Sharon L. Morris is a 2013-2014 Jennings Randolph senior fellow.  In her project at USIP, she builds a case for a new model of civilian assistance in fragile states, one that tightly integrates peacebuilding and development. She argues that the peacebuilding field can improve its credibility by adopting more rigorous approaches to impact measurement, by focusing on outcomes such as reduction in violent incidents, and by publishing negative findings.  Her work draws on more than 15 years of experience designing and implementing conflict management and stabilization programs in places such as Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Nigeria, and Somalia.

Morris is the director of Mercy Corps’ Youth & Conflict Management Office.  The office provides support to more than 90 programs in many of the world’s most fragile states. Previously, she worked at the State Department as the senior advisor for Darfur to the president’s special envoy for Sudan.  In 2006, she served as the director of the Provincial Reconstruction Team Program in USAID/Afghanistan and as the development advisor to the Commanding General of Combined Joint Task Force-76, the headquarters for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.  From 2002-2005, she was the senior advisor in the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation at USAID where she headed the team responsible for providing support to conflict programs in USAID Missions. 

Prior to joining USAID, she worked in the Program on Global Security and Sustainability at the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation.  Her assignments on conflict management have taken her to over 25 countries, including Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Central Asian Republics, Haiti, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. She is on the board of the Alliance for Peacebuilding and a member of Women in International Security. She holds a Ph.D. and Master’s from the University of Chicago.

Lieutenant Colonel Carlin was commissioned in 1993 from the University of Florida. During his Fleet Marine Force tour with 3rd Marine Division in Okinawa, Japan, he was a communication platoon commander, company commander and S6 officer. After graduating from resident Command and Control Systems Course, he completed a tour with Marine Corps Combat Development Command and then served with 1st Marine Aircraft Wing as Deputy G6, Staff Secretary and operations officer for the communication squadron. Following a year at Marine Corps Command and Staff College where he received his Master’s degree in Military Science, Lieutenant Colonel Carlin served three years in the J3 Operations Directorate of U.S. Central Command with many deployments to the Middle East. During this high optempo assignment, he also graduated from the Joint Forces Staff College as a joint specialty officer. He returned to 3rd Marine Division as the Assistant Chief of Staff G6 and deployed to Baghdad in support of U.S. Forces-Iraq as the J35 Crisis Action Team Chief. After the deployment, Lieutenant Colonel Carlin assumed command of Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, Bangor WA. Upon completion of a successful command tour, he was assigned as the first CMC senior fellow to the United States Institute of Peace.

Othow Onger is the U.S. Institute of Peace’s first South Sudanese Youth Leader. He joined USIP in November 2013 after spending three years with RECONCILE International, a nonprofit organization which works with churches and civil society to promote sustainable peace in South Sudan and the region. At RECONCILE, Othow coordinated civic education and peacebuilding activities in Jonglei state and counseled people on trauma recovery and rehabilitation as well as non-violent conflict resolution. Onger served as the chairperson of the Pochalla County Council, and he founded a youth association for the county for which he served as chairperson for six years. The youth association now employs several people, who educate local communities about HIV/AIDs and peacebuilding. He is interested in role of the church in peacebuilding in Jonglei state and more broadly in Sudan and South Sudan. During the past 10 years, he also facilitated dialogues between the Anyuak and Murle people to settle conflicts without resorting to violence. He has certificates in peacebuilding and conflict resolution from the Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation, the RECONCILE Peace institute, the Augustine Program (MERF), and various other church leadership programs. Onger's position at the Institute extends through March 2014.

Noel Dickover is the senior program officer who heads up the PeaceTech Camps project at the U.S. Institute of Peace as part of the broader PeaceTech Initiative. PeaceTech Camps are international, highly interactive two-day events which partner technologists with civil society organizations to raise their digital literacy with low-cost, easy-to-implement tools to improve their mission. As an internationally-experienced senior consultant at the intersection of technology and development, Dickover has consulted with a number of federal agencies, including the State Department, USAID, Administrative Conference of the U.S., Health and Human Services, and the Department of Defense (DoD). This work has also included developing social media policy and implementing innovative Government 2.0 and Web 2.0 engagements. For the Department of State, Noel initiated, developed and headed up the eDiplomacy Division’s Civil Society 2.0 TechCamp effort. As a co-founder for CrisisCommons, a global network of technology volunteers working on disaster relief efforts, Noel helped lead a movement of technology volunteers that has transformed the way regular citizens can impact crisis-response efforts in a disaster situations, starting with Haiti. He initiated a number of Government 2.0 efforts for the Department of Defense, including authoring their draft social media policy which allowed soldiers to use social media such as Facebook and YouTube. Dickover was awarded the "Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of 2012" by Government Technology Magazine for his efforts in CrisisCommons, and a “Fed 100” award in 2012 by Federal Computer Week for his work on TechCamps. He has an MS degree in Cybernetics and General Systems Theory from San Jose State University and a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from George Mason University.

