Mrs Joan Porter MacIver

From 2000-2013 I was BISI’s Administrator/London Manager and co-ordinator of the 2013 ‘Gertrude Bell and Iraq – A Life and Legacy’ conference. Since 2014, I have been a BISI Trustee until I stepped down in 2022 but was then co-opted in 2023 back to Council after year off. During the period as Trustee, I also co-coordinated the ‘Jews of Iraq, Engagement with modernities’ conference at SOAS in September 2019. I was BISI’s Project lead (2022-2023) on the Cultural Protection Fund (CPF) funded evaluation of the CPF Project ‘The Completion of a new Museum for Basra in Iraq’, having been the Project Coordinator on behalf of the Friends of Basrah Museum (FOBM) Trustees (2016-2020). I am co-chair of the BISI FOBM Committee and serve on other BISI committees. Through this work, I have had the great pleasure of working with a number of Iraqis in Basra and was most fortunate to be in Iraq for a month-long study tour in March 2024, led by my identical twin sister, Dr Barbara A Porter.

The charitable aims of the institute are very important to me, and I would be pleased to continue volunteering my time to ensure BISI achieves its future ambitions.

With regards to my academic background and interests, I am a graduate of Harvard University/Radcliffe College in Economics and Sociology. I have spent many years of my life growing up and living in the Middle East and have maintained an active interest in its history (ancient and modern), and archaeology, including being the Secretary of the Bahrain Historical and Archaeological Society in the early 1980s. I had the privilege of being the first Executive Director of the Honor Frost Foundation.