Conflict Resolution Faculty and Staff

Laia Balcells (Yale PhD, 2010), Professor of Government. Before joining Georgetown, she was an Assistant Professor at Duke University (2012-17) and fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University (2015-16). Her research explores the determinants of political violence and civil wars, warfare dynamics during conflict, and nationalism and ethnic conflict. Her first book, entitled Rivalry and Revenge: the Politics of Violence during Civil War was published by Cambridge University Press in 2017. She has also published articles in the American Political Science Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, Politics & Society, Comparative Politics, and Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, among other journals. She has been recipient of the APSA Luebbert Prize for Best Article in Comparative Politics, the ISA Ethnicity, Nationalism, & Migration Studies Section Best Paper award, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Research grant.

Chantal Berman is a political scientist and an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, where she researches the contemporary politics of the Middle East & North Africa. She writes about topics including protest and mobilization, political economy and development, and political violence. In August 2020, I’ll be an Assistant Professor at the Department of Government at Georgetown University.

D Girod (Ph.D. 2008, Stanford University) is an associate professor in the Department of Government (new window). In addition, Dr. Girod is affiliated with the African Studies Program (new window) and the Center for Latin American Studies (new window) in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service (new window).

Dr. Girod specializes in foreign aid, foreign policy, and conflict resolution. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Dr. Girod grew up thinking about how powerful countries influence their less powerful counterparts. Dr. Girod has deftly researched these dynamics for nearly 20 years, publishing in top-ranked journals, such as the American Journal of Political Science and International Organization. Dr. Girod’s book, Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction, was published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Girod’s research has received support from the Political Instability Task Force, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, Georgetown University’s College of Arts and Sciences and Office of the Provost, and Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law.

As director of the master’s in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown (2018 – 2021), Dr. Girod trained students in the theory, practice, and art of how to solve problems between groups. The training ranged from work on the ground to work at the highest levels of policy. Dr. Girod implemented a program-wide summer field fellowship, through which students receive a stipend for a work placement with an organization of their choice. To introduce the students to high levels of policy, Dr. Girod moderates discussion between them and top policy makers, including, for example, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Dr. Girod received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2008, an M.Phil from Trinity College, Dublin, in 2002, and a B.A. from Penn State in 2000, after serving as student-body president of 33,000 undergraduates. The Bunton-Waller Scholarship for under-represented minorities funded the B.A. The US-Ireland Alliance funded the M.Phil. And Stanford’s Political Science Department and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the Harry S. Truman Foundation funded the Ph.D.

Lise Morjé Howard is a Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University and President of the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS). She earned her MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her AB in Soviet Studies magna cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University. She held pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Stanford University (Center for International Security and Cooperation), Harvard University (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs), and the University of Maryland (Center for International Development and Conflict Management). She was the founding director of the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown, and has served as a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Dr. Howard’s research and teaching interests span the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and conflict resolution. Her work focuses on civil wars, peacekeeping, U.S. foreign policy, and area studies of sub-Saharan Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East. She has published articles and book chapters on these topics in such journals as International Organization, International Security, International Studies Quarterly, International Peacekeeping, Foreign Affairs, and with Oxford University Press. Her book, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, was published by Cambridge University Press (2008), and it won the 2010 Book Award from the Academic Council on the UN System for the best book on the UN system published in the previous three years. She is currently working on a book about how UN peacekeepers exercise power (under contract with Cambridge University Press).

Howard recently served as scholarly adviser for a one-hour documentary film about UN peacekeeping entitled “The UN: Last Station before Hell” (ARTE, available on Amazon); she presented a TEDx talk about her forthcoming book; and she serves as a member of the editorial board of the journal International Peacekeeping. Dr. Howard has received awards for her work on peacekeeping from the Soroptimist International, the Barnard College Alumnae Association, and the James D. Kline Fund. She has also received support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the National Security Education Program, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and Georgetown University. Dr. Howard is fluent in French and Russian, and speaks some Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Spanish, and German. Prior to beginning graduate school, she served as Acting Director of UN Affairs for the New York City Commission for the United Nations.

