Policy Salon for Tuesday, February 21st
Sponsored by the John Glenn School of Public Affairs
RSVP to interns@atdevserver.com
Tuesday, February 21, 6:30p.m. Contact WISH office for location
Joel Hirst, Fellow in Human Freedom
George W. Bush Center at Texas A&M University
Diplomatic Implications of Social Media
Before joining the George W. Bush Institute as a Fellow in Human Freedom, Joel Hirst was a recipient of the prestigious International Affairs Fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations. As a fellow at the Council, he researched the Cuba/Venezuela sponsored Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas and wrote the first English language book on the subject titled “ALBA: Venezuela’s Bolivarian Alliance and its New World Order.”
Hirst worked for six years with USAID’s Office of Transition Initiative in Uganda, focusing on post conflict transition in Lord’s Resistance Army affected areas and received the Field Team of the Year Award. In Venezuela, he worked for four years on democracy promotion, elections, civil society, and human rights; receiving a Superior Honor Award for work on the 2007 constitutional referendum. Prior to this, Hirst worked as a humanitarian relief worker with World Vision in countries such as Pakistan, Venezuela, Kosovo, DR Congo, Chad, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Hirst has written chapters for books by the International Republican Institute and the University of Miami on Latin American policy, as well as many articles for Americas Quarterly, Fox News, International Business and Development Exchange, The Commentator, and El Universal. He blogs for Huffington Post. Hirst has also done TV interviews for Nuestra Tele Noticias 24, Univision, Globovision, and Voice of America, and is a frequent public speaker in Washington and Latin America.
Hirst has his Masters degree in International Development from Brandeis University. He grew up in Argentina, Costa Rica and Venezuela where his parents were Baptist missionaries.