Specialists

Pamela Aall

admin — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:06:08 -0600

Pamela R. Aall is vice president for domestic programs, Education and Training Center. She directs the education program, which focuses on strengthening teaching, learning, and research on conflict prevention, management, and resolution. Her research interests include mediation in inter- and intrastate conflicts, the role of nonofficial organizations in conflict management and resolution and the role of education in exacerbating conflict or promoting reconciliation.

Tani Adams

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:08:18 -0500

NOTE: This is an archived profile of a former U.S. Institute of Peace specialist and is current as of the dates of tenure. The Office of Public Affairs and Communications maintains an extensive list of foreign policy experts outside of USIP—including many former fellows and staff members. For more information on how to contact this individual, please contact the Office of Public Affairs and Communications.

Rend al-Rahim

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:10:59 -0500

Imtiaz Ali

usiptemp1 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:04:13 -0500

Imtiaz Ali is a Pashtun journalist who specializes in Pakistan's volatile Tribal belt and North West Frontier Province along the Afghan border. Ali's project will explore the causes of the radicalization of the Pakistani Pashtun people, the nature of the insurgency on the Pakistani side of the border, and its connection with the Afghan Taliban, as well as with local and global terrorists' organizations like al-Qaeda.

Judith Asuni

asturma — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:21:57 -0500

Judith Asuni is a specialist in conflict and development in the Niger Delta, oil-based conflicts and the demobilization and reintegration of armed youth groups. Asuni is investigating the root causes of conflict in the Niger Delta region, particularly from the point of view of members of armed groups who are both victims of marginalization and perpetrators of violence against individuals and organizations with vested interests in the oil industry, as well as innocent bystanders.

Rusty Barber

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:14:06 -0500

Rusty Barber is USIP's director of Iraq Programs. Prior to that, he was chief of party for USIP’s mission in Baghdad, where he managed a staff of Iraqi program specialists responsible for implementation and oversight of the Institute’s projects and grant programs in Iraq.

Dorina Bekoe

tcolvin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:18:55 -0500

Dorina A. Bekoe is a senior research associate in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, where she specializes in African conflicts, political development, institutional reform and peace agreement implementation. She manages a project on political transition in Africa that includes work on electoral violence, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

Linda Bishai

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:19:55 -0500

Linda Bishai is a senior program officer in the Education and Training Center/International, where she focuses on secondary and university education in international relations, conflict resolution, human rights and peace studies. She is responsible for curriculum development and developing faculty and teacher workshops throughout the United States and in conflict zones, especially the Sudan.

Andrew Blum

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:28:22 -0500

Andrew Blum joined USIP in September 2008 as a program officer for the Grant Program.

For the previous five years, he was assistant director of the University of Maryland’s Center for International Development and Conflict Management, where he was the director of the ICONS Project and oversaw the undergraduate minor in that field. Prior to that, he served as academic director for the Institute for International Mediation and Conflict Resolution and field representative for the Carter Center in Georgetown, Guyana.

Virginia M. Bouvier

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:32:30 -0500

Virginia M. Bouvier joined USIP in January 2003 as a program officer for the Jennings Randolph Fellowship program. She is currently a senior program officer in the Grants and Fellowships program.

Keith Bowen

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:34:36 -0500

Keith Bowen is a senior program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/International. In this capacity, he manages programs and conducts live training in conflict-resolution skills, while developing and writing courses for the Institute’s online training program. He is writing a series of online courses on conflict analysis, negotiation, mediation, and interfaith conflict resolution while conducting live training in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of conflict overseas.

Daniel Brumberg

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:39:40 -0500

Daniel Brumberg is acting director of USIP’s Muslim World Initiative in the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, where he focuses on issues of democratization and political reform in the Middle East and wider Islamic world. He is also an associate professor at Georgetown University and a former senior associate in the Carnegie Endowment’s Democracy and Rule of Law Project (2003-04).

Charles "Chuck" T. Call

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:46:32 -0500

Scott N. Carlson

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:49:23 -0500

Scott N. Carlson is an adviser in the Institute’s Rule of Law Center of Innovation, where he focuses on rule of law initiatives in post-conflict environments. He serves as co-director and facilitator for the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law and is the lead drafter of a USIP-U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Rule of Law Handbook.

