Center Leadership
Shira Lander
Interim Director
Shira
Lander earned her Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Mathematics and
Philosophy from Yale University in 1984. After receiving a masters in
Jewish Studies and rabbinic ordination from the Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, she served as the Jewish scholar
for the Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore,
Maryland. She subsequently earned her doctorate in Religious Studies
from the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Christianity and
Judaism during the Greco-Roman period. She has taught at the Ecumenical
Institute of St. Mary's Seminary and University, where she was awarded
a Dunning Distinguished Lectureship Chair, Johns Hopkins University,
Princeton University, the University of Maryland-Baltimore County,
Baltimore Hebrew University, and the University of Delaware. Her
publication topics range from Jewish Studies to Roman period
inter-religious relations. She serves on the board of the National
Council of Synagogues, whose primary focus is interfaith relations. She
is married to David Portnoy. They have two sons: Zachary, Johns
Hopkins '10, and Maury, Haverford College '13.
slander@rice.edu phone: 713-348-5316
fax: 713-348-4537
Malcolm Gillis
Chair
Dr. Malcolm Gillis served as president of Rice University for more than a decade and is currently a professor of economics at the university. He has dedicated more than 35 years of his professional career to teaching and applying economic analysis to important issues of public policy spanning more than 20 countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
From 1986 to 1991, Dr. Gillis was dean of Duke University’s graduate school and vice provost for Academic Affairs. He later served as the school’s dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences. He has published more than 70 journal articles and authored several leading economic textbooks. He was co-founder and chair of the board of trustees of the Center for World Environment and Sustainable Development and the Duke Center for Tropical Conservation.
Before assuming his university leadership positions, he was a consultant on economic issues to organizations ranging from the World Bank to the governments of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Indonesia, Ghana and Zambia. Dr. Gillis previously also served for five years on the board of directors for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas until 2005. From April 2005 to January 2007, Gillis served as a director of the Vietnam Education Foundation, and in January 2007, he was appointed by President George W. Bush as chairman of the Vietnam Education Foundation. He also serves as co-chair of the Board of the Pyongyang University for Science and Technology, a private university scheduled for opening in 2008.
Gillis holds several degrees, including an A.A. from Chipola Junior College, B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.
mgillis@rice.edu
phone:713-348-4969
Carol Quillen
Founding Director
Carol Quillen, an associate professor of history, founding director of the Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance, and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Rice Unviersity, was born in New York and grew up in Delaware, where she attended the Wilmington Friends School. She holds an AB in history from the University of Chicago and a PhD from Princeton University. Quillen is the author of Rereading the Renaissance: Petrarch, Augustine and the Language of Humanism and Petrarch's Secret, as well as numerous articles. Her scholarly research focuses on European humanism and on feminist political theory.
quillen@rice.edu
phone : 713-348-2269
fax: 713-348-4537