Group Biographies

BIOGRAPHIES.  
 
     The Zones of Peace Working Group was open to students and faculty from ICAR at George Mason University and to others interested in the phenomenon of peace zones or communities established during times of internal violence and disruption arising from ethic, religious and class conflicts.   
      Membership of the Group changed considerably over its ten year life span,  as students graduated and moved on to other jobs, other institutions and [often] other countries. Below we list the members of the ZoPs Group, together with some short biographical and contact  details.

     The Working Group was wound up in 2011, although many of its activities and projects were taken over by individual members of S-CAR faculty. It was revived in 2013 under the auspices of S-CAR's Center for Peacemaking Practice,  when a new group of students started work to up-date some of the entries on the ZoPs web site, many of which had last been up-dated a number of years ago, mostly in 2005.
 
 
 Members of the Institute’s “Local Zones of Peace” Group [2000-2011].

Kevin Avruch is Henry Hart Rice Professor of Conflict Resolution and is now Dean of the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution [S-CAR] He is also a senior fellow in the Peace Operations Policy Program in the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He has written most recently on peace zones in the Philippines, on truth and reconciliation commissions and on "power" as a neglected aspect of conflict resolution processes. [Contact:  [email protected]]

Nancy Beiter is an attorney/mediator who returned to graduate school late in life and is currently working on a Ph.D dissertation on transitional justice in Latin America, with especial reference to Colombia She joined the ZoPs Group to broaden her peace-building tool kit. She is currently working on her doctoral dissertation. [Contact: [email protected]] 

Maneshka Eliatamby is from Sri Lanka and recenty successfully completed her doctoral studies at ICAR. Her current research includes women's agency in conflict settings such as Eritrea, Nepal and Sri Lanka, looking at women's role as peacebuilders and women's agency through active participation in conflict. Together with Professor Sandra Cheldelin, she has co-edited a book, Women Waging War and Peace, on the various roles of women during times of protracted and intractable conflicts. She currently is the Director of the NGO "Communities without Borders" and works on projects in Nigeria, Sri Lanka and Nepal among other couhtries of "the South" [Contact: [email protected]]

Al Fuertes is from the Philippines and has been continually involved in peace work there , especially in Mindanao. He graduated with a doctoral degree from ICAR in 2007 and published his first book, Community Based Warviews, Resiliency and Healing [VDM Verlag] in 2008. He is currently teaching at GMU as a member of faculty on the undergraduate program of New Century College, at the same time as organising educational visits to his own country. [Contact: [email protected]]

Landon Hancock is currently Associate Professor at Kent State University's Center for Applied Conflict Management in the Department of Political Science. He received his Ph.D from George Mason University in 2003. He has published numerous articles in journal such as Ethnopolitics, Peace and Change, Irish Political Studies, Peace and Conflict Studies, Conflict Resolution Quarterly and International Studies Review. He continues to work on issues related to identity conflict, peace processes, post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice. [Contact: [email protected]]
 

Pushpa Iyer is originally from Gujerat in India, where she undertook extensive community work between local religious communities and was active in championing the rights of vulnerable minorities there - Muslims, Christians, Dalits and Adivasis. She graduated with a Ph.D. from ICAR,  her dissertation focusing on the internal factors that  moved  two non-state armed groups  - the MILF in the Philippines and the LTTE in Sri Lanka - into an ulimately unsuccessful  negotiating process. She currently  teaches at the Monterey Institute for International Studies in California, and has established the new Center for Conflict Studies there. [Contact: [email protected]]

 Yves-Renee Jennings is from Haiti and is a conflict resolution practitioner who has worked in the private sector for over ten years. following a twenty year career with the Wold Bank. . She completed her doctoral degree at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution in 2012 and has contributed to many publications, the latest being a chapter on "Organising the Disenfranchised; Haiti and the Dominican Replublic"  in Woman Waging War and Peace, edited by Sandra Cheldelin and Maneshka Eliatamby. She currently teaches International Peace and Conflict Resolution program at American University in Washington D.C. and is undertaking field work in the Dominican Replublic focused on the Haitian community there.

