Jim is a member of the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding team where he serves as a senior program officer for civilian – military affairs. In this capacity Jim represents the Institute to both military and civilian organization officials to reinforce USIP’s position of respected facilitator of civ-mil relations.  Additionally, he creates and maintains efforts to develop relevant workshops, engagements, education and outreach programs.  

Jim joined USIP after successfully completing a 32 year assignment in the U.S. military.  A Civil Affairs Officer he has overseas experience consisting of deployments to Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. Previous key positions Jim has held include Director for Reserve Affairs at the Special Operations Command Joint Forces Command, Assistant Operations Officer at the 352d Civil Affairs Command, Provincial Reconstruction Team Commander, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Response Officer at the Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, Chief of the Education and Training Branch at the Peace Keeping and Stability Operations Institute and Deputy and Commander of the 352d Civil Affairs Command.

He is a graduate of Miami (Ohio) University with a BS in marketing and international business and has two Master’s Degree; a MA from Webster University in Human Resource Development and a MS in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College. 

Susan Stigant is a program officer in the Center for Governance, Law and Society at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). Stigant's focus is on the design and implementation of constitution-making processes in post-conflict and transitional states. She has and continues to advise government officials and civil society actors on issues of constitutional reform in Sudan, South Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere. Ms. Stigant also serves as co-chair of USIP's national dialogue working group, where she coordinates the development of practitioner-focused research and tools to support and evaluate national dialogues as a mechanism for conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Substantively, Stigant's areas of expertise include constitutional design, civic education and citizen engagement, decentralization and federalism.

Ms. Stigant joined USIP in 2013. Previously, she managed constitutional development and engagement programs in Somalia, Yemen, and South Sudan with the National Democratic Institute (NDI). From 2005-2011, she served as program director with NDI in South Sudan, where she worked with civil society and government officials to support constitutional development, elections, and citizen participation. She also worked with the Forum of Federations on comparative federalism and with the research unit of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in South Africa. Stigant holds a Master's degree in comparative politics, negotiation, and conflict management from the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

Ambassador Steven E. Steiner is the gender advisor to the Center for Gender and Peacebuilding at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He previously served in the Department of State’s Office of Global Women‘s Issues and the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. He also was the director of the Department's Iraqi Women's Democracy Initiative. Steiner served for 36 years in the United States Foreign Service. He completed tours of duty at the U.S. embassy in Moscow and the State Department’s Offices of Soviet Union and West German Affairs and served as the deputy director of the Department’s Operations Center, its 24-hour crisis management facility. He served from 1983 to 1988 as director of Defense Programs on the National Security Council Staff. He was named by President Reagan as the U.S. representative to the Special Verification Commission, the implementing body for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and was named by President Bush in September 1991 to serve as the U.S. Representative to the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission, the implementing body for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

Ambassador Steiner received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002, Presidential Meritorious Service Awards in 1990 and 1992, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency’s Superior Honor Award in 1993. In May 1983, he received the Department of State's Superior Honor Award for his work on European security issues. Born in Pennsylvania, Steiner received a B.A. in Political Science from Yale University in 1963 and a Master’s Degree in international relations from Columbia University in 1966. He is a member of The Council on Foreign Relations, The Washington Institute on Foreign Affairs, and the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council, and he serves on the Board of the Council for a Community of Democracies.

Maura Hennigan, an active duty U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with 20 years of service, is a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She arrived in the summer of 2014 following a highly successful combat tour in Afghanistan as the commanding officer of a Marine aviation ground logistics support squadron. A logistics expert who has served in numerous military commands throughout the globe, Maura has extensive experience with plans and resources, strategic movement, distribution management, fiscal programming, multi-national logistics agreements and in operations involving U.S. and allied military services, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations across the full spectrum of conflict.

Some of Maura’s professional experiences include providing sustainment support in Thailand, partnership building throughout the Pacific Rim, providing anti-terrorism/force protection program needs assessment and funding and coordination and support of Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and Yemen. She served on numerous high level staffs including Marine Corps Forces in Germany, the Marine Expeditionary Force Commanders in Okinawa and California, the U.S. Pacific Command Director of Operations, Force Protection and Combatting Terrorism and the U.S. Pacific Command Resources and Assessment Directorate.  She deployed to Afghanistan twice in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Following this fellowship, Lieutenant Colonel Hennigan will join Headquarters, Marine Corps in Washington, D.C.  Maura holds a B.S. in political science from Mary Washington College.