Beth Ellen Cole

tcolvin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:49:01 -0600

Beth Cole is a senior program officer in the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations. She leads USIP’s Civilian Peacefare Initiative that began in 2007 with a multiyear project to produce comprehensive "doctrine" for civilians in stabilization and reconstruction missions. This includes work on other civilian capacity components such as building a civilian reserve, interagency planning and coordination and training and education for civilians.

Elizabeth A. "Lili" Cole

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:13:21 -0500

Lili Cole is a program officer in the Jennings Randolph Fellowships program. For the past two years, she was assistant director of the Teach Asia Program in the Asia Society’s Education division, with responsibilities for curriculum creation and professional development. From 2000-2005, she was senior program officer in Studies and Education at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. While there, she developed an international research program called History and the Politics of Reconciliation, which studied how societies reckon with difficult pasts.

Ronald "Skip" Cole

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:14:54 -0500

Ronald Cole joined USIP’s Professional Training program early in 2006 as an instructional technologist. He helps deliver instructional content developed at the Institute to the world via technology. Cole has extensive experience in the field of simulation, both in content and technology. He has developed simulations of molecular dynamics, businesses and business decision-making processes. He is a Sun-certified enterprise architect, programmer and developer. Cole is also an Oracle-certified database associate. He was a nuclear reactor operator in the U.S.

A. Heather Coyne

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:17:02 -0500

A. Heather Coyne is a senior program officer in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. She was the chief of party for the Institute’s activities in Iraq in 2003-2005. She previously served fifteen months in Iraq as a U.S. Army Reserve civil affairs officer, assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority as the civil society officer for the Baghdad region. Her role was to promote the establishment and growth of indigenous Iraqi non-governmental organizations, professional societies and local citizens’ committees to support the reestablishment of civil society.

Chantal de Jonge Oudraat

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:35:54 -0500

Chantal de Jonge Oudraat is associate vice president of the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program. She is also an adjunct associate professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, where she teaches a graduate course on international organizations and international security.

John Dempsey

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:43:09 -0500

Dempsey joined USIP as a rule of law adviser in December 2007 and heads USIP’s office in Kabul, where he has lived since January 2003. He manages a staff of Afghan project officers responsible for implementation and oversight of the Institute’s projects and grant programs in Afghanistan.

Theo Dolan

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:50:33 -0500

Theo Dolan is a Program Officer at USIP’s Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding. Prior to joining USIP, he served for two years as a Media Specialist for the Public Sector Governance team at the World Bank Institute (WBI). At WBI, he focused on promoting access to public information and strengthening the role that media plays in establishing accountability and governance.

Michael Dziedzic

tcolvin — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 21:53:01 -0500

Senior Program Officer, Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations

Theodore Feifer

tcolvin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:40:56 -0500

Theodore Feifer is the deputy director of the Institute’s Education and Training Center/International. He joined USIP in 2000 following 26 years in the Foreign Service. He specialized in the Arab-Israeli peace process, serving two assignments at the U. S. embassy in Tel Aviv and as an adviser to the special Middle East coordinator.

Allison Frendak-Blume

tcolvin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:42:49 -0500

Allison Frendak-Blume has been a program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/International on an intermittent basis since 2004, supporting the “Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise" (SENSE) simulation program. She has conducted numerous trainings with domestic and international audiences and transferred the SENSE capability to partners in Iraq and Poland. Frendak-Blume previously worked at the Institute from 2000 to 2002 as a research assistant with the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program.

Nadia Gerspacher

tcolvin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:45:12 -0500

Nadia Gerspacher joined the Education and Training Center/Domestic in January 2008. Her focus is on strengthening local capacity and on security and protection in fragile states. Prior to joining the Institute, she taught compared criminology at Catholic University of America and international relations courses at American University’s School of International Service.

Raymond Gilpin

tcolvin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:46:56 -0500

Raymond Gilpin directs USIP’s Sustainable Economies Center of Innovation. He leads the Institute’s work on analyzing complex economic relationships during all stages of conflict (including prevention, mediation, resolution and post-conflict). Gilpin collates sound practices from practitioners and experts and designs appropriate capacity-building and reach-back tools for conflict environments.

Jason Gluck

tcolvin — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:27:58 -0500

Jason Gluck joined USIP as a rule of law adviser in January 2008. His focus is on constitution building and rule of law issues relating to Iraq. Previously, Gluck was a legal officer and constitutional adviser with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, where he advised the Council of Representatives during the 2007 constitutional review. He was also a senior program officer with the National Democratic Institute in Iraq, where he worked with the Iraqi Parliament to develop parliamentary institutional and legislative capacity.