Bobby Jose was a college activist in the Philippinesn the 1980s who witnessed the birth of the peace zones movement in the Phiippines and then worked for the Gaston Z.Ortegas Peace Institute as part of the burgeoning Filipino peace movement . He successfully undertook a Masters degree at ICAR and has now returned to his own country partly to revisit and review the evolution of the zones and progress of the peace movement over the last decade. [Contact: [email protected]]

Jennifer Langdon teaches in the Criminal Justice Program at Towson University and obtained her doctorate in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from ICAR in 2008. Her research interests focus broadly on the concept of conflict resolution as a form of justice making, with a specific interest in its use as part of criminal justice procedures. [Contact: [email protected]]

Christopher Mitchell is a Londoner who received his university education in history, economics and international relations at University College, London. He was a member of faculty at ICAR for 17 years and Director there bertween 1990 and 1994. He is currently an Emeritus Professor at S-CAR and was a member of the "Zones of Peace" Group from its inception. His most recent books are Zones of Peace  [Kumarian; 2007] and Local Peacebuilding and National Peace both edited with ZoPs colleague, Landon Hancock. [Contact [email protected]]  

 Julia Nelson was a Masters student in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in the School of International Affairs at American University. Having worked in Colombia, Uganda, India and Washington D.C. she had three years of experience in international human rights and sustainable development., including six months spent as an "unarmed accompanier" in peace communities in Colombia with Peace Brigades International.  She currently works at the National Democratic Institute in Washington as the Project Assistant for the Asia team.

Giselle Huamani Ober worked as a conflict resolution practitioner and consultant for over ten years in the Washington DC area, working with local Hispanicc communities among other groups. At the same time she completed a Masters degree at ICAR and undertook projects for the Organisation of American States and for United Nations in Guatemala and in Bolivia. She has now returned to Lima in her native Peru and is acting as an consultant to the President's office regarding conflicts between indigenous communities and commercial developers in the north of the country. [Contact: [email protected]]

Tetsushi Ogata is Director of the Genocide Prevention Program [GPP] at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and is also Secretary-Treasurer of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Through GPP, he works with colleagues from Columbia University, the University of Colorado, the United Nations  and the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region [[ICGLR] to organise genocide prevention activities targeted at the local level. He is currently finishing his PhD at S-CAR  in the area of genocide prevention and the role of threats in mass killing. [Contact: [email protected]]

 Maria Dolores Rodriguez is originally from Ecuador and has lived and worked in that country as well as in the U.S.A.  She obtained her Masters degree from ICAR and subsequenty worked asProgram Coordinator for the Environmental Leadership Program. Currently she works as a mediator and a Program Associate for the Meridian Institute in Washington D.C.  helping to design and facilitate multi-party problem solving processes. Her interests and areas of expertise include the analysis of protracted and deep-rooted conflicts and international development , as well as natural resources and the environment. [Contact: [email protected]] 

Mery Rodriguez was born, brought up and educated in  Bogota, Colombia where she received a bachelor's degree in social communication from Javeriana University. She has worked in Colombia as a human rights activist and researcher on social issues as well as teaching in the Catholic University in Colombia. She received an M.Sc. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and is currently working of a study of  three "Laboratories of Peace" in Medio Magdalena, Montes de Maria and Oriente Antioqueno, Colombia. She currently teaches at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogota and is the Director of the new Peace and Conflict Studies program there. [Contact: [email protected]]

 Catalina Rojas worked for a number of years as the Director of Global Partnerships at “Women Thrive Worldwide”. Originally from Colombia, she has over ten years experience working with civil society organizations in “the south” and has been a consultant on gender, conflict and development issues in Latin America, South East Asia and Africa. She has directed the Global Survey and Women in Muslim Countries research project, which included over 200 women's NGOs in 13 countries. Dr.Rojas has a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and is currently working for. the Peace and Collaborative Development Network in Washington, D.C. [Contact: [email protected]]
 