Tim Receveur is a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Tim Receveur joined USIP in September 2013 and is a senior program officer with USIP’s PeaceTech Initiative.  His focus is social media and data projects along with PeaceTech Camps, two day intensive training sessions that bring together technology experts, civil society, governments, and other international organizations to find innovative ways to prevent violence and conflict.

From 2000-2013 Receveur worked as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State where he was nominated for the prestigious Service to America Medal in 2013 and received the U.S. Department of State's highest award for innovation from Secretary Hillary Clinton in November 2009 for planning and implementing technology platforms.  He has been featured in many publications including the Harvard Business Review and, most recently, in a Brookings report for expanding U.S. Embassy in Pakistan’s Facebook presence from 29,000 to become the largest social network of any diplomatic mission in the world, with over 1 million followers.

Receveur is also a veteran of the U.S. Air Force where he served as a meteorologist from 1991-2000.

Anand Varghese is a program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s PeaceTech Initiative. The Initiative works at the intersection of technology, media, and data to devise effective means of reducing violent conflict. He is currently working to create a PeaceTech Lab at USIP, dedicated to applying technology to the challenges of international conflict management. He has managed a number of technology-related projects at the Institute, including the first nationwide mobile phone-based survey in Afghanistan, and USIP’s Universities for Ushahidi training course in partnership with Ushahidi. Anand has authored studies on topics such as new media, online discourse, and science diplomacy. His other research interests include nationalism, ethnic conflict, and political development, especially in South Asia.

He has a Master’s degree from Georgetown University in Democracy & Governance, and Bachelor’s degrees in media studies from Arizona State University and Christ College, Bangalore. He has also completed coursework on telecommunication engineering at Visvesvaraya Technological University, Bangalore. He hails from Bangalore, India, where he worked in advertising and music journalism.

Publications:

• “New Media and Peacebuilding: Framing the Discussion”, in Preparing for Peace: Communications in Conflict Resolution, (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 2012).

Ena Dion is a program officer with the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Rule of Law Center and a rule of law facilitator for the International Network to Promote the Rule of Law (INPROL). Her previous experience includes providing technical support in the area of constitution-making to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq and the Republic of Fiji's Constitutional Commission, and working on access to justice projects with International Bridges to Justice in Cambodia. Ena has also worked with the International Network for Economic Social and Cultural Rights in New York and with William and Mary Law School’s Center for Comparative Legal Studies and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Her work at USIP focuses on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of rule of law interventions. She graduated cum laude with a juris doctor from William and Mary School of Law and holds a bachelors degree in Philosophy and Political Science from McGill University.

Ethan B. Kapstein is a senior advisor for Economics and Peacebuilding at USIP. He is also senior director for Research and Decision Analysis at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, a Washington, DC-based branch of Arizona State University, and a visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development. Kapstein previously held chaired professorships at the University of Texas at Austin, INSEAD and the University of Minnesota, and before that he was executive director of the Economics and National Security Program at Harvard University. A former international banker and retired naval reserve officer, he is the author or editor of seven books, the most recent of which is AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge University Press, with Josh Busby). His current research focuses on the relationship between economic development and violent conflict. Kapstein is a graduate of Brown University, the University of Toronto, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Publications

The Fate of Young Democracies (Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, forthcoming with Nathan Converse).

AIDS Drugs For All: Social Movements and Market Transformations, with Joshua W. Busby. 
Cambridge University Press; 2013.

Economic Justice in an Unfair World: Toward a Level Playing Field (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).

Income and Influence: Social Policy in Emerging Market Economies, with Branko Milanovic. (Kalamazoo, Mi: Upjohn Institute, 2003).

When Markets Fail: Social Policy and Economic Reform, edited with Branko Milanovic. (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002).

Hegemony Wired: American Politics and the New Economy (Paris: French Institute for International Relations, 2000).

Sharing the Wealth: Workers and the World Economy (New York: Norton, 1999)

Sustaining the Transition: Social Policy in the Post-Communist Economies, edited with Michael Mandelbaum. (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1997)

Governing the Global Economy: International Finance and the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994; paperback, 1996)

The Political Economy of National Security (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992).