Michael Gordon

tcolvin — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:50:46 -0500

Stephen J. Hadley

kboston — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:18:16 -0500

Stephen Hadley completed four years as the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs on January 20, 2009. In that capacity he was the principal White House foreign policy advisor to then-President George W. Bush, directed the National Security Council staff, and ran the interagency national security policy development and execution process.

Liz Harper

jtownsend — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:44:36 -0500

Liz Harper is senior editor for the Institute’s public affairs and communications department. In this capacity, she writes, edits and produces content for the Web site, such as On the Issues and special features, as well as other publications, including Peace Briefs. Additionally, Liz writes a regular blog for Americas Quarterly, a Latin American affairs journal published by the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. Her areas of specialty include Central America, Cuba and U.S. policy in Latin America.

Palwasha Hassan

jsawers — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:36:17 -0500

Palwasha Hassan currently serves as Country Director for Rights & Democracy in Afghanistan. She has more than fifteen years of experience in women's development and empowerment projects and is the founding member of many existing networks and women and human rights groups in Afghanistan, including the Afghan Women's Network, the Women and Street Children Project, and Roazana.

Susan Hayward

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:35:01 -0500

Susan Hayward joined USIP in August 2007 as a program officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Center of Innovation. She specializes in psychosocial religious dynamics in conflict; the role of religious leaders and communities in motivating violence and peace processes; and the development of conflict prevention, resolution and reconciliation programs specifically targeting the religious sector.

Laurie Schultz Heim

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:37:24 -0500

Laurie Schultz Heim joined the Institute after more than twenty years in the legislative process on Capitol Hill. Most recently, she served as senior policy adviser to Senator Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.), from 1989 to 2006. Her areas of responsibility included foreign policy, defense, arms control, veterans affairs and trade policy.

Jeffrey Helsing

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:39:04 -0500

Helsing is the deputy director of USIP's Education program, where he focuses on education in international relations, conflict resolution, human rights and peace studies. He has been responsible for many of the Institute's faculty and teacher workshops as well as curriculum development in the United States and in conflict zones abroad, particularly in the Middle East.

Steven Heydemann

tcolvin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:01:06 -0500

Steven Heydemann serves as vice president of the Grants and Fellowships program and as special adviser to the Muslim World Initiative.

His research and teaching have focused on the comparative politics and the political economy of the Middle East. His interests include authoritarian governance, economic development, social policy, political and economic reform and civil society. Heydemann has also researched the relationship between institutions and economic development and philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.

Sheldon Himelfarb

usiptemp1 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:01:15 -0500

Sheldon Himelfarb joined USIP from The Corporate Executive Board, where he was on the Technology Practice Leadership Team, working with Chief Information Officers from governments, universities, and multi-national corporations. Prior to this, he served as foreign policy adviser to a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the head of North American Documentary Development for Yorkshire TV, and the CEO/Executive Producer for Common Ground Productions, the media division of Search for Common Ground.

Anne Hingeley

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:46:21 -0500

Anne Hingeley joined USIP in June 2003 as a congressional relations specialist. She previously worked as the congressional coordinator for the government affairs affiliate of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a national grassroots civil rights and foreign policy organization.

Qamar-ul Huda

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:47:35 -0500

Qamar-ul Huda joined USIP as a senior program officer in the Religion and Peacemaking Centers of Innovation in June 2005. His research focuses on Islamic thought and philosophy on violence, nonviolence and conflict resolution. Prior to joining the Institute, Huda was a professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Boston College’s Theology Department (1997-2005) and a visiting professor of Islamic studies at the College of Holy Cross and Brandeis University.

Paul Hughes

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:52:39 -0500

Paul Hughes is the executive director of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, having previously served as the director of Iraq programs in the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations. Prior to joining the Institute, he served as an active duty U.S. Army colonel and as the Army’s senior military fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, of the National Defense University.

Deborah Isser

jtownsend — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:27:21 -0500

Deborah Isser joined the Rule of Law Center of Innovation in August 2004. She directs projects on the role of non-state justice systems in post-conflict societies and on addressing property claims in the wake of conflict. Previously, she was a senior policy adviser at the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she focused on economic reform and efforts to address serious crime and corruption. From 2000 to 2001, she was a special adviser for the U.S. Mission to the U.N. She received the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award for her work on U.N.

