Trustees

RIT Kosovo (A.U.K) Mission and Vision statement was adopted by the AUKF Board of Trustees on May 12, 2017.

• Goal One: Academic Excellence- Achieve recognized academic excellence through an ever-changing teaching and learning environment that best prepares students for the global workforce.
• Goal Two: Research and Innovation – Collaborate to promote excellence in research that supports undergraduate education and innovation with results connected to Kosovo, the region, and/or the global community.
• Goal Three: Resource Management-– Maximize the use of human, technological and fiscal resources for financial sustainability.
• Goal Four: Strategic Enrollment Management - Support a diverse and financially sustainable student body from recruitment to completion to employment.

RIT Kosovo (A.U.K) will be a leading international university whose excellence in academic programs, educational outcomes, and research best supports the professional achievements and personal growth of its students and the advancement of society in Kosovo, the region, and the world.

RIT Kosovo (A.U.K) will deliver an outstanding American education for students from Kosovo and the world through innovative curricular, experiential, and research programs in a student-centered culture.  Our students acquire expertise, knowledge, and values that prepare them to contribute to the global society.

The RIT Kosovo (A.U.K) was founded to support Kosovo and its neighboring countries to develop their economies, societies and democratic institutions, by providing undergraduate, graduate and continuing education programs in the English language.

RIT Kosovo (A.U.K)’s core program is its undergraduate degree program. This will provide an excellent, career-oriented, American liberal arts education which will prepare its graduates to be leaders in their professions and communities, and to be global citizens.

RIT Kosovo (A.U.K) will deliver graduate degree programs, and continuing and professional education and training programs, that are needed for the region’s development and that are appropriately delivered in English by an American institution.

The RIT Board of Trustees consists of 47 active trustees (including the President of the University and representatives of the RIT Alumni Association, the Women’s Council of RIT, and the National Advisory Group of the National Technical Institute for the Deaf) and 32 trustees of emeritus status. Currently, the total number of active and emeriti trustees is 79.

Board Members

Michael E. Hess, Chair
Chair Michael Edward Hess has been a principal at M&TCH Consulting since Jan 2012, after working at L-3 MPRI from August 2009.  Before joining MPRI, he served as Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Democracy Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Hess was in that position from June 2005 until January 2009. Prior to his appointment to USAID, he worked as a Senior Risk Reviewer and Vice President at Citibank, responsible for monitoring and evaluating 15 areas of risk for corporate finance units at Citigroup Inc. in New York. Hess has over 30 years of active and reserve service in the United States Military. He received his commission from the United States Military Academy in 1971, and has served in humanitarian operations in Turkey, Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo. Hess served in both command and staff assignments in the U.S. and Germany and taught European History at the United States Military Academy. In April 2003, Colonel (Ret.) Hess was recalled to active duty to serve as the humanitarian coordinator in the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He later served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Coalition Provisional Authority, assisting in the establishment of the 2,000-person multinational organization responsible for establishing a representative government for Iraq as well as for rebuilding Iraqi infrastructure. Hess has a bachelor's degree in engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, a master's degree in European history from Columbia University in New York, a master's in business administration and international finance from New York University in New York, and is a graduate of the National Strategic Studies Program at the United States Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Hess is married to Teresa Crawford and has three sons, Ken, James, and Henry, and one daughter, Corinne.

