Nancy Youssef is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Before that, she was a longtime national security correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and also worked at BuzzFeed News and The Daily Beast. Youssef spent much of her career at McClatchy Newspapers where she served as national security correspondent and Middle East bureau chief based in Cairo covering the Middle East and the Islamic world. Prior to that she was McClatchy’s chief Pentagon correspondent, focusing on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She traveled frequently to those two nations to see how the policies crafted in Washington reached Afghans, Iraqis and the troops alike. She is also the founder of the Pentagon Press Association.

Before covering the Pentagon, Youssef spent four years covering the Iraq war, including a stint as Baghdad bureau chief. Her pieces focused on the everyday Iraqi experience, civilian casualties and how U.S. military strategy was reshaping Iraq’s social and political dynamics. She began her career at the Detroit Free Press, covering legal issues. While at the Free Press, she traveled throughout Jordan and Iraq for Knight Ridder, covering the Iraq war from the time leading up to it through the post-war period. Her journalism career started at The Baltimore Sun.

A Washington, D.C.-area native, Youssef earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Virginia and master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Youssef’s parents are from Egypt, and she speaks Arabic. Throughout her life, she has been a frequent visitor to the region. She is currently based in Washington, D.C. and is an advocate for supporting neurodiverse children.

This program is sponsored by The Dorothy M. Wissel Lectureship.

Continuing Chautauqua’s exploration of “Global Power and Our Evolving International Order,” “PBS News Hour” co-anchor Amna Nawaz hosts a special onstage conversation between actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace senior fellow Karim Sadjadpour. Both have Iranian roots and Nawaz will engage them on their lives and their families, their respective areas of work, and, whatever the status of world events at that moment, their perspectives on the state of Iran, the Iranian people, and what comes next.

Nazanin Boniadi is an Iranian-born, SAG and AACTA Award-nominated actress, producer and human rights advocate. Her television credits include “Homeland,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Counterpart,” and the first season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.” In film, Boniadi won acclaim for her memorable role in “Bombshell” and leading role in “Hotel Mumbai.” Her producing debut, “A Mosquito in the Ear,” in which she stars alongside Jake Lacy, won the Panavision Spirit Award at the 2026 Santa Barbara International Film Festival. She is most recently seen in “The Saviors,” opposite Adam Scott and Danielle Deadwyler.

As an activist, Boniadi has campaigned for the rights of the Iranian people since 2008, with a focus on the unjust conviction and treatment of youth, women and political prisoners. She is also a Council on Foreign Relations member and serves on the board of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center. Appointed an Amnesty International UK ambassador in 2020, Boniadi has spoken at esteemed institutions, including the Oxford Union, Munich Security Conference and World Economic Forum, and she has addressed the U.S. Capitol, the U.K., German, Australian, Canadian parliaments and the U.N. Her numerous recognitions include the 2023 Sydney Peace Prize.

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran, Gulf security, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, a CNN Global Affairs Analyst and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has testified numerous times before Congress for both Democratic and Republican leadership.

Sadjadpour is currently writing a book on radicalism for Random House/Knopf and appears frequently on media outlets such as the “PBS News Hour,” NPR and CNN. Recognized for his sharp analytical prose, his work was selected as a Foreign Affairs “Best Essay of the Year” in both 2025 (for “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs”) and 2024 (on the battle between Saudi “Vision 2030” and Iran “Vision 1979”). In 2023, he received an Emmy Award as consulting producer for the HBO documentary Hostages. Previously an analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Tehran and Washington, he has lived in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. He speaks Persian, Italian and Spanish, and is proficient in Arabic.

Karim holds degrees from the University of Michigan and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Amna Nawaz is an Emmy, Peabody and Cronkite award-winning journalist who currently serves as co-anchor and co-managing editor of the “PBS News Hour.” In addition to anchoring PBS News’ flagship national news broadcast, Nawaz co-hosts the podcast “Settle In,” featuring thought leaders from all walks of life. She has also hosted a primetime arts show and documentaries on everything from America’s childcare crisis to global plastic pollution to life after incarceration.

Nawaz’s reporting ranges from politics and foreign affairs, to immigration and education, to culture and sports. She has anchored the show from the U.S. Southern border, Israel after the Oct. 7 attacks and Kyiv, Ukraine, during its war with Russia. Nawaz has interviewed presidents and heads of state, White House officials and lawmakers, professional athletes and musicians, and citizens around the world in the communities they call home.

Prior to joining PBS, Nawaz was anchor and correspondent at ABC News, anchoring breaking news coverage and leading the network’s livestream coverage of the 2016 presidential election. She also hosted the “Uncomfortable” podcast and reported a documentary on the Texas county with the highest rate of support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. Before ABC, Nawaz was a foreign correspondent and Islamabad Bureau Chief for NBC News, where she regularly reported on the war in Afghanistan and the broader region.

This program is sponsored by The Helen C. Lincoln Fund for International Programming.