 Adriana Salcedo was born and educated in Ecuador, where she obtained a Bachelors degree in Anthropology and a Masters degree in Comparative Latin American Studies - so it is through these lenses that she studies conflict as a sad but widespread dynamic in contemporary Latin America. Her professional experience has included work in the Amazon Basin, the Galapagos Islands and the Andean Region of Ecuador and her current doctoral studies at S-CAR in George Mason University focus on borders as symbolic and geographical spaces - perfect niches for conflicts - and on humanitarian interventions to assist displaced populations. She currently resides in the Dominican Republic and ihas completed a doctoral dissertation focused on the plight of Colombian refugees in Ecuador.  [Contact: [email protected]]

Daniel Stillwaggon is a web designer and information technology expert who contributed much to the initial efforts at ICAR to  set up a web site for the "Zones if Peace" project. He completed his Masters degree at the Institute  with a thesis based on a "Content Analysis of Interviews with Residents of Colombian Zones of Peace" and is currently working in  Portland. Oregon.

Laura Villanueva grew up in Los Angeles and successfully completed her graduate studies at GMU's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, completing her M.Sc. in 2003. Her experience and practice began at the Basque Peace Institute in Gernika. She then went on to design and implement a  people-to-people peacebuilding process, which is on-going and co-located in Japan and the Middle East. Laura also worked and practiced her approach in other locations in Europe utilizing culture as a key peacebuilding entry point. For her most recent project, she has co-founded a women’s NGO in Mexico, which is preparing to train women as peacebuilders. In Fall 2014 she will start work on the Ph.D program at S-CAR.

Beatriz Vejarano  obtained her Masters degree from George Mason in 2002 and was an original member of ICAR's ZoPs group. She subsequently returned to Cokombia and worked for a number of years at the Commission of Jurists [Contact: [email protected].

Wallace Warfield was an Associate Professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at GMU for over 20 years,. Before that he was a member of the U.S. Community Relations Service starting his career working with street gangs in New York and rising to be be Diretor of CRS before retiring and  taking up a position with Dr Jim Laue's "The Conflict Clinic". In addition to teaching numerous courses at ICAR, he engaged as a practitioner in conducting mediations, various forms of facilitation and a variety of trainings in the USA and abroad, as well as publishing extensively in the field of conflict analysis and resolution. Tragically he died of cancer in the summer of 2010 shortly after taking a formal retirement.

ZoPs Group Revision 2013.

Wilfredo Magno Torres is from the Philippines and is currently a Ph.D student at S-CAR. An anthropologist by training, he served with the Asia Foundation for nine years, closely collaborating with local partners in designing and implementing conflict management projects. He previously served in Sulu as a faculty member in Notre Dame of Jolo College. He undertook research in Sulu, Philippines, and Sabah, Malaysia, on topics that dealt with sea tenure, household adaptive strategies, ethnicity, leadership and conflict resolution mechanisms. He has just published a revised version of his study of "rido" and the revenge culture in the southern Philippines.

Rochelle Arms most recently served as the Restorative Justice Coordinator of the New York Peace Institute. While there, she managed mediation and restorative justice initiatives for the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office, Juvenile Courts, school and community agencies in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In the last twelve years she has worked both in the USA and abroad in collaborative processes and restorative  justice projects  with a variety of groups, including civil society organisations in India, indigenous peoples in Argentina, immigrants and refugees, as well as homicide offenders and victim surviors in Kentucky. Rochelle is Panamanian-American and completed her Masters degree in International Relations as a Rotary Peace Fellow in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Alejandra Mathies was born and raised in El Salvador. She recently moved to Washington  after graduating high school and is studying at American University, majoring in Communications. She is currently working as an intern at the Center for Peacemaking Practice  at GMU's School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution and is part of the Latin American Initiative Program.