Nancy Y. Bekavac
Nancy Y. Bekavac is a consultant in higher education located in Washington, DC. From 1990 until her retirement in 2007, she served as president of Scripps College in Claremont, California. From 1988 to 1990, Ms. Bekavac was Counselor to the President of Dartmouth College. From 1985 to 1988, she was the Executive Director of the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, which provides foreign travel and research fellowships to graduates of select liberal arts colleges in the United States. From 1974 to 1988, she practiced commercial litigation and was a partner in the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson.  She has served on the Board of Managers of her alma mater, Swarthmore College, and currently serves as a Director of The Seaver Institute, a philanthropic foundation in Los Angeles, California., and for The Reconciliation Project, Inc., which provides fact-based school curricula on U.S. history for schools and student-focused after school programs.  She serves as an adviser to Venly, a company that expands the impact of open source software for content and learning management.  She has in the past served as a Board member for several publicly held companies, including Pioneer Hybrid, Electro Rent Corporation, and First Marblehead Corporation.  She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.  Ms. Bekavac is a graduate of Swarthmore College and holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Louis D. Sell
Louis Sell a retired Foreign Service Officer, worked for six years at the US Embassy in Moscow and eight years in various places in Yugoslavia.  He served as US representative to the Joint Consultative Group in Vienna, as Director of the Office of Russian and Eurasian Analysis, Director of the Office of US-Soviet Bilateral Relations, and as Special Assistant and Executive Secretary of the US delegation to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.  From 1995 - 1996 he was political adviser to Carl Bildt, the first High Representative for Bosnian Peace Implementation.  In that capacity he attended the Dayton Peace Conference and participated in the first year of implementation of the Dayton accords.  In 2000 he served as Kosovo Director of the International Crisis Group. He speaks Serbo-Croatian, Russian,and French.  Serving as Executive Director of the American University in Kosovo Foundation (AUKF) from 2003 to 2007, Louis Sell helped found the American University in Kosovo, which opened its doors in October 2003. He has a B. A. from Franklin and Marshall College (1969) and an M. A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  Mr. Sell's second book, From Washington to Moscow: US-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR, was published by Duke University Press in August, 2016. His political biography of Slobodan Milosevic, Slobodan Milosevic and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, was published in 2002.  He is an adjunct professor at the University of Maine at Farmington and lives with his family in a 200-year-old farm house in Whitefield, Maine, where he also serves as a member of the volunteer fire department. 

Edmond Coku
Edmond Coku is a Managing Partner at Sabius Capital, a private investment firm.  Prior to founding Sabius, Edmond spent five years at Lehman Brothers, in Investment Banking, Corporate Strategy and Principal Investments. He started his career at Gabelli Asset Management. Edmond is a member of the President’s Advisory Council of Manhattanville College. He is a co-founder and Board member of APEN, a NYC-based non-profit. He graduated magna cum laude from Manhattanville College and holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

James Myers 
James Myers is the Associate Provost of International Education and Global Programs at Rochester Institute of Technology. He previously served as the Director for the Center for Multidisciplinary Studies where he helped establish RIT Kosovo and created numerous corporate and government sponsored outreach education programs. He was also previously the Associate Dean and Associate Professor at RIT Croatia, in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Bersant Disha, MSc, CMC
Bersant Disha is the Managing Partner at Recura Financials, and serves as a senior consultant with over 17 years of work experience, from which 12 years being directly related to management, finance and business areas. Bersant has been in charge of teams of consultants with diverse expertise, conducting direct advisory support to various businesses in Kosovo and internationally. This has included both large businesses and investment projects as well as micro, small and medium sized family owned businesses. Bersant has worked with over 400 different businesses over the years helping them as a senior advisor on strategic business development, financial structuring, corporate finance, access to markets and strategic linkages. Bersant is very experienced in corporate finance, corporate governance, financial modelling, development of financial instruments and structures as well as structuring complex transactions for businesses at different stages of development. His current areas of practice includes corporate finance and transaction advisory having led transaction advisory teams in various deals in Kosovo, the Netherlands, Germany and the US, supporting both sell and buy sides in structuring investment transactions totaling more than EUR 400 million. Mr. Disha holds an MSc in Finance from the University of Warwick and BSc in Business from the London School of Economics and is also a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) certified by ICMCI. Bersant has worked for over fifteen years in management and financial consultancy.Bersant currently services as a Supervisory Board Director of Recycling Holding Volendam in the Netherlands, a Board of Directors member of Uje Rugove (Kosovo), an independent Board Advisor to InstaBuilt (US-Kosovo) and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American University in Kosovo – RITK, also serving as a vice chair of the Finance Committee.

Jehona Gjurgjeala
Jehona Gjurgjeala has extensive experience in strategy development, management and execution in both profit and non-profit enterprises. Jehona completed both her BSc and MSc at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the latter as the recipient of the prestigious British Council Chevening Scholarship. Her last employment before returning to Kosovo was as Director of Product Marketing at Egencia (an Expedia Inc Company), where she led many large-scale commercial projects of high impact for the business globally. As Executive Director of Oxford Leadership Academy (OLA), Jehona was responsible for growing the consultancy and its network, including opening the Oxford office. Jehona also has extensive experience in the non-profit sector, in both research and grassroots projects, including collaborating with the Girls Scouts USA in developing a leadership program for young adults. Jehona’s research formed part of several papers published by the International Crisis Group, Kosova. She is also the author “How do women vote?” – a study of political awareness and participation of women in Kosova. After nearly 15 years of studying and working in the UK and Denmark, Jehona returned to her native Kosovo to start up TOKA – an organization that aims to improve Kosovar society by investing in the education of its youth. Since 2015, TOKA has served over disadvantaged 20,000 youth and currently has an active base of over 100 adult and 1,000 youth long-term volunteers. For her youth work, Jehona won the Youth Changemaker Award 2019, by the FortheGood movement in Kosovo.