Maria Jessop

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:58:34 -0500

Maria Jessop is a senior program officer in the Education and Training Center/International where she develops and implements education and training programs in conflict resolution, intergroup dialogue, peacebuilding, human rights and civic education primarily for Iraqi educators, civil society leaders, and government officials. Jessop’s work at the Institute has also included training peacekeepers in Rwanda and Senegal in negotiation, training educators in Afghanistan on teaching peacebuilding, and providing advanced mediation skills training to OSCE mission personnel in Kosovo

Marvin Kalb

kboston — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:37:33 -0500

Marvin Kalb, Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice Emeritus, and Senior Fellow at the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, was the Shorenstein Centers Founding Director and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy (1987 to 1999). He was recipient of the 2006 National Press Club Fourth Estate Award. His distinguished journalism career encompasses 30 years of award-winning reporting for CBS and NBC News as Chief Diplomatic Correspondent, Moscow Bureau Chief, and host of Meet the Press.

Raina Kim

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:26:12 -0500

Raina Kim is a program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/Domestic. She manages the National Peace Essay Contest, designed to engage students and teachers in issues of international conflict management and resolution and spearheads the Institute’s online educational activities for secondary school students. Before joining the Institute, Kim was an information associate in the Office of Public Affairs and the Ministry of Culture at the Embassy of Korea in Washington, D.C. Previously, she was an editor of an economic journal at LG Economic Institute.

Noor Kirdar

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:29:02 -0500

Noor Kirdar is a senior program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/International, where she manages and coordinates live and online trainings. Her training workshops focus on developing negotiation, mediation and cross-cultural communication skills. She also oversees workshops that are integrated with the “Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise" (SENSE) simulation for government officials, including senior Iraqi officials, and military and international organizations.

Neil Kritz

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:31:08 -0500

Neil J. Kritz is the Institute's first Senior Scholar in Residence in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, where he is focusing on analyzing and advising on efforts to strengthen the Palestnian Justice system.

Kathleen Kuehnast

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:33:52 -0500

Kathleen Kuehnast joined USIP in January 2008 as Associate Vice President of the Grant Program following a 15-year career in international development, where she worked extensively with the World Bank managing international research projects and advising policymakers (government and non-government) on social development concerns, with a focus on gender related concerns. She has worked in a similar capacity with the Asian Development Bank, the German Technical Cooperation Agency and the U.N. Development Program.

Scott Lasensky

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:36:42 -0500

Scott Lasensky focuses on issues relating to the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy toward the region. He has lectured and written extensively on the Arab-Israeli conflict and America's role in the Middle East. He also directs USIP's Iraq and Its Neighbors project.

Michael Lekson

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:39:25 -0500

Michael Lekson joined the Institute’s Professional Training program in 2003 as a program officer. He came to the Institute following a 26-year career in the Department of State, where he was deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control, overseeing all multilateral arms control negotiations and treaty implementation, for which he received the secretary’s Distinguished Service Award. Prior to that, Lekson was deputy to the special representative of the president and the secretary of state for implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords.

Matthew Levinger

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:41:27 -0500

Matthew Levinger is a Senior Program Officer in the Education and Training Center at the United States Institute of Peace, where he teaches courses on conflict analysis and prevention for foreign policy professionals. He has more than twenty years’ experience doing research, analysis, and teaching on nationalism and violent conflict in the modern world. Before joining the U.S. Institute of Peace, he was director of the Academy for Genocide Prevention at the U.S.

Debra Liang-Fenton

adavies — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:30:44 -0500

Debra Liang-Fenton joined USIP’s Education and Training Center/Domestic in April 2008. Her focus is on exploring strategies for establishing good governance in post-conflict environments, and creating institutional networks for successful transitions. Liang-Fenton is a specialist on issues of human rights strategies, and building foundations for sustainable peace.

William "Bill" Long

asturma — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:11:32 -0500

Bill Long is Professor and Chair of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology. Long’s project will investigate ongoing regional cooperation and response in infectious disease control among traditional adversaries. Case studies will focus on three areas: the Middle East, the Mekong Basin and South Asia. His project seeks to answer the following questions: why is public health cooperation occurring among traditional antagonists, and how is this form of cooperation instigated, nurtured, institutionalized and extended to other issue areas?

