At various Iraq reconstruction conferences, the Baghdad Museum Project gave presentations to the reconstruction community advocating the preservation of Iraq's cultural heritage in rebuilding projects. On August 27, 2006, Iraq's museum director Dr. Donny Youkhanna fled the country to Syria, as a result of murder threats he and his family members had received from terrorist groups that were assassinating all remaining Iraqi intellectuals and scientists. Youkhanna held the position of visiting professor in the anthropology department of Stony Brook State University of New York until his death in March 2011.