Jill Adler
Jill Adler is the founding Director of the East-West Parliamentary Practice Project (EWPPP), which was established in 1990 as a joint initiative of the European Cultural Foundation(ECF) in The Netherlands and the Ford Foundation (USA), in cooperation with a consortium of U.S. and European funders. The EWPPP, an independent non-profit organization headquartered in Amsterdam, develops and implements capacity building programs for parliaments and civil society organizations in the emerging democracies of Eastern/Southeastern Europe and Eurasia.  Prior to 1990, she served as a Program Officer in charge of initiating cooperative ventures with Eastern Europe and the (then) Soviet Union in the cultural and educational fields. In 1996, she was awarded the Hungarian Cross of Honor by the President of the Republic of Hungary for contributing to the democratization of parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2008, she was awarded the Albanian Medal of Appreciation by the President of the Republic of Albania for contributing to the democratization of the Albanian Parliament.  She is an adjunct professor at Webster University in Leiden, the Netherlands, and The University of Utrecht, the Netherlands.  She currently serves on several boards, including:  the Board of Directors of the Albanian-American Development Foundation (AADF); the Executive Committee/Board of the Netherlands-America Fulbright Center; Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Institute for Development Policy (INDEP)(Kosovo); and most recently, the Board of Trustees of RIT Kosovo (A.U.K.) (American University Kosovo).  Ms. Adler received a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center.

Ardian Hasanaj
Ardian Hasanaj is a Director at TeamViewer, a global technology company headquartered in Germany. Before TeamViewer, he worked at two tech start-ups in New York City and Washington, D.C. He was Head of Mission/Managing Director of Caritas Luxembourg in Kosovo from 2012 to 2016, managing programs in entrepreneurship, health, and education. Prior to joining Caritas Luxembourg, he was an entrepreneur and a management consultant for a range of organizations and programs in Kosovo, including the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)/Education Development Center, Inc., and Booz Allen Hamilton. Ardian holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management and Entrepreneurship magna cum laude from Rochester Institute of Technology.

Yll Zagragja 
Yll Zagragja is an AUK/RIT graduate and holds multiple professional certifications in accounting and finance from educational institutions such as Baruch College in New York, University of California in Los Angeles, and KAF Institute in Kosovo.
Yll is principal of Zagragja&Associates a leading company in accounting and finance industry in Kosovo, serving local and international clients over the last 15 years. Yll is also principal of UCX Kosovo, a leading company in software development industry, providing very advanced technological solutions to clients throughout the world. Both companies employ 100+ young professionals in their respective fields. Yll is very passionate about the potential of young Kosovars and has committed time and resources over the past couple of years in exploring and promoting these potentials.

Elvin Guri
Mr. Elvin Guri is a well-known entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Currently CEO of Empower Capital Advisors, manager of Empower Capital funds, a family of private equity funds investing in lower and mid-market industrial companies in SouthEast Europe. Previously with PwC and EBRD, in 2001-2002 he co-founded JetFinance International, which became the largest consumer finance lender in SouthEast Europe (sold to BNP Paribas Personal Finance in 2007). Among his other recent investments is ONE Telecommunications (Albania), the second-largest mobile operator in the country. Mr. Guri has an Executive MBA from the University of Oxford Said Business School. He and his family support a number of educational institutions and initiatives in Albania, Bulgaria, and Kosova.