Jeff Krentel is a program officer in the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding, where he leads leads design, monitoring and evaluation activities for peacebuilding education and training programs. Previously, he managed the operations, research, financial management and outreach for Academy programs. He has been at the Institute since 2007 and has worked on programs in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Sudan, as well as large-scale peacebuilding gaming and security sector programming. His prior experience includes serving as a volunteer in the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps, in Charleston, South Carolina.

Krentel holds a master’s degree from George Mason University in peace operations policy, and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Roanoke College. He has also completed coursework on evaluation, environmental conflict resolution and climate change and long-term governance.

Brett Sylvia, a 20 year veteran of the U.S. Army, came to the U.S. Institute of Peace as a fellow in the summer of 2014 after recently completing command of a battalion conducting combat operations in Western and Southwestern Afghanistan. His research interests while at USIP are focused geographically on Nigeria, Bangladesh and China, and thematically on megacities, interagency processes and talent management.  His career consisted of reconstruction, security sector reform, peace enforcement, combat and strategic level staff experiences in Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Washington D.C., working with the U.S. Army, other U.S. Armed Services, Interagency partners and with numerous NATO and host nation forces. 

Brett’s field experience includes: peace enforcement missions in Bosnia in 1996-1997, clearing minefields and assisting reconstruction efforts; combat operations and building partner capacity in the Iraqi Surge and in Afghanistan in 2013; capacity building efforts and security sector reform in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003-2004 and in the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan in 2009 to 2011.  He also served in Washington, DC on the personal staff of the Deputy Secretary of Defense (2002-2003), the Secretary of the Army (2003-2004), and the Joint Staff Director of Strategy, Plans and Policy (J5) (2008-2009).  Following this fellowship, Colonel Sylvia will take command of a brigade combat team in Fort Campbell, KY.

Brett holds a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a Masters of Military Arts & Sciences (MMAS) from the Advanced Military Studies Program (SAMS) and a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from the United States Military Academy.

Publications:

• “Sapper-Athlete-Warrior Program: An Integrated Approach to Periodized Warrior Fitness” coauthored with Maryrose Blank, Jessica Garza and Brian Wade (2014), in Journal of Sports Psychology in Action, 5:2, 73-87
• Empowering Interagency Capabilities: A Regional Approach (monograph), School of Advanced Military Studies, 74.

Ann Procter is a senior program officer based in the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Kabul, Afghanistan office.  She provides oversight for USIP’s radio programming designed to improve access to justice among youth in rural areas of Afghanistan and works with project donors and partners to develop and sustain new media, technology and peacebuilding projects in Afghanistan. She has worked in Afghanistan since 2009 on media, civil society and rule of law projects, and served as Senior Communications Specialist at USAID/Kenya in 2012. Prior to 2009, she served as Development Director for Hope and a Home, a Washington, DC-based transitional housing program and as Development Officer for Global Rights, managing a portfolio that included legal training programs in Afghanistan, DRC, Latin America, Morocco and Sierra Leone.  Ms. Procter has an M.A. in Social and Public Policy from Georgetown University and a B.A. from the University of California at Davis.

Colonel Madalyn S. Gainey was commissioned in July 1992 as a Quartermaster Officer at James Madison University. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Computer Information Systems, and a Master of Arts degree in Human Resources Management from Webster University. Her military education includes the Public Affairs Officers Course, Command and General Staff College, Combined Logistics Officer's Advanced Course and the Quartermaster Officer Basic Course.

COL Gainey's initial assignment was with the 493d Supply and Services Company (DS), 68th Corps Support Battalion, Fort Carson, Colorado, from 1994-1997. While in the "Stagecoach" Battalion, she served in various leadership positions to include CIF supply platoon leader, battalion adjutant and assistant S3. COL Gainey's next assignment was at Fort Lewis, Washington, where she served as the 1st Personnel Group  Brigade S4 and Headquarters and Headquarters company Commander. Following that assignment, LTC Gainey was selected as an Army intern at the Defense Logistics Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. She served as a public affairs officer in several assignments in the National Capitol Region to include the Defense Intelligence Agency and Army Human Resources Command, Alexandria, Virginia. In 2010, LTC Gainey was assigned as the division public affairs officer with the 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas. Following her assignment, she was then selected as the public affairs officer to the Vice Chief of Staff, Army. She is currently assigned as an Army fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, Washington, D.C., where she will focus her research on cultural diplomacy and gender relations.

