WASHINGTON, DC – The American Hellenic Institute (AHI) presents its Virtual Speakers Forum on Monday, June 7, 2 PM ET, focusing on the Battle of Crete. The scheduled speakers are Salem State University Professor Alexandros Kyrou and Indiana University-Purdue University College of Arts & Sciences Dean Emeritus and Professor Emeritus of Political Science Van Coufoudakis. The event commemorates the 80th anniversary of the historic battle which was fought May 20-June 1, 1941. AHI President Nick Larigakis will host the event.

Register for the event online: shorturl.at/giDS8

After registration, you will receive a confirmation email to join the webinar. You may ask questions through the Q&A feature on Zoom. If you cannot attend the event, you can view it on the AHI YouTube channel.

Dr. Alex Kyrou is Professor of History and Director of the Program in East European and Russian Studies at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts, where he teaches on the Balkans, Byzantium, and the Ottoman Empire. After receiving his PhD in East European history at Indiana University, Dr. Kyrou completed his postdoctoral work as a Hannah Seeger Davis Fellow in the Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton University, followed by an appointment as a Senior Research Fellow at the Kokkalis Program on Southeastern and East-Central Europe at Harvard University. His many and diverse book chapter and journal article publications focus on famine relief in Axis-occupied Greece, Balkan Diasporas, Orthodox Christianity and the origins of international humanitarianism, and war and peace in Byzantium.  A former Associate Editor of The Journal of Modern Hellenism, Dr. Kyrou has also written numerous essays and commentaries on Greek history, the Greek American community, Byzantine civilization, and Ottoman history and Turkish politics, as well as the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Genocides for professional, policy, and popular publications.  Dr. Kyrou has guest lectured at Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Oxford Universities, and he has been interviewed and quoted in several major periodicals, including the The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and The Huffington Post. 

Van Coufoudakis, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Dean Emeritus of the College of Arts and Sciences, Indiana University-Purdue University. He is also Rector Emeritus of the University of Nicosia, in Nicosia Cyprus. Between 2012-2014, he served as President of the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency of the Government of Greece. He has authored and edited several books and over 100 articles published in academic journals and books in the U.S. and Europe. He holds a PhD from the University of Michigan and honorary doctorates from Indiana University and from the University of Nicosia. In 1998, the President of Greece awarded him the decoration of the order of the Phoenix for his contributions to Hellenic letters.

More information is available online: https://www.ahiworld.org/.