Jason Steinbaum
Jason Steinbaum worked on Capitol Hill for more than three decades, during which he served as Staff Director of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Washington Chief of Staff to Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-NY). Previously, he was Staff Director of the House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere and worked for Senator Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI).
During his extensive career in Congress, Mr. Steinbaum wrote key legislation affecting U.S. foreign policy, including the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, the Missing in Cyprus Act, and the law providing normal trade relations with Albania. He was a leading staffer on U.S. policy toward the Balkans, having authored several important amendments relating to Kosovo and Serbia, and monitored elections in countries throughout the region.
Mr. Steinbaum is currently the President of the Chesterbrook Group and an Adjunct Professor at The American University in Washington, DC.
Mr. Steinbaum holds a JD and an MA in law and international affairs from The American University in Washington, DC. He received his BA from the University of Virginia. Mr. Steinbaum is a member of the bars of the States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Mrika Aliu
Mrika Aliu is a Human Development Specialist at the World Bank, within Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice in Europe and Central Asia since mid-2019. She specializes in areas of human development, particularly in maternal and child health, quality improvement for healthcare, health systems, social assistance delivery design, and early childhood development. Ms. Aliu is currently co-leading the portfolios in health, education, and social protection and leads an enriched analytical work program related to human development areas in Kosovo. Mrike also works in the health portfolio in Albania and Montenegro. Before joining the bank, Mrika served as the Executive Director of Action for Mothers and Children (AMC) since June 2013, a non-profit foundation developing maternal and child health programs in Kosovo. AMC’s work has been focused on addressing maternal and child health (MCH) issues by supplying medication and equipment in the MCH clinics, improving antenatal care through quality improvement programs to address access to healthcare services, as well as by doing research and policy advocacy interventions with healthcare stakeholders in Kosovo ranging from the Ministry of Health, to University Clinical Centre, and primary healthcare institutions.

Mrika holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Dartmouth College in the USA (The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice). In her commencement ceremony, Mrika was awarded the Delta Omega Honorary Society Award for outstanding academic work and leadership in public health as well as an honourable mention for her Capstone Proposal. Before AMC, Mrika worked at the American University in Kosovo (A.U.K./R.I.T.)  running the Career Services office, where she also received her Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Economics with a minor in Public Policy. At her graduation in 2011, Mrika was awarded with Alpha Sigma Lambda Honorary Society Award based in the USA, received the Community Leadership Award from the Dean of A.U.K., and was selected as the Outstanding Female Scholar. The leadership success was recognized in 2012 when Mrika was honoured with FIDES Award for Philanthropy for National Contribution. In 2013, she shared her community development experience at the TEDxPrishtinaWomen event.

Arben Sahiti
Arben Sahiti is currently serving as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University "Kadri Zeka" in Gjilan. He holds a Master of Science degree in Finance, Accounting, and Management from the Bradford School of Management, University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. Additionally, he earned his Bachelor of Science degree from RIT Kosovo, majoring in Management with a minor in Public Policy. He completed his Doctoral studies at the Faculty of Economics, University of Prishtina. Throughout his academic journey, Sahiti has actively participated in numerous local and international scientific conferences. He has also contributed as both an author and co-author to several esteemed scientific publications.

Rafet Bojaj
Rafet Bojaj is a seasoned finance professional with extensive experience in leading finance teams and managing financial operations across various countries and industries, including IoT, energy, and telecommunications. With a solid educational background in Business Administration and Finance, Rafet has demonstrated expertise in financial management, strategic planning, and process improvement. He is motivated by the challenge of transitioning to sustainable energy, which he believes is a crucial task for our generation, and has spent the last few years helping build businesses in the clean tech space.
Rafet is an alumnus of both RIT Kosovo and RIT Rochester and has seen firsthand the tremendous positive impact these institutions have on their communities. With the aim of expanding RIT Kosovo's reach and impact on Kosovo's and the region's youth, Rafet joined the RIT Kosovo Board of Trustees in May 2023.

Fron Nahzi
Fron Nahzi has over 25 years of experience in international development, working in more than 20 countries. He has managed multi-million-dollar projects in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia, focusing on education, climate change, governance, disinformation, and human rights. Nahzi has collaborated with local and national governments, the private sector, and international donor agencies, including USAID, the European Commission, and the Ford Foundation. He has written extensively on the challenges transitional societies are facing and published in a wide variety of media outlets including: The Independent, The Guardian, Le Courrier, Politico, The Hill, European Voice, Project Syndicate, Newsday, Huffington Post, and BalkanInsight, and has appeared as an analyst on CNN, BBC, and NPR. Currently, he is an Adjunct Instructor at American University in Washington, D.C., and the executive vice president of Eos Tech Trust. Nahzi is also the author of the upcoming book "Ethnic Interest Groups and US Foreign Policy: The Albanian-American Movements" (Routledge Press).

