Our team

Ambassador Susan D. Page, a former diplomat, joined the Ford School faculty, and the Weiser Diplomacy Center in 2020 as a professor of practice in international diplomacy. She also serves as a professor from practice at the Law School. Page has served the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations in senior roles for decades, across East, Central, and Southern Africa, and in Haiti and Nepal. Page was the first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan.

Nayab Ali brings hands-on policy and research experience from her previous roles at The Brookings Institution and the Center for American Progress. Nayab completed her undergraduate studies at Pitzer College in California. She holds a diploma of Politics, Policy & Leadership from Princeton University and an honor diploma from Genesis Academy Summer Institute in Chicago. Nayab is a proud alumna of the U.S. Department of State’s Kennedy Lugar Youth Exchange and Study Program, where she was one of the few students selected to represent Pakistan in the United States.

Javed Ali began his appointment as an associate professor of practice in fall 2021. Ali brings more than 20 years of professional experience in national security and intelligence issues in Washington, DC. He held positions in the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security before joining the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Ambassador Camara is a seasoned diplomat with over 15 years of experience in foreign policy and multilateral diplomacy. She served as Mali's Foreign Minister and Chief of Staff to the President until August 2020, and has held senior positions at organizations such as PartnersGlobal, the National Endowment for Democracy, and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Camara also serves as the Africa instructor for the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute and is currently pursuing her PhD in Political Science at the University of Oxford.

Basma holds a BA in Language and Literature and an MA in Cultural Studies from Cairo, Egypt. She recently joined the Weiser Diplomacy Center (WDC) as an Administrative Assistant. Prior to this, she was a fellow at the Center for Interreligious and Inter Communal Leadership at Hebrew College and Andover Newton Theological School in Boston, Massachusetts. She has significant experience in community engagement within higher education across various academic disciplines. Throughout her career, Basma has organized and led numerous workshops and events designed to meet the diverse needs of students.