COL Gainey has two combat deployments, Mogadishu, Somalia and Basra, Iraq. She also has Peacekeeping operational experience from a tour in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a part of the NATO stabilization Force (SFOR).

Publications:

• “Getting off the Treadmill of Time” coauthored with Colonel Chris Robertson, November-December 2009 Military Review, 104-108.

Jonathan Crock is a program officer in the U.S. Institute of Peace’s Center for Governance, Law and Society. He works on the Justice and Security Dialogue, governance, constitution making and national dialogue programs for the Rule of Law Center.

Crock has over 15 years of experience working in rule of law, democratic governance, human rights law and foreign policy. His previous work experience includes strengthening the rule of law globally in the U.S. Department of State’s Office of War Crimes Issues, directing transitional democracy and human rights programs at the International Republican Institute, conducting international law research in the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and working on business and human rights issues at New York University School of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice. He has worked across the Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He previously served at the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of the Treasury, French Embassy to the United States, U.S. Embassy Warsaw and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Crock is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Law, conducting research on the right to democracy in international law under the supervision of Professor William Schabas at Leiden University’s Grotius Center for International Legal Studies, The Hague, Netherlands. He has a particular research interest in the use of sortition and other forms of direct democracy worldwide. He holds a master’s degree in international human rights law from the University of Oxford.

Belquis Ahmadi has over 20 years of experience working in Afghanistan on issues related to gender, human rights, civil society development, rule of law, governance and democracy.  Ms. Ahmadi’s extensive experience includes senior management positions under large USAID programs in Afghanistan, evaluation of USAID gender and democracy and governance programming, and analysis and design of gender and human rights programming, and training and mentoring Afghan civil society and government candidates.  She has also published extensively on democracy, governance and women’s rights in Afghanistan.

From November 2010 to March 2014, Ms. Ahmadi worked on the USAID-funded Regional Afghan Municipalities Program for Urban Populations Regional Command East (RAMP UP), implemented in 14 provinces.  In this role, Ms. Ahmadi managed the technical work of the program to ensure high quality results and deliverables.  In addition, she developed core skills training modules to integrate and mainstream gender in all aspects of governance, service delivery, and leadership to over 200 municipal officials in fourteen provinces.

From 2006 to 2009, Ms. Ahmadi served as senior human rights advisor in Afghanistan.  In this role, she provided leadership and management oversight of resources, including budget, planning, and program monitoring; designed and implemented activities promoting women’s rights through the use of religious arguments, providing analysis of the Shiite Personal Status Law, as well as providing advice and guidance in drafting of the Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women; and oversaw the preparation of training materials for programs.

From 2000 to 2004, she served as program coordinator for Global Rights Partners for Justice in Washington D.C., managing their Afghanistan program.  From 1987 to 1999, Ms. Ahmadi worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross, CARE International, and the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR) in Afghanistan.  Ms. Ahmadi earned her LLM in International Human Rights Law from Georgetown University Law Center and her LLB of Law from Kabul University. 

Publications

• Getting it Right for Afghan Women, www.baag.org.uk; April 2, 2014
• To Negotiate or Not? Afghan Women or the Taliban, The Progressive; February 2011
• Women and the Justice System, Working Toward Peace and Prosperity in Afghanistan, Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) at Princeton University, 2011
• Bibi Aisha and the Voiceless Victims of Afghan Tradition, Ms. Blog, September 15, 2010
• Ten Dead in Badakhshan: An Afghan aid worker speaks up, Afghanistan Analyst Network, August 30, 2010
• Filling the Vacuum: Prerequisites to Security in Afghanistan, International Human Rights Law Group, American Bar Association, International Resources Group and International Foundation for Election Systems; 2002
• Reality Gap in Afghanistan: Despite rosy reports, women’s rights remain wishful thinking, editorial in the Washington Post; July 8, 2002
• We Have Already Suffered 20 Years of War, The Progressive; November 2001