Bledion Dizdari
Bledion serves as executive vice president for the Alliant Property and Casualty group. His current role at Alliant is executive vice president of Finance and Operations for Alliant P&C. In his role, he supports the strategic initiatives of investment talent for the group, which is dedicated to identifying and developing the industry’s top performing insurance professionals. Mr. Dizdari has over 15 years of industry experience, previously serving in various financial roles at Aon Risk Solutions. 
Bledion earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from Fordham University with a concentration in economics. He completed PLD, Harvard Business School’s Alternative to an Executive MBA and is a PLDA alumnus of HBS.

Honorary Board Members

Richard Lukaj, Honorary Board Member
Mr. Lukaj is a founder and Chief Executive of The Bank Street Group LLC, a US registered Broker Dealer/Investment Bank headquartered in the New York metropolitan area. Mr. Lukaj has over 20 years of investment banking experience and has executed hundreds of transactions, amounting to over $125 billion in aggregate transactions value, over the course of his successful investment banking career, ranging from mergers and acquisitions, underwriting of debt, equity and derivative securities, restructurings, exclusive sales and other financial advisory mandates. He has broad experience in a variety of industries including Media, Communications, Technology, Internet Infrastructure and Services, Consumer, Retailing, Energy, Aerospace, Specialty Finance, Real Estate and Natural Resources.

Mr. Lukaj has been recognized as a significant voice for economic development, stability and pro-democratic initiatives in Southeastern Europe.  Mr. Lukaj was the Chairman of the National Albanian American Council (NAAC) for over a decade, the leading organization in the United States with offices in Washington and throughout the Balkans. He developed a reputation with diplomats in the US and abroad for pragmatic thinking and acting as a reliable bridge between the region and the international community. Mr. Lukaj was honored for his work by the Republic of Albania by being selected as the Honorary Consul to the United States and later confirmed by the U.S. Department of State.  In addition, he received the prestigious “Nderi I Kombit” award from the office of the President of the Republic of Albania.

Mr. Lukaj has also been active in philanthropic activities throughout the region, both as a significant donor personally and prolific fundraiser, yielding millions of dollars to various causes throughout the region over more than two decades of ongoing efforts.  He was a founder and currently serves as the Chairman of the A.U.K./RIT Kosovo, which has partnered with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to deliver the highest quality internationally recognized and accredited private education in Southeastern Europe.  Mr. Lukaj was also a founder of the Hope Fellowship program, an organization partnered with USAID, which provided leadership training for women of the Balkans and arranged for executive exchange programs with the largest corporations and governmental and non-governmental agencies of the United States. He also led the Hands of Hope campaign which targeted multi-year fundraising initiatives which raised funds and collaborated with organizations such as Mercy Corps., Americares, SOS and many others to transform the standard of living for orphans and young people in the region.  In addition, he was a committed supporter of the Albanian Relief Fund following the fall of the Communist regime and the Kosova Relief Fund during the war and its aftermath.  More recently, Mr. Lukaj joined in founding the Action for Mothers and Children in Kosova in honor of his late daughter Adelina, which delivered over $500,000 in medical essential medical equipment and supplies to Kosova this past year alone.  Mr. Lukaj has also been a founder and/or supporter of APEN (Albanian Professional and Entrepreneurs Network), "Motrat Qiriazi", the leading Albanian American women's organization, the Albanian American Cultural Foundation, the Albanian American National Organization and numerous other Albanian regional, religious, educational and cultural institutions.

In addition to his advocacy and philanthropic activities, Mr. Lukaj established the Lukaj Foundation and has been historically active in promoting investment in the region and has led numerous business/investor delegations related to potential investments in the area.  Mr. Lukaj has contributed to the development of investor conferences in the US and Europe related to potential investments in the Balkans, particularly focused on Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro.  Mr. Lukaj also led delegation visits by various congressional groups, OSCE observation teams, international election monitors, various ambassadors and orchestrated and participated in the visits of President William J. Clinton, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, US Senator and Chairman of the European Subcommittee, Christopher Murphy, and other such dignitaries to the region.

Mr. Lukaj has personally known and interacted with many of the pertinent leaders of Albania throughout the region and is seen as a non-partisan activist for Albanian affairs. Mr. Lukaj is also well known among the international entities that are engaged in the region, particularly the U.S. embassies in the region, UN, USAID, EBRD, the World Bank/IFC and NATO representatives in the area.

