All Angles is an immersive experience that features expert speakers with perspectives across today’s political spectrum. Uniquely, it also accentuates and models the skills needed for shaping civil discourse – a sustaining force in a civil society. Students will develop a deeper understanding of contemporary public policy subject matter and learn how it is understood from the values and strategies that define a variety of perspectives.
Below is a look at recent All Angles programs and featured speakers:
April 16, 2026
The Constitution, Rule of Law, and Political Pressure
Recording coming soon
This session explored the topics of free speech, privacy, and due process within the context of recent national events particularly as they related to immigrant communities and populations. The goal of this session was twofold 1) to help students build a deeper understanding of current events beyond the surface level that may see in the news or online and 2) to model “dialogue across difference”.
Moderator:
William M. Carter, Jr.
Judge J. Quint Salmon and Anne Salmon Chaired Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh
William M. Carter, Jr. is a Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He specializes in constitutional law, civil rights, race and the law, and civil litigation. An award-winning teacher, he has been selected as Professor of the Year by vote of the student body on four separate occasions.
Carter is widely considered to be one of the leading experts on the Thirteenth Amendment and racial discrimination. His scholarship has been published in respected law journals such as the Columbia Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, the Texas Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, and in books published by the Oxford University Press and the Columbia University Press. His scholarly work has been cited by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Tenth Circuits, in amicus briefs filed by the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and by the Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Institute, and in the work of leading scholars published in the Yale Law Review, the Yale Journal of International Law, the Virginia Law Review, the Columbia Law Review, and the Oxford University Press. He has delivered lectures at Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Cornell, UCLA, Georgetown, and the Sorbonne in Paris, France.
Carter received his J.D., magna cum laude and Order of the Coif, from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. Upon graduation from law school, he worked as a litigation associate in the Washington, D.C. offices of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and Ropes & Gray. From 2001-2007, he was a Professor of Law at the Case Western Reserve University Law School. From 2007-2012, he was a Professor of Law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law. He served as Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law from 2012-2018.
Speakers/Scholars:
Faiza Patel
Senior Director, Liberty & National Security
Brennan Center, NYU
Faiza Patel is senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. She is a nationally recognized expert on government surveillance, especially its targeting of minority communities, domestic terrorism, and the impact of technology on civil rights and civil liberties. Patel has testified before the Senate and House Homeland Security Committees in favor of limits on government surveillance programs.
Patel’s writing has been featured in major publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today, and she writes regularly for the legal blog Just Security, where she is a member of the board of editors. Patel is also a frequent commentator on national security and counterterrorism issues for print, television, and radio outlets.
She has authored and coauthored several reports, including Social Media Monitoring (2019), Countering Violent Extremism in the Trump Era (2018), Extreme Vetting and the Muslim Ban (2017), Countering Violent Extremism (2017), Overseas Surveillance in an Interconnected World (2016), What Went Wrong with the FISA Court (2015), A Proposal for an NYPD Inspector General (2012), and Rethinking Radicalization (2011).
Born and raised in Pakistan, Patel is a graduate of Harvard College and NYU School of Law. Previously, she worked as a senior policy officer at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague and served as a law clerk at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Ilan Wurman
Professor of Law
Julius E. Davis Professor of Law
University of Minnesota
Ilan Wurman is the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches administrative law and constitutional law. He previously taught at Arizona State University. He writes primarily on the Fourteenth Amendment, administrative law, separation of powers, and constitutionalism. His academic writing has appeared in the Yale Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, the University of Chicago Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the Duke Law Journal, the Minnesota Law Review, the Notre Dame Law Review, and the Texas Law Review among other journals.
Professor Wurman is the author of a casebook, Administrative Law Theory and Fundamentals: An Integrated Approach (Foundation Press 3d ed. 2025). He is also the author of A Debt Against the Living: An Introduction to Originalism (Cambridge 2017), and The Second Founding: An Introduction to the Fourteenth Amendment (Cambridge 2020). His next book, The Constitution of 1789: A New Introduction, is also forthcoming with Cambridge University Press.
Professor Wurman practices law with the firm Tully Bailey. He has litigated a variety of administrative law and constitutional law cases, including cases involving COVID-19 restrictions, transmission lines, and Appointments Clause challenges. He also devised winning public nuisance theories to force city governments to address the increasingly challenging public camping crises throughout the country.
April 8, 2026
U.S. Policy in Iran and its Broader Implications
Recording coming soon
This session explored the heart of U.S. foreign policy amid rapidly evolving conditions in Iran. It will challenge students to grapple with the hard questions about how the United States should approach Iran. What are the potential humanitarian, security, and nonproliferation benefits and consequences of U.S. military action against Iran, and how should we balance those factors? And what does our Iran policy reveal about America’s broader role and credibility on the world stage?