George Lopez

asturma — Fri, 22 May 2009 09:48:15 -0500

George Lopez is Professor and Chair, Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. At USIP, Lopez will examine the most current, problematic and wide-ranging dilemmas facing policy-makers who consider sanctions as a both a powerful mechanism for dispute resolution and a strong tool for resolving security crises without military force. He will focus on the changing role of banks in sanctions and challenges faced by post-sanctions economies.

Shira B. Lowinger

slowinger — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:22:47 -0500

Shira Lowinger has served as the Program Specialist for the Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program at the United States Institute of Peace since 2005. In this capacity, she is the Manager of the Research Assistants and the Coordinator of Fellowship program activities and competitions. Previously, she worked as the Communications Coordinator in Marketing for Venable LLP. She has held Human Resources and Personnel positions at McKee Nelson LLP, Debevoise and Plimpton LLP and has interned at the International Technology and Trade Associates and the Eisenhower Institute.

Bruce W. MacDonald

brose — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:50:18 -0500

Bruce MacDonald is senior director of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, a bipartisan body headed by former Defense Secretaries William Perry and James Schlesinger. He was project leader for the Council on Foreign Relations’ study of China, Space Weapons, and U.S. Security, which the council published last autumn.

Robert Maguire

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:43:29 -0500

Caelan McGee

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:50:44 -0500

Caelan McGee is currently a conflict management facilitator and trainer with USIP's Baghdad office. He designs and coordinates local and regional level reconciliation strategies and systems, working closely with the Institute's cadre of Iraqi facilitators and supporting Provincial Reconstruction Teams operating in Iraq.

Alison Milofsky

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:52:35 -0500

Alison Milofsky is a special adviser to the Education and Training Center/Domestic where she focuses on secondary education. Milofsky facilitates workshops for educators domestically and internationally to assist them in integrating peace education, particularly social justice principles, into their classrooms. Most recently she has worked with educators from Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia and South Africa.

Asieh Mir

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:54:48 -0500

Charles E. Nelson

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:57:39 -0500

Charles E. Nelson is vice president of USIP's Headquarters project. Among his many duties, he works on USIP’s relations with Congress and on the development of architectural plans and funding for the Institute's new headquarters building. He also oversees the Institute's Latin America activities, which have included programs focusing on democracy-building, civil-military relations and the Organization of American States.

Valerie Norville

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:58:56 -0500

Valerie Norville joined the Institute in 2007 as director of publications. She has been a publishing professional in Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years, producing scholarly and policy books, magazines, newspapers and policy reports that encompass international affairs, economics policy and technology policy. Before joining the Institute, she was director of publications and Web development at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (2002-2007), where she previously served as books editor.

Vivienne O'Connor

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:00:45 -0500

Vivienne O'Connor is a senior rule of law adviser who joined the Rule of Law Program in 2007. Her focus is on criminal justice reform and rule of law training. She co-directs the Model Codes for Post-Conflict Criminal Justice Project and directs the Rule of Law Training Project. She also works on a project providing technical support and assistance to the criminal law reform process in Haiti. Before joining USIP, she worked at the Irish Centre for Human Rights as its Rule of Law Project Officer. In 2005, she has taught international human rights law at the National University of Ireland.

Andries Odendaal

asturma — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:09:58 -0500

Andries Odendaal is an independent conflict transformation specialist. For his project at USIP, Odendaal proposes to look at the role of a category of local peace-building mechanisms known as Local Peacebuilding Forums [LPFs]. LPFs, which are gaining ground as primary local peacebuilding mechanisms, usually consist of representatives of local political stakeholders, government officials and civil society.

Manal Omar

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:03:56 -0500

Manal Omar joined USIP as a program officer for the grant program in August 2008. Previously, she was regional program manager for the Middle East for Oxfam - Great Britain, where she responded to humanitarian crises in Palestine and Lebanon. Omar has extensive experience in the Middle East. She worked with Women for Women International as regional coordinator for Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan. Omar lived in Baghdad from 2003 to 2005 and set up operations in Iraq. She launched her career as a journalist in the Middle East in 1996.

