Joe Stork is deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division, is a general expert on human rights issues in the region. Before joining Human Rights Watch in 1996, Stork co-founded the Middle East Research & Information Project (MERIP) and served as chief editor of Middle East Report, its bimonthly magazine. Author of numerous books and widely published articles on the Middle East, he has lectured widely at universities and public forums around the world. Stork served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey and holds an M.A. in International Affairs/Middle East Studies from Columbia University. He presently serves as chair of the Middle East Studies Association's Committee on Academic Freedom and sits on the advisory committees of the American Friends Service Committee, Foreign Policy in Focus and the Iraq Revenue Watch project of the Open Society Institute