M. Kathleen Coogan, a lawyer, international development practitioner, and conflict resolution specialist with twenty-five years of professional experience, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University in the Master of Arts in Conflict Resolution program. She also serves as the Senior Advisor for Atrocities Prevention and Gender for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. She served previously as legislative counsel to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a litigation associate at Sidley & Austin in Chicago, and a program manager at a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Phoenix. She is a past chair of the Association for Conflict Resolution’s International Section and served as a member of the Board of Directors, a mediator, and a trainer for Community Boards mediation center in San Francisco. 

Kathleen Coogan leads the Conflict Resolution program’s core skills elements, teaching Applied Negotiations and Mediation I and II.

Dr. Charles Villa-Vicencio is a visiting scholar in the Conflict Resolution Program. He is the founder and former executive director of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, based in Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to that he was the National Research Director in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He has published widely in the area of transitional justice. His most publications include Walk With Us and Listen: Reconciliation in Africa (GUP, 2009) and Conversations in Transition: Leading Voices in South Africa (Cape Town: David Phillip, 2012) which is available for free download here.

President, Global Situation Room, Inc. & former Director of Global Engagement at the White House

We live in increasingly uncertain times. It has never been more difficult to navigate the changes, challenges, and to create new opportunities around the world. From cyberattacks to fake news, threats appear around every corner. During twelve years as a U.S. diplomat, Brett became a specialist in using strategic communications to influence the course of crisis and conflict. As Director of Global Engagement at the White House, he helped build many of President Obama’s legacy international initiatives. Bruen is a pioneer in risk management. During his service on the US National Security Council and in the years since, he developed some of the most cutting-edge strategies to counter crises. A CNN investigation profiled his successful coordination of the United States’ initial response to Russian information operations in Europe. When more than 200 school girls were kidnapped in Nigeria, Brett created the Let Girls Learn campaign. It featured top celebrities and generated billions of dollars in new support for girls’ education. Marie Clare Magazine called “one of the most significant things to remember from the Obama White House.” In his current role as President of the Global Situation Room, he runs a consulting firm specializing in strategic communications, international trade, and risk management. GSR is a strategic partner of the public affairs firm Porter Novelli. He serves as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University and on boards at Harvard University, University College Dublin, and UNICEF. He is a contributor to US News and World Report and is interviewed regularly by major media outlets on world events. Brett speaks fluent Spanish and French.

William E. Hall, PhD is an adjunct assistant professor in Georgetown University’s Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution, where his teaching focuses on environmental collaboration and conflict resolution. He is the Director of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Office of Collaborative Action and Dispute Resolution, which promotes collaboration and effective conflict management in the workplace and for external matters, including environmental, natural resource, and tribal issues. Previously, Dr. Hall served as an alternative dispute resolution practitioner and evaluation expert at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Conflict Prevention and Resolution Center. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. from George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and B.A. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to his federal service and graduate studies, he served as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Dr. Hall’s publications include Turning Points in Environmental Negotiation: Exploring Conflict Resolution Dynamics in Domestic and International Cases(Republic of Letters, 2014), “The Public Sector as Mediator: The Role of Public Institutions in Environmental Collaborations and Conflict Resolution” in The Mediation Handbook: Research, Theory, and Practice(Routledge, 2017), and “Turning Points: A Pracademic’s View” in the journal Négociations (2017).

Molly Inman is a Knowledge Management Specialist at USAID in the Office of Transition Initiatives and a faculty fellow in the Conflict Resolution Program at Georgetown.

Dr. Inman received her PhD in comparative politics and international relations from the Government and Politics Department at the University of Maryland in 2013. Her previous research focused on federalism, ethnic politics and violent conflict though which she developed a theory of subnational ethnic outbidding in federal systems. Her current research extends this work and focuses on the impact of ethnic political parties on rebellion and choice of target group in ethnic outbidding. She prefers to use mixed method approaches to research when feasible, harnessing the advantages of both quantitative and qualitative techniques. She has published articles in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Terrorism and Political Violence, and Journal of Organizational Behavior among others. 