The Insecure Alliance: Energy Crises and Western Politics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Daryn Cambridge leads curriculum development and educational design for USIP’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding online courses. Daryn joins USIP after 4 years with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, where he served as senior director for Learning & Digital Strategies and helped co-found Freedom Beat Recordings – a record label and website that explores the role of music in nonviolent resistance.

Daryn is also a peace educator in residence and adjunct professor at American University in Washington, DC, where he teaches courses on education for international development, peace pedagogy, and nonviolent action. His research interests include peace education, nonviolent action, distance learning, and online pedagogy.

He has several years experience designing and facilitating trainings and workshops for learners across the world of all ages. He has worked or consulted in this capacity with organizations such as Common Cause, The Close Up Foundation, The Democracy Matters Institute, The Student Conservation Association, Learn-Serve International, One World Education, and the Institute for Technology and Social Change.

He serves on the boards of the Democracy Matters Institute and the Peace and Justice Studies Association. He has a M.A. in International Training and Education and a professional certificate in International Peace and Conflict Resolution, both from American University. He received his B.A. from Middlebury College.

Darine El Hage is a regional program officer in USIP’s Center for Middle East and Africa based in Beirut, Lebanon. El Hage trains, mentors, and advises on organizational development, international human rights, refugee protection, humanitarian law, and NGO capacity-building related themes. Prior to joining USIP, El Hage was working for the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) on its New Tactics in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) Initiative, a capacity-building program for local human rights organizations in Egypt and Tunisia in human rights advocacy. There, she developed a monitoring and evaluation report for CVT’s  programming in MENA. From 2010 to 2012, El Hage was the executive director of Alef-Act for Human Rights, an NGO based in Lebanon focused on monitoring and advocacy of human rights violations and youth peacebuilding. She still serves as a board member of Alef-Act.

El Hage has worked with several human rights organization in the Middle East and North Africa and international organizations on issues such as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Iraq. El Hage was also seconded to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Iraq by the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Her academic qualifications include a B.A. in law, Master’s in Diplomacy and Strategic Negotiations and a LLM in Human Rights Law from the London School of Economics and Politics.

Lillian Dang is a program officer for USIP’s Rule of Law program. Based in the Kabul office, Dang oversees USIP’s rule of law research and programmatic efforts in Afghanistan. Prior to joining USIP, she was a visiting fellow at the Australian National University’s Regulatory Institutions Network, where she conducted field research on legal pluralism and women’s access to justice in Mindanao, Philippines. From 2010 to 2012, Dang worked with The Asia Foundation in Timor-Leste on an access to justice program. Dang oversaw the design, implementation, and evaluation of programmatic efforts on legal aid, women’s access to justice, legal education, traditional justice, and alternative dispute resolution. While there, she wrote legal manuals and best practices guidelines on legal aid and gender-based violence, and designed research on women’s legal needs. Dang has also worked for a counter-corruption program in Cambodia, an Australian-based NGO advancing human rights in the Asia Pacific region and Indigenous communities in Australia, and a human rights research organization in India. Dang is a lawyer admitted to practice in Australia, and holds a Bachelor of law and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She holds an LLM in International Law from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Osama Gharizi joined USIP as program officer for Learning and Evaluation in August 2013. He previously worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI) where he designed, managed and evaluated programs on governance, political party and civil society strengthening, and election observation. His time at IRI included directing survey research programs in Lebanon, managing monitoring and evaluation efforts in Egypt and leading IRI’s long-term election observation for the 2012 parliamentary elections in Georgia. He also worked on projects in Oman, Morocco and Jordan. Prior to IRI, Osama worked for Transparency International’s chapter in Lebanon, the Lebanese Transparency Association. He holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in economic and political development.

Arif Omer is the U.S. Institute of Peace’s first Sudanese Youth Leader.

Omer joined USIP in January 2014 after working as a freelance journalist for the past five years in East Africa, with a focus on Sudan and South Sudan. He has covered peace talks between the government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, including the development, signing and implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), and he has documented prisoners of war in South Kordofan, Darfur and South Sudan. Omer has also reported from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and North Uganda, covering attacks by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and in 2007, the peace talks in Juba between the LRA and the Ugandan government, as well as post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008. Omer strove to set an example for the media in objective reporting for more than three years until media censorship began in Sudan 2008. In response, Omer worked with several other journalists to create the Sudanese Journalists’ Network to campaign against censorship in Sudan and to advocate for laws supporting a free press.

Omer received his Bachelor’s degree from Omdurman Ahlia University’s School of Economics. He aspires to form his own media company to cover conflict areas in the Horn of Africa, particularly in Sudan and South Sudan. His position at the Institute extends through May 2014.

