War and Wealth: Economic Forecasts and the Future of Gulf Diversification Plans

Featured Speakers: Rachel Ziemba, Dr. Karen E. Young, Dr. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, and Dr. Gawdat Bahgat.

Rachel Ziemba (Moderator)

Founder, Ziemba Insights; Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Ms. Rachel Ziemba is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with Gulf International Forum. She is the founder of Ziemba Insights, a macroeconomics and policy due diligence advisory firm. Additionally, Ms. Ziemba is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and an Adjunct Lecturer at NYU, Center for Global Affairs. Her research focuses on the interlinkages between economics, finance, and security issues. Her research topics include coercive economic policies such as sanctions, economic resilience, and the role of state-owned investors, including sovereign wealth funds.

Dr. Karen E. Young 

Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University; Founding Director of the Program on Economics and Energy and Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute

Dr. Karen E. Young is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy, Columbia University SIPA. She was the founding director of the Program on Economics and Energy at the Middle East Institute and remains a senior fellow. She was a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and has been a professorial lecturer at George Washington University, teaching courses on the international relations of the Middle East. She regularly teaches at the U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute and at Columbia’s SIPA. Earlier, she was Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute and a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Middle East Centre. She led a seminar series on emerging markets in MENA at Johns Hopkins SAIS. At the American University of Sharjah, she served as Assistant Professor of Political Science from 2009-2014. Prior to joining AUS, she held research and administration roles at New York University.

She is the author of two books: The Economic Statecraft of the Gulf Arab States (2022) and The Political Economy of Energy, Finance and Security in the United Arab Emirates (2014), as well as editor of Energy Transitions of the Middle East (2024) and GCC Hydrocarbon Economies and Covid (2023) and a chapter contributor in: The Economy of Saudi Arabia in the 21st Century (2024), Routledge Companion to China in the Middle East (2023), The Gulf States in the Horn of Africa (2022), and The Economics of Renewable Energy in the Gulf (2019). She has published opinion articles and research in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Lawfare, Al Monitor, Journal of Arabian Studies, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Current History, Gulf Affairs, Security Dialogue, ISPI, Internationale Politik and Middle East Policy, among other academic and analytical outlets, and provided testimony in Congress. Her comments have been featured on NPR, CNBC, CBS, CBC, AFP, in the New York Times, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Al Arabiya, Arab News, Debtwire, MEED and MEES.

Her work has been supported by grants from Smith Richardson Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of NY, the Fulbright Program (Ecuador 1997-99; Bulgaria 2005-06), the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX), the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), the Woodrow Wilson Center, US State Department Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), APSA MENA Fellows Program and Emirates Foundation (via LSE). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dr. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen

Fellow for the Middle East, Baker Institute; Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Dr. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen is a Baker Institute fellow for the Middle East and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Gulf International Forum. Working across the disciplines of political science, international relations, and international political economy, his research examines the changing position of Persian Gulf states in the global order, as well as the emergence of longer-term, nonmilitary challenges to regional security. Previously, he worked as a senior Gulf analyst at the Gulf Center for Strategic Studies between 2006 and 2008 and as co-director of the Kuwait Program on Development, Governance and Globalization in the Gulf States at the London School of Economics (LSE) from 2008 until 2013.

Dr. Gawdat Bahgat

Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Gulf International Forum

Dr. Gawdat Bahgat is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Gulf International Forum and was previously a Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. He is the author of 11 books on the Middle East. His areas of expertise include energy security, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Iran, and American foreign policy.