Prior to returning to graduate school, Dr. Inman worked on international development programs in Southeastern Europe, primarily related to rule of law reform, human rights and conflict resolution. Additionally, she has worked on research projects with the US Institute of Peace, Social Science Research Council and the University of Maryland’s Center for International Development and Conflict Management related to the documentation and/or prevention of violence and mass atrocities. Dr. Inman also has a MA in Democracy and Human Rights from the Universities of Sarajevo and Bologna and a BA in German and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia.

Dr. S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana is a Senior Fellow at Center for Global Policy and Affiliate Researcher, Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. Before coming to Georgetown University, she served as a consultant for the Religion and Peacebuilding Program at United States Institute of Peace and as an assistant professor American University. She is also one of the founding members and a fellow at Salam Institute for Peace and Justice, a non-profit organization for research, education, and practice on issues related to conflict resolution, nonviolence, and development.

Dr Kadayifci has taught, lectured and published extensively in the fields of peacebuilding and development, the evaluation of peacebuilding and development programs, conflict resolution and peacebuilding in Muslim communities, gender and peacebuilding in Muslim communities, cross-cultural conflict resolution and mediation, and interfaith and intra-faith dialogues among others. As a scholar-practitioner, Dr. Kadayifci has also facilitated dialogues and training workshops, and worked on conflict resolution curriculum development in various countries including Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, Chad, Niger, Kenya, Guatemala, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.

Dr. Kadayifci has authored Standing On an Isthmus: Islamic Narratives of War and Peace in the Palestinian Territories and co-authored the edited the volume, Anthology on Islam and Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islam: Precept and Practice. She has also written various book chapters and journal articles on Muslim women’s peacebuilding initiatives, mediation and peace building, religion and conflict resolution, interfaith dialogue, Islamic approaches to war and peace, and Islam and nonviolence. She has also served as a consultant to US and Canadian governmental and nonprofit development agencies.

Accomplished development professional with global humanitarian and crisis response leadership and field operations expertise spanning more than 30 years. Proven record in building diverse, highly functioning teams that quickly assess field challenges and implement solutions successfully. Last assignment was Mission Director for Sri Lanka and Maldives before retiring with 36 years of service in October, 2015 with USAID. Prior to Sri Lanka she served as Deputy Assistant Administrator in USAID’s Bureau for Middle East with oversight of the Iraq, Jordan and Yemen portfolios. She is a career Senior Foreign Service officer with tours in Afghanistan, Russia, Honduras and Italy (Rome) and shortened tours in Pakistan and Bosnia. 

She served in Afghanistan, 2002-2003, where she was head of the USAID reconstruction program and Acting Mission Director. In the mid-1980’s she was based in Peshawar, Pakistan where she designed the USAID Cross Border Humanitarian Assistance Program for Afghanistan.

She holds a master’s degree in Near East Studies from the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. She served as adjunct professor at Georgetown University where she taught a graduate-level course on conflict and food security. She is married and has two children. She is an active retiree with many volunteer commitments as well as international consulting assignments.

Patrick W. Quirk serves on the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning (S/P) staff in the Department of State. In this capacity, he is the lead advisor for fragile states, conflict and stabilization, and foreign assistance. Prior to joining S/P, he served as Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy in State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO). In that role, he was CSO’s overall lead for stabilization and fragile states policy and strategy. Immediately prior, he was CSO’s Team Lead for Political Transitions and Electoral Violence, where he conceptualized and formalized the bureau’s approach to analyzing and developing strategies to mitigate conflict surrounding high-priority elections and political transitions. Dr. Quirk was one of the principal authors of the 2018 State-USAID-DoD Stabilization Assistance Review (SAR), and has worked in more than 20 countries including Afghanistan, Colombia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Burma. Concurrent to serving at State, he is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University, teaching courses on stabilization and political violence. From 2017-2018, while at State, he was a non-resident Penn Kemble Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Prior to government service, Dr. Quirk was a Research Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). Before joining GMF, he was a senior manager at Creative Associates International, a DC-based consulting firm, where he led risk assessments for the U.S. government and managed democracy assistance and conflict prevention programs in East Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of Great Powers, Weak States, and Insurgency: Explaining Internal Threat Alliances and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. Mr. Quirk received a BA in History from Bates College and PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University.