Ambassador William G. Walker, Honorary Chairman Emeritus
William G. Walker, Senior Former Chief of the OSCE Mission to Kosovo, former US Ambassador to El Salvador

Ferid Murad M.D., Ph.D., Honorary Board Member
Ferid Murad M.D., Ph.D., recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology and world renowned pioneer in biochemistry, joined the George Washington University (“GWU”) faculty in April 2011 as a University Professor and Director of the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Signaling. Dr. Murad teaches an undergraduate course, mentors graduate and medical students, and leads a laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at GWU. After completion of his bachelor’s degree in Premedical science and Chemistry at DePauw University, Dr. Murad studied in one of the first physician-scientist training programs, earning his M.D./Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1965. He completed an Internal Medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and continued his training in a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Murad’s long career as a physician-scientist has included becoming faculty at the University of Virginia (1970-1981) as the Director of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology with Medicine and Pharmacology appointments; Chief of Medicine at the Palo Alto Veterans Hospital (1981-1988); Chairman of Medicine at Stanford University (1986-1988); and Vice President of Research and Development at Abbott Laboratories (1988-1993). Dr. Murad was Chairman of the Department of Integrative Biology and Pharmacology at the Medical School of the University of Texas Houston Health Science Center (1997-2005), as well as Director (1999-2007) and Director Emeritus (2007-2010) of the Institute of Molecular Medicine, prior to joining GWU in 2011. He has advised approximately 140 trainees in his laboratories, and founded or advised many biotechnology companies over the years. In 1998, Dr. Murad and two other scientists, Drs. Ignarro and Furchgott, received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for their discovery of the role of Nitric Oxide in the body as a key signaling molecule increasing cyclic GMP and dilating blood vessels. This work has immensely impacted medicine, patient care, and drug development, drastically improving our understanding of the body and the function of certain drugs such as nitroglycerin. As recipient of the Lasker Basic Medical Research Award; American Heart Association Ciba Award; Association of American Medical Colleges Baxter Award for Distinguished Research in the Biomedical Sciences; American Society of Clinical Pharmacology Distinguished Research Prize; and President's Scholar Award from the UT - Houston Health Science Center, Dr. Murad has earned innumerable honors and distinctions for his work. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and many foreign academies, as well as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Murad has received 13 honorary degrees, and has more than 400 publications - a number that is still growing.

Søren Jessen-Petersen, Honorary Board Member
Søren Jessen-Petersen was the fifth of the six Special Representatives for Kosovo of the United Nations Secretary General (SRSG), during the nine years of UNMIK's administration of the country. More perhaps than any other SRSG, Søren Jessen-Petersen is widely respected and admired in Kosovo for his two years of service from 2004 to 2006 and is known as a true friend of this country.

Ronald Cami, Honorary Board Member
Ronald Cami is the General Council and member of the Board of Waypoint Capital.  From 2016 to May 2018, Ron was  a partner at the law firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell, in Davis Polk’s corporate department in Northern California and New York.  From 2010 through 2015, Ron was a partner and the General Counsel of TPG Global.  From 1994 through 2010, Ron was a partner at the law firm, Cravath, Swaine & Moore. Prior to that, Ron served as law clerk to the Honorable Kevin Thomas Duffy of the Southern District of New York, during which time Judge Duffy presided over the first World Trade Center bombing criminal case.  Ron graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and earned his J.D., summa cum laude with order of the coif distinction, from Rutgers Law School.

Rezart Spahia, Honorary Board Member
Rezart Spahia is the founding and managing partner of Frost & Fire Consulting, a leading legal and business consultancy firm in Tirana, Albania.  A New York lawyer and member of the New York City Bar Association, prior to founding Frost & Fire Consulting, Rezart worked for almost a decade at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, in its New York and London offices.  Before becoming a lawyer, Rezart was an archaeologist with the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences in Tirana, Albania as well as a visiting scholar and research associate at the Institute of Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University, while also being part of their Ph.D. program. Rezart graduated as class valedictorian with a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and Geography from the University of Tirana, being awarded a Gold Medal from the Albanian Ministry of Education. He also earned a Juris Doctor degree from the Northwestern School of Law of Lewis & Clark College and a Master of Laws degree from the New York University School of Law with several distinctions. In addition to his contribution to RIT Kosovo (A.U.K. Foundation), to which Rezart has offered legal services pro bono since inception, Rezart has been involved with various not for profit initiatives including as board member and Vice-Chairman of the National Albanian American Council and currently as trustee of the Ivanaj Foundations and vice-president of the Albanian Karate Federation.