Marie Pace

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:06:18 -0500

Marie Pace joined USIP in August 2008 as a program officer in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution. She has over ten years of international experience conducting research and working in Africa, the Middle East, the South Caucasus and South Asia. In Nigeria, Pace served as Peace and Development Adviser for UNDP from 2005 to 2007 when she led the development of conflict prevention strategies for UNDP-Nigeria. As a consultant to the Carter Center, she provided on-the-ground political analysis during Nigeria’s April 2007 general elections and in the postelection environment.

Jeremiah S. Pam

jsawers — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:51:00 -0500

Jeremiah S. Pam is a specialist in international responses to sovereign financial, economic and governance crises in developing countries where there are significant international security interests. Pam's project seeks to identify effective and realistic strategies for U.S. and international civil side assistance to strengthen institutionally weak states. Pam's work places particular emphasis on local public finance institutions and budgets as a focal point for the alignment of both local and international and civilian and military (including counterinsurgency) efforts.

John S. Park

usiptemp1 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:34:27 -0500

John S. Park focuses on Northeast Asian security, economic and energy issues and U.S. foreign policy toward the region. He is the director of the Institute’s Korea Working Group, a consultative body comprising senior experts from the government and think tank communities, and chaired by Ambassador Richard Solomon. Park is co-director of the U.S.-China Project on Crisis Avoidance and Cooperation, which is a collaborative endeavor with Fudan University and the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.

Sam Parker

usiptemp1 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:04:30 -0500

Sam Parker is a program officer in the Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations. He is involved in coordinating and providing consultation for USIP’s programs in Iraq, as well as researching and writing for the Institute’s Iraq publications.

Barmak Pazhwak

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:20:30 -0500

Barmak Pazhwak came to USIP from the U.N. Development Program where he was the senior international adviser to the Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, government of Afghanistan. Before that, he was director of program development and faculty with Southwestern University and Global College where he developed the international development curriculum and taught courses.

Robert M. Perito

usiptemp1 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:59:36 -0500

Senior Program Officer, Centers of Innovation Senior Program Officer, Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations

Sandra Pogodda

jsawers — Fri, 01 May 2009 14:22:04 -0500

Sandra Pogodda joined USIP as a Transatlantic Post-Doc Fellow for International Relations and Security (TAPIR). Prior to USIP, her post-doc took her to Chatham House in London and the Center for Transatlantic Relations (SAIS /Johns Hopkins University) in Washington.

Colette Rausch

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:43:47 -0500

Colette Rausch is the acting director of the Institute's Rule of Law Center of Innovation. Her focus is on criminal justice and police reform initiatives that have included missions and projects in Afghanistan, Liberia and Nepal. Before joining the Institute, she worked at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Mission in Kosovo, serving first as head of the Rule of Law Division and then as director of the Department of Human Rights and Rule of Law.

Steven Riskin

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:54:07 -0500

Steven Riskin is a senior program officer in the Grant and Fellowships program and a Middle East specialist with particular expertise on Arab-Israeli affairs. He is also responsible for the Institute’s Solicited Grant Initiative on Iran. He came to the Institute from the Ford Foundation, where he was a New York-based program officer and consultant on Middle East issues. He was responsible for program development and grantmaking in Israel, designing and implementing programs in the areas of human rights, social justice and conflict resolution.

Leonard S. Rubenstein

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:56:19 -0500

Mary Hope Schwoebel

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:17:38 -0500

Mary Hope Schwoebel is a program officer in the Education and Training Center/International. She holds a Ph.D. in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University and an M.Ed. in adult and non-formal education from the University of California, Davis. Her dissertation was entitled Nation-building in the Lands of the Somalis and compared three state-building and peacebuilding interventions in terms of how they negotiated Somali, Islamic, and Western models of governance and conflict resolution.

Heather Sensibaugh

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:25:54 -0500

Heather Sensibaugh is the special assistant to the president in the Executive Office at USIP. She joined the team for the Public Education Center to coordinate an advisory group process to develop content for the exhibits. She also coordinated the groundbreaking ceremony for the new headquarters on June 5, 2008. Together with Ambassador Richard H. Solomon and Nigel Quinney, she is working on American Negotiating Behavior, which is part of the cross-cultural negotiation series published by USIP.

Daniel P. Serwer

usiptemp1 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:46:52 -0500

Daniel P. Serwer is vice president of the the Centers of Innovation.

