "The New Marshall Plan for Water and Energy in the Developing World" at the Atlantic Council. Sullivan was an active participant in the Iraq Roundtables run by PILG, which focused on the Iraqi Constitution and other economic-legal issues. He was also part of the Fusion Group on Public Diplomacy at the State Department, and has been involved in many meetings related to strategic communications with the Arab and Muslim worlds. For six years before his time at NDU, Sullivan taught and researched at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he taught classes on the economics and economic history of the Middle East.
Before he moved to Egypt, Sullivan was a consultant to major law firms and others on energy, environment and due diligence issues, and an international energy economist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has lectured at many universities and other venues in the US and worldwide, and was a visiting scholar at Cambridge University for two summers.
Sullivan is an active member of Columbia University's GULF2000 network. He has published on a wide variety of issues related to the economics of war and peace, the political economy of oil and gas, energy security, US-Islamic and US-Arab relations, Iraq, extremism and more. He also has experience in India; having done is Yale Ph.D. research in the country. Sullivan is a member of the College of Fellows of the International Association of Middle Eastern Studies (IAMES), and he is a member of the advisory board of the US-Egyptian Friendship Society.
He is a member of the International Association of Energy Economists, The American Solar Energy Association, The National Association of Business Economists, The Society for International Development, The Middle East Institute, The Shooting Club (Nadi Sid) of Cairo, Egypt, The World Affairs Council of Washington, The US Squash Association and The Yale Club of Washington, DC., The United Nations Association of the Capital Area, and The African Studies Association.
Sullivan is on sabbatical from NDU for 2009. His sabbatical research and writing will include a series of papers on energy and water security in Africa and the Middle East, a group of short articles on the piracy-terrorism-energy connections, a paper on "Obama and the Middle East" for the Institute of Diplomacy, Jordan, and a paper on "The Global Financial Crisis and Africa".
