Anthony Preston successfully defended his doctoral dissertation (on April 19, 2021) on topic: “Protecting America’s Interests first”.

The committee composed of Prof. Dr. Jusuf Zejneli-chairman, Prof. Dr. Drita Mamuti-Fazlija-member, Prof. Dr. Shefik Shehu-member. Prof. Dr. Ferat Polisi-member and Prof. Dr. Faton Shabani-member estimated that the topic worked on by the candidate belongs to the recent period, therefore it has not been widely addressed by researchers so far and will serve as an incentive in the future to be researched more deeply by other researchers.

According to the committee, the candidate has used relevant sources, documents, interviews with well-known personalities, that make the topic resistant to scientific criticism. He has compared different sources, that have been approached scientifically, while the peculiarity of this topic lies in the fact that the candidate has managed to conduct interviews with some of the good connoisseurs of events and developments, which are addressed in the topic.

With his work, the candidate has made efforts to provide the fullest possible overview of events, which are related to the topic and the same it constitutes a valuable contribution not only to the legal field, but also to the history of American-Albanian relations of the most recent period, thus serving as a starting point for deepening and expanding research on one of the most important events in our national history.

Anthony William Preston was born on April 17, 1988 in Chicago Illinois, USA, where he completed his primary and secondary education.

He completed his basic studies in May 2010, at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, USA. During his studies, he spent a year studying in Rome, Italy and showed wide academic and social commitment, therefore it was entrusted with the task of president of the student association for the Great Lakes region within the Northern Illinois University College of Business.

After completing basic studies, Anthony Preston in the same year, enrolled in the second cycle of studies at the master studies, at the same university and at the same time worked as a student assistant in the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Business, being responsible for foreign students and international delegations.

As part of the inter-university cooperation between the NIU and the University of Bordeaux in France, he conducted a study visit to Bordeaux and in 2011 successfully completed his master’s degree and was awarded with a double degree from Northern Illinois University and the University of Bordeaux.

Immediately after completing the master studies, Mr. Preston, as a distinguished student, was employed at the Faculty of Business at NIU, leading the global program and assistant director of the MBA master program. In 2014, he was appointed director of the global program at the Faculty of Business, working on networking this faculty with faculties around the world. Within this role, Mr. Preston holds the main merits with the inter-university cooperation between Northern Illinois University and the University of Tetova.

In 2018, Mr. Preston was appointed Executive Director of International Master’s Degree Programs between the Faculty of Business of NIU and faculties in Bogota, Colombia, and Nanjing, China, while from June 2020 he holds the position of assistant dean of the Faculty of Business at NIU.

He completed his doctoral studies in the study program History of Institutions and the Rule of Law, course of study: International Relations and History of Diplomacy in the academic year 2015/16 at the University of Tetova under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Fehari Ramadani, by successfully completing the exams and doctoral conferences, provided by the Regulation on doctoral studies of the University of Tetova.