OUR TEAM
Matthew Kwasiborski, Founder/President
Matt Kwasiborski founded The Neptune in 2022 but the ideas of The Neptune were born on his first trip to Lviv, Ukraine in December, 2013 when the EuroMaidan revolution ignited. By joining the protests, Matt understood that the Ukrainians were fighting for their future and their freedom. The Ukrainian cause inspired Matt to co-found the Lviv Leadership Academy by forming a partnership with Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. The Lviv Leadership Academy existed from 2015-2018. The aggressive expansion of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, motivated Matt to create The Neptune. The core function of The Neptune is to create agile academic academies whose core academics are the foundations of Leadership, Democracy, and Diplomacy. These agile academies will be tailored and implemented on the issues of the particular regions where the academies take place.
Matt has extensive international educational experience. He served as the European Institutes Director for The Fund for American Studies from 2005-2020. He directed 28 of TFAS’s European Institutes in Prague and Crete. Along with establishing the Lviv Leadership Academy, Matt conducted leadership workshops for numerous universities, NGOs, and secondary schools in the CEE region. You can find them on our home page as our Past and Present Partners.
Matt has served on the Board of Trustees for Anglo-American University (Prague); International Association of Free Ukraine (Kyiv), and Center for International Media and Ethics (Global). Matt is a native of Philadelphia, PA but has lived in Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, and Ukraine. He speaks Czech (intermediate), Spanish (beginner), Ukrainian (beginner).
Contact Matt via email
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Marashi, Vice President
Ibrahim Al-Marashi is an Associate Professor of history at California State University San Marcos. He is both a US and UK national, and obtained his doctorate from the University of Oxford, completing a thesis on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, part of which was plagiarized by the British government in the lead up to the 2003 Iraq War, otherwise known as the “Dodgy Dossier.” He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), The Modern History of Iraq (Routledge 2016), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge 2018). He has taught courses on conflict resolution at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey, and the United Nations University of Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica. He regularly serves as a visiting professor at John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, Cattolica University in Milan, Italy, and for a summer school at Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic, and Ivan Franko University, in Lviv, Ukraine, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, in Monterey, California.
Ibrahim is also a practitioner of IR, having worked with the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and other NGOs on project in Iraq. He has travelled to 55 countries, and lived in the UK, Italy, Yemen, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, and Spain
Ibrahim has appeared on all the major American media channels, including CBS’ new program 60 Minutes, the BBC, and Al-Jazeera, and is a regular op-ed writer for media such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Al-Jazeera English.