Khitam Al-Khaykanee is a program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Previously, Khitam worked in public relations for a government water well drilling company in Baghdad, Iraq. In 2003, she became a coordinator for the coalition forces in Baghdad in order to provide humanitarian assistance for Iraqi detainees. Following her promotion to Cell Chief of the detention section at the Iraqi Assistance Center (IAC), Khitam joined USIP in 2004 as a program specialist. During her seven years as a program specialist, Khitam supported the establishment of new USIP initiatives such as the Youth and Media program and the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice program. In 2011, after seven years experience of grant managing and building the capacity of local civil society organizations, Khitam transitioned into the role of Justice and Security Dialogue (JSD) field officer in Iraq within the Rule of Law program. Specifically, the JSD program revolves around a series of facilitated dialogues in order to rebuild relationships between police forces and civil society in post-conflict countries. Khitam’s current role as a program officer focuses on the Iraq portfolio.

Khitam received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Baghdad University’s College of Education.

Nancy Payne is the deputy director of the PeaceTech Initiative at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Joining USIP in 2014, she brings expertise in integrating digital media strategies into outreach and behavior change campaigns, and managing international programs. She provides project oversight and input to all of PeaceTech’s media and technology-related projects.

Most recently, Payne was managing director for communications at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the U.S. government’s development finance institution that mobilizes private capital to tackle development challenges in emerging markets and post-conflict countries.

Previously, she was a senior partner and senior vice president at FleishmanHillard International, where she co-led the consultancy’s largest digital communications group. Payne lived and worked in Asia Pacific, directing all aspects of FH-Hong Kong and has advised numerous government, corporate and nonprofit organizations including AT&T, Huawei Technologies, Departments of Defense and State, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, AOL and many others on strategies for web-based and mobile communications programs.

Payne started her career in broadcast news as a reporter and photographer. She holds a M.A. from American University’s School of International Service, and a B.A. in journalism from the University of Nebraska. She has taught at Johns Hopkins University and will be an adjunct lecturer at Georgetown University.

Leanne McKay is a senior program officer with Rule of Law in the Center for Governance, Law and Society at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Her work focuses on engaging government and civil society representatives on the promotion of the rule of law in countries transitioning from conflict.

McKay joined USIP after spending eight years living and working in conflict-affected Muslim majority states, including Sudan, Somalia, Indonesia (Aceh), Yemen, the West Bank and Gaza, and Pakistan. She has worked for the United Nations and a variety of international non-governmental organizations on the policy and program design, development and direct implementation of rule of law and access to justice projects that ranged from establishing legal aid and paralegal networks and centers in locations such as North Darfur, Gaza, the West Bank, Somalia and Pakistan; to advising government ministries and judiciaries on institutional strengthening and judicial reform; to leading the establishment of a law faculty at Puntland State University, Somalia. McKay has developed and delivered rule of law courses for government and civil society representatives in Myanmar/Burma, Libya and Yemen. In addition, McKay has worked at the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, was a refugee status officer for the New Zealand government, and a legal advisor for asylum seekers in Cairo, Egypt.

McKay holds a Master of Public and International Law from Melbourne University, Australia, and Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Auckland University, New Zealand.

Publications:

• Piracy off the Coast of Somalia: Towards a Domestic Legal Response to an International Concern,’ in Roba Sharamo and Berouk Mesfin (eds), Regional Security in the post-Cold War Horn of Africa, Institute for Security Studies (April 2011), 221.
• Characterising the System of the International Criminal Court: An Exploration of the Role of the Court Through the Elements of Crimes and the Crime of Genocide’ (2006) 6(2) International Criminal Law Review
• Women Asylum Seekers in Australia: Discrimination and the Migration Legislation Amendment Act [No 6] 2001 (Cth),’ (2003) 4 Melbourne Journal of International Law

Dr. Maria J. Stephan is a senior policy fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where she focuses on the dynamics of civil resistance and their relevance for violent conflict prevention and democratic development. Previously, Stephan was lead foreign affairs officer in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO), where she worked on both policy and operations. Her last assignment entailed engaging the Syrian opposition in Turkey.  Earlier, she was detailed to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan to focus on subnational governance and civil-military planning.

Prior to government service, Stephan directed policy and research at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), a DC-based NGO dedicated to developing and disseminating knowledge about nonviolent struggle.  She was an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and American University’s School of International Service.  Stephan is the editor of Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization and Governance in the Middle East (Palgrave, 2009) and the co-author of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2011).  The latter book was awarded the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Prize by the American Political Science Association for the best book published in political science and the 2012 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Stephan has worked with the European/NATO policy office of the U.S. Department of Defense, and at NATO Headquarters in Brussels.  She received both Harry S. Truman and J. William Fulbright scholarships. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a bachelor’s degree from Boston College.  Stephan is from Clarendon, Vermont. 

