Monthly luncheons are generally held on the second Monday of every month, unless advised to the contrary, at Chez Marcel restaurant in the Samoset Resort in Rockport, Maine.
Isobel Coleman, senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and director
July 2008
Topic: Paradise Beneath Her Feet: Women and Reform in the Middle East
Dr. Isobel Coleman is senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and director
of the Council’s Women and Foreign Policy program. Her areas of expertise include economic and political
development in the Middle East, regional gender issues, educational reform, and microfinance. She recently
coauthored Strategic Foreign Assistance: Civil Society in International Security (Hoover Institution Press,
2006). Her forthcoming book, Paradise Beneath Her Feet: Women and Reform in the Middle East (Random
House, 2008), examines how women are bringing about reform in the Middle East within an Islamic
framework.
Dr. Coleman’s work has appeared in publications such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Financial Times,
International Herald Tribune, USA Today, Christian Science Monitor, Toronto Star, Dallas Morning News,
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, and Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. She is a frequent speaker
at academic, business, and policy conferences. Her media experience includes interviews on CNN, CNN
International, ABC, Good Morning America, BBC, PBS’s Frontline, al-Arabiya, Al Jazeera and NPR. She
has testified before Congress on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Prior to joining the Council, Dr. Coleman was CEO of a health-care services company and a partner with
McKinsey & Co. in New York. She was formerly a research fellow at the Brookings Institution and an
adjunct professor at American University, where she taught political economy. Dr. Coleman, a Marshall
Scholar, holds a DPhil and MPhil in international relations from Oxford University and a BA in public
policy and East Asian studies from Princeton University.