Randa Slim

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:37:01 -0500

Randa Slim’s project focuses on creating and managing an Iraqi Forum for National Dialogue (IFND). This forum will serve as a neutral space inside Iraq to sustain and expand the national dialogue initiated by the International Institute for Sustained Dialogue (IISD) and the Helsinki process. Slim is also working on a project related to Lebanon and the role of Hezbollah. Slim has extensive experience in such endeavors.

David J. Smith

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:47:32 -0500

David J. Smith is a senior program officer in USIP's Education and Training Center, Domestic Programs, where he focuses on secondary and higher education efforts in promoting peacebuilding and conflict resolution. He has primary responsibility for issues related to youth and violent conflict. Smith coordinates the Institute's programs for college and university faculty and secondary social studies teachers.

David R. Smock

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:50:04 -0500

David R. Smock is the vice president of the Institute's Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution and associate vice president of the Religion and Peacemaking program, one of the Centers of Innovation. Previously he served as director of the USIP's Grant Program and coordinator of Africa activities.

He has worked on African issues for more than 30 years and lived in Africa for 11 years. As a staff member of the Ford Foundation from 1964 to 1980, he served in Ghana, Kenya, Lebanon, Nigeria and New York.

Sammy Smooha

asturma — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:26:39 -0500

Sammy Smooha is the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Haifa. His USIP project will explore five states that have national minorities and, while they see themselves as Western democracies, also consider the state to be the exclusive homeland of the ethnic majority. The project will consider how such states keep the peace; whether they are stable; whether minority acquiescence is temporary; whether their regime is changing to another type; and what are the implications of internal conflict for the region.

Richard H. Solomon

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 08:57:57 -0500

Richard H. Solomon has been president of the United States Institute of Peace since 1993 and has overseen its growth into a center of international conflict management analysis and applied programs.

Marc Sommers

asturma — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:20:35 -0500

Marc Sommers is Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies in the Institute of Human Security at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. At USIP, Sommers will focus on Western popular cultural icons and youth as important contributors to warfare, as well as to peacebuilding. His project will draw on extensive field research in Sierra Leone, which analyzed the prominent roles that hip hop artist Tupac Shakur, the Rambo movie character and reggae musician Bob Marley played in Sierra Leone’s civil war.

Tara Sonenshine

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:02:32 -0500

Tara D. Sonenshine joined the USIP leadership team in January 2009 as Vice President for Planning and Outreach. In that capacity, Sonenshine oversees strategic planning, public outreach and publications. She also manages the planning of the Public Education Center that will be part of the Institute’s new Headquarters project on the National Mall.

Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:06:08 -0500

An adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and vice chair of the Demobilization and Reintegration Commission, a group responsible for the disbandment of illegal armed groups, Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai’s research focuses on security, reconstruction and reconciliation in Afghanistan.

Nina Sughrue

usiptemp1 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 09:20:58 -0500

Nina Sughrue is a senior program officer in the Education and Training Center/International. She coordinates training programs that help government officials, military and police personnel, representatives from various international organizations and non-governmental employees improve their conflict management skills. She has conducted training in Afghanistan, Colombia, Egypt, Jordan, India, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Poland, Sudan and Turkey and with Israelis and Palestinians.

William B. Taylor

kboston — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:20:25 -0500

Vice President, Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations

Emmanuel Teitelbaum

asturma — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 11:23:55 -0500

Emmanuel Teitelbaum is Assistant Professor at the Elliott School of International Studies, George Washington University. He will focus his work at USIP on the study of economic transformations and democratic governance in India. In particular, his work will explore how reforms were sequenced to avoid political resistance; how they generated synergistic ties between the state and organized labor; how they have reduced poverty; and how they have affected caste rigidities and inter-caste violence.

Jonathan Temin

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:35:18 -0500

Jon Temin is a Program Officer in the Center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, where he focuses on Sudan and leads the Institute’s Sudan team. Prior to joining the Institute he spent five years with the non-governmental organization CHF International designing development and peacebuilding programs throughout Africa and elsewhere. He has working experience in more than a dozen countries across Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe.

J Alexander Thier

tcolvin — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:49:15 -0500

J Alexander Thier is Director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Institute of Peace and chair of the Institute’s Afghanistan and Pakistan Working Groups. Thier leads USIP efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has lived and worked on and off since 1993. He is co-author and editor of, The Future of Afghanistan (USIP, 2009) and was a member of the Afghanistan Study Group, co-chaired by General James Jones and Ambassador Tom Pickering, and co-author of its final report.