Michael J. Reed-Hurtado is a Colombian/US lawyer and journalist with over 25 years of experience in the human rights and humanitarian fields. His work has focused, amongst others, on: forced displacement of persons; prison conditions and reform; effective criminal prosecution of system crimes; and transitional justice. Reed-Hurtado has worked mainly in Latin America, with sporadic work in Asia and Africa. Teaching and academic research interests have focused on the dynamics and causes of collective violence, prevention of atrocities, state crime, shortfalls of human rights protection systems, and practical dimensions of transitional justice and negotiated peace settlements. He has taught at Georgetown University since the Fall 2017 semester, pursuant to moving to the DC-area after completing a three-year faculty fellowship at Yale University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Journalism from the University of Texas, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Minnesota. Reed-Hurtado is an active columnist and commentator in various Colombian news media (print); he is a regular columnist in the daily newspaper El Colombiano. He serves as an adviser to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia. @mreedhurtado

Mara Rudman is Senior Vice President for Policy/Projects at Business Executives for National Security (BENS), where she manages and coordinates the work BENS produces. She concurrently runs Quorum Strategies, a geopolitical strategy firm providing operations and management, private public partnerships, policy and strategic advising. Her government positions have included serving as Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs for Presidents Obama and Clinton, deputy envoy and chief of staff for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the State Department, and Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition, she has been a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, focusing on national security issues, with a particular focus on the Middle East. Rudman also has worked as a vice president and general counsel for The Cohen Group, a Washington-based consultancy founded by former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Earlier in her career, Ms. Rudman was chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, working for Chairman and then Ranking Member Lee Hamilton.

Proven International development expert with 15 years of field and HQ experience in senior management and humanitarian response leadership roles in the Middle East, eastern and southern Africa, and Russia.

Frank Vogl is the co-founder of two leading international non-governmental organizations fighting corruption — Transparency International (TI) and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF). He was the first Vice Chairman of Transparency International and serves today as a member of its Advisory Council and as an Individual Member. He is a former Vice Chairman of the Partnership for Transparency Fund and serves today as its Presidential Counsellor.

Frank Vogl teaches at Georgetown University as an adjunct lecturer. He writes regular “blog” articles on corruption for theGlobalist.com and lectures extensively. Frank is also a specialist in international economics and finance with more than 50 years of experience in these fields – first as an international journalist, then as a senior World Bank official and, from 1990 to 2017, as the president and CEO of a consulting firm, Vogl Communications Inc.

Daniel Weggeland is a Faculty Fellow with Georgetown University’s Conflict Resolution Program. He is a development practitioner with an enduring interest in the theory and application of development resources for political and security outcomes. While a university student, Daniel was a teaching assistant at the National War College and traveled twice to Liberia for field research: first as an undergraduate in 2004 to interview UN peacekeeping troops and again in 2007 as a graduate student to lead a field team preparing ex-combatants for demobilization. Starting in 2008, he spent three consecutive years in Afghanistan operating in multiple provinces, partnering across civilian and military bureaucracies, and serving in the field and at headquarters. Daniel advised Generals Petraeus and Allen on establishing theater-wide policies and embedded with military units to observe their operations. He headed the development portfolio for province-and brigade-level interagency teams with the United States Agency for International Development. He managed the conflict mitigation portfolio for an implementing partner of a regional stabilization program. Between 2013 and 2014, Daniel was a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. He hold a master’s in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and continue to work on the Afghanistan contingency as the senior subject matter expert with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

I am an educator/trainer, leader, organizational ombuds, and conflict resolution specialist.

I have held executive leadership roles in impactful Bay Area nonprofits for 20 years. I have experience in organizational development, strategy, communications, programs, fund development, and relationship and partnership building with an emphasis on equity, inclusion, and conflict resolution.