Dominik Tolksdorf is a Transatlantic Post-Doctoral Fellow for International Relations and Security (TAPIR) in the Center for Applied Research on Conflict and his research focuses on European foreign policy and political developments in the post-Soviet space and the Western Balkans. Since 2006, he has worked for several think tanks in Europe and the U.S., most recently at the Institut français des relations internationales (IFRI) in Paris and the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at Johns Hopkins University. Dominik has published numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and policy papers on European peacebuilding efforts, and regularly comments on political developments in the media (including Voice of America and TV France 24). In 2011-2012, he worked as an adjunct assistant professor of international relations at Vesalius College at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Dominik holds a PhD in political science from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and a MSc in European Politics, Economics and Law from the University of Turku (Finland).

Publications:

• “The EU, Russia and the Eastern Partnership: What Dynamics under the New German Government?” Paris: Institut français des relations internationals, 2014.
• “Incoherent Peacebuilding: The European Union’s Support for the Police Sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2002 – 2008”, in: International Peacekeeping, 1, 2014, pp. 1-18.
• “EU Special Representatives: An Intergovernmental Tool in the Post-Lisbon Foreign Policy System”, in: European Foreign Affairs Review, 4, 2013, pp. 471-486.
• “Police reform and EU conditionality”, in: Ten years after: Lessons from the EU Police Mission in Bosnia 2002-2012, ed. byT. Flessenkemper / D. Helly, Paris: EU Institute for Security Studies, 2013, pp. 20-26.
• The European Union and Bosnia and Herzegovina: Foreign Policy in Search of Coherence (monograph, in German), Baden-Baden: Nomos Publishing House, 2012.

Palwasha L. Kakar is the senior program officer for Religion and Peacemaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP). Kakar joined USIP after four years with The Asia Foundation where she was the Afghanistan director for Women’s Empowerment and Development. Prior to joining the Foundation, Kakar led the Gender Mainstreaming and Civil Society Unit in the United Nation Development Program's Afghanistan Subnational Governance Program managing a small grants program for Afghanistan's civil society initiatives. Kakar also served as program manager for The Gender Studies Institute at Kabul University. She has experience working with the World Bank Group on gender, social justice and environmental issues surrounding their various projects in the region.

Kakar moved to Afghanistan 2004 to work with the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), an independent research organization, on women's participation at the local levels in the National Solidarity Programme (NSP). Before moving to Afghanistan, she was the director of the Newton Peace Center (currently Peace Connections) a faith-based civil society organization.

An Afghan-American, she has experience teaching and researching religion, gender, security and local governance. Kakar has published research regarding women’s participation in local governance, Pashtunwali-Afghan customary law, Afghan women's identity, and social spaces in Afghanistan. Her research has taken her to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Syria.

She earned a Master's degree focusing on gender, politics and religion from Harvard University’s Divinity School and a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Global Studies focusing on peace and conflict from Bethel College in North Newton, KS.

Publications:

• “Afghanistan in 2013, A Survey of the Afghan People” Palwasha Lena Kakar, contributing author, Asia Foundation Afghanistan, Dec 2013.
• “Afghanistan in 2012, A Survey of the Afghan People,” M Osman Tariq, Fazel Rabi Haqbeen, Palwasha Lena Kakar Asia Foundation Afghanistan, Nov 2012.  
• “Fine-tuning the NSP”  Governance Working Paper’s Series, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, Kabul, Afghanistan, November 2005
• “Tribal Law of Pashtunwali and Women’s Legislative Authority,” Afghan Legal History Project Papers Series. Harvard Law School, Islamic Legal Studies. 2003.
• “Maryam, Mother of Jesus: Is she a Prophet?” (in Islam) Azizah Magazine, Atlanta: WOW Publishers, Vol.3, Issue 1, 2003

Ryan McClanahan is Program Manager for the Center for the Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He works on issues surrounding project management, including design, monitoring, evaluation, and budgeting. He helps coordinate and streamline overseas operations, working with field staff in multiple remote offices, including Baghdad and Benghazi. Ryan also works on streamlined data management systems for large scale projects.

Ryan has a background in international affairs, and its nexus with development, economics, and technology. His research on multi-level negotiation and conflict transformation led him to USIP. He has a Bachelor’s degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master’s degree from Georgetown University.