David Tolbert

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:39:18 -0500

Lauren Van Metre

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:32:45 -0500

Lauren Van Metre is a program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/Domestic. Prior to coming to the Institute, she pursued a doctorate in Russian studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School for Advanced International Studies. Her dissertation was on national identity negotiations in the area of education in post-conflict and transitioning states. She has also worked at the State Department as deputy office director for Kosovo Peace Implementation.

Patricia I. Vasquez

asturma — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:51:56 -0500

Patricia Vasquez is the Latin America Team Leader at Energy Intelligence. For her USIP project she is investigating local level conflicts related to oil and gas exploration and development in Latin America. She examines how the recent increase in hydrocarbon development in the region risks exacerbating local unresolved conflicts, and challenges the stability of oil and gas producing countries. Her project focuses on Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Brazil.

Colonel J.M. "Matt" Venhaus

jsawers — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:18:34 -0500

Career U.S. Army officer Colonel J.M. "Matt" Venhaus's research and writings will center around the development and implementation of a total government solution to reduce the available pool of potential recruits for extremist organizations in the Middle East. Using a persuasive public media campaign at its center, he plans to focus on the underlying social and psychological factors that lead some young people to seek association with violent extremeist organizations and methods by which recruitments can be reduced.

Keith David Watenpaugh

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:03:56 -0500

Peter Weinberger

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:14:45 -0500

Weinberger joined USIP’s Education and Training Center/Domestic in February 2008. His focus is engaging with ethnic, religious and minority groups as part of the post-conflict reconstruction process and on cultural adaptability in complex operations.

Weinberger is a specialist on divided societies and has worked with various NGOs in the Balkans, Northern Ireland and the Palestinian territories. He also has expertise on defense outsourcing and the international private security industry.

Joel Whitaker

avarghese1 — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:35:10 -0500

Joel Whitaker is senior adviser to the Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace.

Abiodun Williams

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:12:30 -0500

Abiodun Williams is vice president of the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Previously, he served as associate dean of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. From 2001 to 2007, he served as director of strategic planning in the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General. In that capacity, he advised Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon on a full range of strategic issues including U.N.

Jacqueline H. Wilson

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:10:26 -0500

Jacqueline H. Wilson is a senior program officer in the Institute’s Education and Training Center/International. She joined the Institute with more than 20 years of service in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves. Her military career has included assignments in analysis, training and counterterrorism. She served overseas in the Middle East and Africa and was a Middle East foreign area officer.

Andreas Wimmer

asturma — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:57:12 -0500

Andreas Wimmer is professor of sociology at UCLA. Wimmer's USIP project aims to better understand the causal mechanisms that lead to armed conflicts fought to achieve separate statehood, ethnic autonomy, or a change in the ethnic balance of power of a state. During his stay at USIP, he will draw on an original data-set of ethnic power relations to produce new case-based analyses and policy recommendations.

Lawrence Woocher

usiptemp1 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:50:16 -0500

Lawrence Woocher is a senior program officer in the Institute’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, where he focuses on early warning, conflict prevention, and the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. He was a member of the executive committee and lead expert on early warning for the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen.

Scott Worden

usiptemp1 — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:58:39 -0500

Scott Worden joined USIP as an adviser in the Rule of Law Center of Innovation in 2007. Previously, he served as an adviser to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on human rights and elections issues, as well as to the Afghanistan Joint Election Management Body on the conduct of the 2005 Parliamentary elections.

Robin Wright

asturma — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:58:59 -0500

Robin Wright is a journalist, author and foreign policy analyst. Her project focuses on Iran, the Middle East, South Asia and the wider Islamic world. She is exploring what has happened to the Islamic world in the decade since 9/11 and the thinkers and trends that will define the future of the Islamic world over the next decade, when many of the most difficult conflicts and intransigent ideologies facing the United States will be in the fifty-seven countries of the Islamic word. Wright will document the voices now struggling to adapt traditions and to reinterpret Koranic s

Mona Yacoubian

usiptemp1 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:29:42 -0500

Mona Yacoubian is a special adviser to the Institute’s Muslim World Initiative, where she provides analysis and policy advice on the Middle East and North Africa. She currently directs the Institute's Lebanon Working Group and also contributes to the Institute's ongoing work on Syria. She has worked on a broad range of issues in the region, including democratization and civil society promotion, as well as counterterrorism strategy.