Moderator:
Julia Santucci, Associate Professor of Practice
Director of the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership
and Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum
School for Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh
Speakers:
Dalia Dassa Kaye – UCLA
Dr. Dalia Dassa Kaye is a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and director of its Initiative on Regional Security Architectures. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dalia is an internationally recognized expert on geopolitics and Middle East policy.
During her fifteen years at the RAND Corporation, Dalia served as a senior political scientist and the director of the Center of Middle East Public Policy. She has received numerous awards and held previous positions at an array of research and public policy institutions, including as a Fulbright Schuman visiting scholar at Lund University, a fellow at the Wilson Center, an advisor at the Foreign Ministry of The Netherlands, an assistant professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a legislative assistant on Capitol Hill.
She is a frequent public speaker and contributor to leading media outlets, including BBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, and Foreign Affairs. She is the author of dozens of articles and policy reports, as well as three books, including most recently Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy (Stanford University Press, 2026).
Dalia holds her BA, MA, and PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Behnam Ben Taleblu - Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Behnam Ben Taleblu is senior director of FDD’s Iran Program, where he oversees the breadth and depth of FDD’s work on Iran in addition to serving as a senior fellow specializing in Iranian security and political issues. For well over a decade, Behnam has supported FDD’s Iran program as a senior fellow, research fellow, and senior Iran analyst. Prior to his time at FDD, Behnam worked on non-proliferation issues at an arms control think tank in Washington.
Leveraging his subject-matter expertise and native Persian-language skills, Behnam closely tracks a wide range of Iran-related functional and regional topics including nuclear non-proliferation, ballistic missiles and drones, sanctions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies, the foreign and security policy of the Islamic Republic, and internal Iranian politics. Frequently called upon to brief journalists, congressional staff, diplomatic, military, academic, and policy audiences in Washington, across the United States, and around the world, Behnam has testified before various committees in the U.S. Congress, the Canadian Parliament, and the UK House of Commons.
Behnam’s analysis has been quoted in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Fox News, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, Politico, and Axios, among others. Additionally, he has contributed to or coauthored articles for The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, Fox News, The Hill, War on the Rocks, Newsweek, and The National Interest. Behnam has appeared on a variety of broadcast programs, including PBS Newshour, BBC News, Fox News, CNN International, CBS News, C-SPAN, France 24, and Deutsche Welle.
Behnam earned his M.A. with honors in international relations from The University of Chicago, and his B.A. in international affairs and Middle East studies from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Behnam is also a member of the Anti-Defamation League’s Task Force on Middle East Minorities and a contributing editor to National Security Journal.
November 10, 2025
Can't We All Just Disagree?
Watch the video
This All Angles session featured renowned journalist David Greene, former host of National Public Radio's Morning Edition and now creator and host of KCRW's Left, Right, and Center podcast. He shared his experience engaging with people from the widest range of political, geographical, socio-economic, and other perspectives to challenge us all to consider the skills we need to disagree better and navigate the political divisions that we face. He also connected Pitt student leaders in a panel discussion, exploring the challenges we face in disagreeing and new ways that we can support dialogue and relationship-building.
April 10, 2025
Rethinking World Order: Risk, Opportunity, Transformation?
Recording coming soon.
During this program, Pitt students had the opportunity to hear experts discuss world order.
Moderator:
Dr. Michael Goodhart is a past President of the American Political Science Association's Human Rights section. He also chaired the APSA Presidential Task Force on Democracy, Economic Security, and Social Justice in a Volatile World. Goodhart is an affiliate of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut and a member of the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently President of the board of directors of The Global Switchboard, a network stewardship organization that promotes equitable global engagement in the Pittsburgh region, and a member of the steering committee for the Pittsburgh Human Rights City Alliance.
Speakers:
Dr. Daniel Bessner is an intellectual historian and journalist whose work has focused on three areas of inquiry: the history and contemporary practice of U.S. foreign relations; the history and theory of liberalism; and, most recently, the history and practice of the entertainment industry.
In 2019-2020, Daniel served as a foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign; in 2024, for unclear reasons, the Russian government sanctioned him.
Dr. Nadia Schadlow served as U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor of Strategy in 2018 during the first Trump administration. In that capacity she led the drafting and publication of the 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States. She also served in the Defense Department.
Dr. Schadlow is currently a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and co-chair of Hamilton Commission on Securing America’s National Security Innovation Base.
October 10, 2024
Overcoming Polarization Beginning with How We Think
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During this program, Pitt students had the opportunity to address the topic of polarization, which has been identified in the most recent student survey as a major concern about today’s society.
