Borah Symposium

Location: International Ballroom, Pitman Center

Panel discussion: The Impacts of Trade Wars on Agricultural Commodities

Moderated by: Anna King, Correspondent for the Northwest News Network

Panelists: Tim McGreevy, CEO of USA Pulses; Xioali Etienne, Idaho Wheat Commission Endowed Chair in Commodity Risk Management; and Brett Wilder, UI Extension educator in farm business management

Guest speaker bios

Tim McGreevy, CEO
USA Pulses
USA Pulses Trade Association

Tim McGreevy is the CEO of USA Pulses and the USA Pulses Trade Association, Pulse Foundation, Idaho Pea and Lentil Commission, Washington Pulse Crops Commission and the Western Pulse Growers Assn. These organizations are tasked with increasing awareness, research, and consumption of US pulse crops.

In his role as the CEO of USA Pulses, Tim is responsible for international and domestic market development, research, policy development, and expanding the pulse crop coalition.

McGreevy serves on the Finance Committee of the Global Pulse Confederation (GPC), an international organization representing the global pulse crop value chain. 
 

Xiaoli Etienne
Idaho Wheat Commission Endowed Chair in Commodity Risk Management
University of Idaho

Xiaoli Etienne is Professor of Agricultural economics at the University of Idaho, where she also holds the inaugural Idaho Wheat Commission Bill Flory Endowed Chair in Risk Management. Her research focuses on commodity marketing, price analysis, risk management, and policy analysis.  

She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and 20 extension and outreach publications, with her work appearing in leading academic journals and various media outlets. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. Dr. Etienne currently serves as Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics and is active in professional associations such as the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, the Western Agricultural Economics Association, and the National Wheat Improvement Committee.

Location: Vandal Ballroom, Pitman Center

Daytime talk: Great Power Competition in the 21st Century: A View from the Middle East

Presented by: visiting scholar Emine Ari
Co-sponsored by the Malcolm Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium

Guest speaker bio

Emine Ari
Adjunct instructor
University of Idaho

Emine Arı, doctorate in international relations and political science, focuses on inter-state and intra-state conflicts, political violence, terrorism, and states of emergency.

Her scholarly agenda encompasses two complementary research streams that evaluate the complex dynamics of political violence and examine the relationship between states of emergency and international conflict and cooperation. Her methodological portfolio includes econometrics, causal inference, and geographic information systems.

Emine has contributed to top-tier journals in the field, including the Journal of Peace Research and Terrorism and Political Violence, as well as Political Studies Review (forthcoming), employing an interdisciplinary approach that combines rigorous quantitative analysis of original datasets with innovative (quasi-)experimental designs to illuminate enduring questions in peace and conflict research.

Emine will join the Department of Politics and Philosophy at the University of Idaho as an Adjunct Instructor in Spring 2026. Previously, she served as a Research Associate and Adjunct Instructor at the University of Arizona, a Postdoctoral Researcher at Bilkent University, and as a Visiting Researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Emine has worked as a researcher on various projects funded by the European Research Council and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, contributing to large-scale data collection efforts that employ machine learning applications for text scaling and classification, as well as event data coding of cooperation and conflict between states and non-state armed groups.

 As an educator, Emine has taught across the curriculum, from introductory political science courses to advanced seminars on terrorism and counterterrorism, Turkish foreign policy, foreign policy analysis, and research methods, effectively incorporating her expertise in quantitative analysis and empirical research into her pedagogical practice.

Location: International Ballroom, Pitman Center

Plenary Address presented by: Esther D. Brimmer, James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Governance at Council on Foreign Relations and former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs under President Barack Obama from 2009-2013

Guest speaker bio

Esther Brimmer
James H. Binger Senior Fellow

Esther Brimmer is the James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Brimmer’s career spans government, academia, and non-governmental organization leadership. Her primary areas of interest are governance of the global commons, international organizations, and transatlantic relations. Her U.S. government service includes leading U.S. policy in international organizations as the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs from 2009 to 2013. She also served on the policy planning staff from 1999 to 2001. 

At CFR she is writing a book on the need for better governance mechanisms to manage expanding human activities in outer space, and she convenes the Council of Councils, which brings together twenty-seven international affairs research organizations from twenty-four countries for policy analysis and discussion.

In her academic career, Brimmer was the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She was the first deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies from 2001 to 2009, where she was also a member of the faculty. While at CTR, Brimmer was also a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.

Brimmer has published numerous articles and edited eight books on transatlantic relations. Her work has been translated into five languages. Her edited books include Defending the Gains? Transatlantic Responses When Democracy is Under Threat, Changing Identities, Enduring Values: Is There Still a Transatlantic Community? and The Strategic Implications of EU Enlargement (with Stefan Fröhlich).

Her research focuses on great power competition in areas beyond national jurisdiction. Her interests include the governance of oceans, outer space, and polar regions. Brimmer most recently served as the project director for the eighty-second CFR Task Force Report, Securing Space: A Plan for U.S. Action, and previously served as project director for the 2017 CFR Task Force report, Arctic Imperatives: Reinforcing U.S. Strategy on America’s Fourth Coast. 

From 2017 through 2022, Brimmer was executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the largest nonprofit professional association dedicated to international education with around 10,000 members in over 160 countries. Early in her career, she was a senior associate at the Carnegie commission on preventing deadly conflict, an operating program of Carnegie Corporation of New York. Brimmer has served in the private sector as a senior advisor at McLarty Associates, and earlier as an associate at McKinsey & Company.

Brimmer received her bachelor's degree from Pomona College and masters and doctorate degrees in international relations from Oxford University.

Location: International Ballroom, Pitman Center
Keynote Address

Presented by: K.T. McFarland, Deputy National Security Advisor under President Donald Trump in 2017

Guest speaker bio

KT McFarland
Former Deputy National Security Advisor; Geopolitics expert

KT McFarland is one of the country’s best known foreign policy experts and a key architect of conservative national security strategy. As President Trump’s Deputy National Security Advisor in his first term, she played a pivotal role in shaping the "America First" and "Peace through Strength" doctrines.

KT has been a media commentator for decades, appearing on Fox News, Fox Business News, Newsmax, and other national and international news programs. She appears frequently on podcasts, documentaries and radio. A bestselling author, her book Revolution: Trump, Washington, and “We the People” offers profound insights into the Trump presidency, U.S.- China and Russia relations, and American exceptionalism.

KT’s career spans five decades, beginning as a White House aide to Henry Kissinger in the Nixon and Ford Administrations and culminating at the National Security Council with President Trump. She served in the Pentagon as a senior speechwriter, press spokesperson, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration. Her notable achievements include drafting the Weinberger Doctrine and contributing to President Reagan’s iconic "Star Wars" speech. For her service, she received the Defense Department's highest civilian honor, the Distinguished Service Award.

In 2006, she ran for U.S. Senate in New York, and in 2015, she was named Woman of the Year by the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women. She has long served on the board of the American Conservative Union Foundation (CPAC).

KT holds a B.A. in Chinese Studies from George Washington University, an M.A. in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics from Oxford, and completed Ph.D. coursework at MIT, focusing on nuclear weapons, China, and the Soviet Union.