My current specialty and interest is in organizational ombudsing. I have many years of experience addressing complex and sensitive workplace issues among all levels of organizational hierarchy to mitigate conflicts that can lead to grievances, disciplinary actions and workplace disruptions. My work is confidential, impartial, independent and informal, and follows the principals of fairness, equity and respect through individual consultation and coaching, mediation, group facilitation and trainings.

I am currently an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University School of Government and the Executive Director of Community Boards, the nation’s longest-running community-based conflict resolution and mediation center. I am also a former Associate Ombuds at UCSF. I have a great track record developing and managing complex initiatives such as: the San Francisco Peacemaker Awards, Taking Mediation to the People Project, curriculum for addressing LGBT discrimination in the SFUSD, trainings for Neighborhood Courts adjudicators at the SF District Attorney’s office, and workplace bullying trainings. I’m the former Executive Director of the nationally recognized STOP AIDS Project (now part of the SF AIDS Foundation) where I led the development of numerous diversity initiatives.

I developed and teach Conflict Resolution in the Healthcare Workplace at City College of San Francisco and co-authored ‘Conflict Resolution Skills’ in the textbook “Foundations for Community Health Workers.” I am also passionate about women’s health. I’m a seasoned educator and trainer with deep skills on addressing equity in the classroom and boardroom. If you’d like to connect, please feel free to reach out! 

Ambassador Kenneth Yalowitz retired as the Director of the Conflict Resolution MA Program at Georgetown University on July 1, 2018 and remains an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Government. He is also a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC and a Trustee of the Eurasian Foundation. He served as the Director of the Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College from 2003 -2011 following retirement from the US Department of State after 36 years as a career diplomat and member of the Senior Foreign Service. He has also taught at the Stanford University in Washington Program. Ambassador Yalowitz served twice as a U.S. ambassador: to the Republic of Belarus from 1994-1997; and to Georgia from 1998-2001. Other overseas assignments included Moscow (twice), The Hague and the US Mission to NATO in Brussels. He won a variety of awards for conflict prevention and overall diplomatic performance. In 1984, Ambassador Yalowitz received a superior honor award for crisis management in the shootdown of KAL-007. He was chosen for the Ambassador Robert Frasure award for peacemaking and conflict prevention in 2000 for his work to prevent the spillover of the Chechen war into Georgia. In 2009, he was invited to join the American Academy of Diplomacy and in 2011 he was elected to membership in the Council on Foreign Relations. He has authored or co-authored op eds and articles in publications such as the International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, New York Times, Orbis, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, The National Interest, Project Syndicate, The American Interest, The Hill, Newsweek, CNN Blog and Reuters. Ambassador Yalowitz completed his undergraduate work at the University of Wisconsin and holds a Russian Institute Certificate, MA and Master of Philosophy degree from Columbia University.

Craig is the Founder and CEO of PCDN, the go-to hub for global social change (pcdnetwork.org). Since its founding in 2007, Craig has grown PCDN to over 37,000 members representing more than 180 countries. From 2005 to 2016 he served as a full-time faculty member in the Conflict Resolution program at Georgetown University serving as Associate Director for over six years and finishing as an Associate Professor of the Practice. In 2016 he decided to leave his position to focus on scaling PCDN full time. Since then he has continued to teach a social entrepreneurship skills class in the program. Craig has dedicated his life to being an entrepreneur and to creating a more peaceful world. Before creating PCDN, Craig also helped to co-found two NG0s – the Alliance for Conflict Transformation and the TEAM foundation in Hungary. Craig serves on a number of boards and advisory boards including the Alliance for Conflict Transformation, the Inzone Project, Tech Change, Move this World, Amani Institute, and several others. He spent two years in Hungary as Fulbright Scholar and was a Boren Fellow in Bosnia. He has led trainings, workshops and consultancies in over 20 countries organizations including with USIP, USAID, CRS, Rotary International and others. Craig is a recognized leader in the social sector field. He has received several awards including George Mason’s School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution’s alumni of the year award and an alumni career achievement award from Central European University. He has published widely on peacebuilding, entrepreneurship, and innovation in higher education.