Moderator:
Jennifer Murtazashvili Bio
Founding Director, Center for Governance and Markets, University of Pittsburgh
Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh
Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Speaker:
Ilana Redstone, PhD Bio
Associate Professor of Sociology, Center for Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of Illinois
Author, The Certainty Trap: Why We Need to Question Ourselves More and How We Can Judge Others Less
January 18, 2024
Affirmative Action and Racial Equity: Navigating the Complex Political Landscape
Photo album coming soon
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During this program, Pitt students had the opportunity to observe a discussion of affirmative action and racial equity that included suggestions for navigating the complex political landscape.
Moderator:
Dr. Kyaien O. Conner Bio
Donald M. Henderson Endowed Chair, Director of the Center on Race and Social Problems, Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and Professor
University of Pittsburgh
Speakers:
David E. Bernstein Bio
University Professorship Chair
Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Dana N. Thompson Dorsey, JD, Ph.D. Bio
Associate Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
University of South Florida
September 12, 2023
Election Integrity and Our Democracy
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Pitt students representing all political leanings and all levels of political involvement identified concerns with democracy as the single most important societal issue in the most recent All Angles survey of student interests. Ongoing national discord produced by the 2020 Presidential Election almost certainly was a major contributor to that ranking, which would have been very surprising not many years ago. During this program, Pitt students had the opportunity to observe a civil and serious discussion of these critical issues with two of the nation’s most influential experts on the subject of elections.
Moderator:
Mark A. Nordenberg Bio
Chancellor Emeritus
Chair, Institute of Politics
Director, Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law & Public Policy
University of Pittsburgh
Speakers:
Sean Morales-Doyle Bio
Director, Voting Rights
Brennan Center for Justice
Hans A. von Spakovsky Bio
Manager, Election Law Reform Initiative and Senior Legal Fellow, Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies
The Heritage Foundation
April 3, 2023
Managing the U.S. Relationship with China to Achieve Global Goals
Pitt students identified foreign policy as one of their top concerns in the 2021 All Angles student survey. For the United States Government, it is hard to think of a more significant, and challenging, foreign policy topic than China. The United States has expressed deep concerns about China’s behavior within its borders and globally, including its human rights abuses in Xinxiang Province, its military maneuvers in the South China Sea, its support of rogue states like Russia and North Korea, its corporate espionage, and its unfair trade practices. At the same time, the U.S. and Chinese economies are deeply intertwined, and there are real benefits to cooperation between the two nations.
Moderator:
Julia Santucci Bio
Senior Lecturer in Intelligence Studies
Director, Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership &
the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum
Speakers:
Dr. Aaron L. Friedberg Bio
Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Co-Director Center for International Security Studies
Princeton University
Dr. Susan Shirk Bio
Research Professor
Chair, 21st Century China Center
University of California San Diego
October 26, 2022
The Global Demand for Energy and our Environment
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Read Pittwire article
The discussion for this program centered around how the global demand for energy is impacting our environment. Each speaker provided a brief overview of their work and roles in the fields of energy and sustainability. The speakers also offered their own professional perspectives while addressing student’s concerns about climate change, energy demand, and the environment.
Moderator:
Dr. Aurora Sharrard Bio
Executive Director of Sustainability
University of Pittsburgh
Speakers:
Dr. Paulina Jaramillo Bio
Professor, Engineering and Public Policy, and Co-Director, Green Design Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Scott Tinker Bio
Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology, the State Geologist of Texas
Professor holding the Allday Endowed Chair in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austi.
September 22, 2022
Gain Strength from Our Differences
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All of us are very passionate about critical issues that impact those who we love and our communities. As we prepare for the upcoming election season and the campaigns that are designed to divide us, create acrimony, and further deepen political polarization, we need to take stock of how we get through this with self-care and respect for our fellow citizens. Arthur Brooks joined us to discuss his book, Love Your Enemies and his most recent work called Live a Better Happier Life. Through ancient wisdom and cutting-edge behavioral science, Brooks provided a roadmap to the prosperity that comes when we choose to love one another – gaining strength from our differences.
Speaker:
Dr. Arthur C. Brooks Bio
Harvard Professor; Bestselling Author; and The Atlantic Columnist
March 24, 2022
Understanding Economic Opportunity / Equality
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Read Pittwire article
Students were presented with a thoughtful examination of progressive, moderate, and conservative points of view on the subject of economic equality and mobility featuring leading experts in the field of economics.
Moderator:
Kevin Kearns Bio
Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA), University of Pittsburgh
Speakers:
Dr. Darrick Hamilton Bio
Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy
The New School Milano
Dr. Scott Winship Bio
Senior Fellow and Director of Poverty Studies
American Enterprise Institute
February 24, 2022
Missing in Plain Sight
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Attendees were provided a closer look at the people we overlook and misunderstand in our culture and the surprising common traits we all share.
Speakers:
Salena Zito Bio
National Political Reporter
Manu Meel Bio
CEO
Bridge USA