Palwasha L. Kakar is the senior program officer for Religion and Peacebuilding 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

Hind Kabawat is a senior program officer in United States Institutes of Peace. She is also a senior research associate in public diplomacy and director of the conflict resolution program of Syria at the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC) at George Mason University. Previously she was the international counsel at Janssen and Associates, Toronto;  Hind has led a variety of public diplomacy efforts in recent years in Syria to promote interfaith tolerance and cooperation, modernization and reform, as well as educational innovations in conflict resolution and diplomacy education.

She was awarded in 2007 the Peacemakers in Action Award from the Tanenbaum Centre for Interreligious Understanding in New York, and also the Public Diplomacy Award from CRDC, George Mason University in 2009.

In 2009, she was a member on the Future of the Middle East, World Economic Forum, Davos. And also was a member in the Global Agenda Council for war intervention in 2011-2012, World Economic Forum and a founding member of the Syrian Centre of Dialogue.

She holds a B.A. in economics from Damascus University, a degree in law from the Arab University in Beirut, a certificate in conflict resolution from the University of Toronto, a certificate in strategy leadership from the University of Toronto and a Masters in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Ikhlas Mohammed is the Sudanese youth leader with USIP’s Middle East & Africa team. Prior to joining USIP in September 2014, Ikhlas was working with the United Nations and African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), first as a translator in Zalingei from 2010-2013, then with the security section. She was also the communication and coordination secretary in UNAMID’s National Staff Association, and is responsible for publishing Nafaj Magazine, which discusses staff concerns in UNMAID as well as sociocultural issues for local citizens in Zalingei.  Ikhlas also worked as a volunteer teacher with the Sudanese National Association for the Blind, from 2007- 2010.

Ikhlas has her bachelor’s degree in English language from the University of Juba, and a master’s degree in Gender and Migration studies from Ahfad University for Women in Sudan. 

Her research interests are on women in peace and war, and the role of national and international NGOs in Darfur. Ikhlas is an aspiring writer and has many short stories about Darfurian society in war and peace and she has recently finished editing a novel, A Woman with No Land, to be published soon. 

During her fellowship at USIP, Ikhlas will conduct research on women’s roles in conflict resolution in Darfur. When she returns to Sudan, Ikhlas plans to help rebuild and furnish the schools in Zalingei’s IDPs camps, as well as help women in establishing small businesses. Ikhlas’ fellowship extends until February 2015.  

Colin Cleary is an interagency professional in residence at the U.S. Institute for Peace.

Colin joined USIP in August 2014. He is a foreign service officer whose most recent assignment was as political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. He also served at embassies in Moscow, Madrid, Warsaw, Kampala and Mexico City. He was a Rusk fellow at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Colin is examinging the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He has been published in The Globalist.

Candace Karp coordinates Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) work for USIP's Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. Dr. Karp spent seven years in Afghanistan, as head of office in Daikundi province, political affairs officer in southern Afghanistan and head of the security sector unit for the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan. She is a specialist in issues pertaining to sub-national governance and security sector reform, and her on the ground experience includes conflict analysis, mitigation and prevention, crisis management and mediation and programmatic planning and management. Prior to Afghanistan, Dr. Karp worked in the United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process in Jerusalem and the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Planning in Ramallah. She has also consulted for the World Bank on projects related to Afghanistan, Mali and the Republic of Congo. Dr. Karp holds a PhD in diplomatic history from the University of Queensland, Australia, and is the author of "Missed Opportunities: US Diplomatic Failures and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947 to 1967".

Sehar is the Pakistan country representative for the United States Institute of Peace. Her work focuses on developing and supporting programs aimed at finding and mitigating drivers of conflict within Pakistan and in the region. Using research to inform conflict resolution and mitigation programs in Pakistan, Sehar is focused on finding innovative solutions to long-standing and emerging conflicts in the country and region. Previously, Sehar managed the Education Innovation Fund at Ilm Ideas – a DfID funded program dedicated to finding innovative solutions to Pakistan’s education challenges. Sehar also has over 5 years of experience teaching in secondary schools in Pakistan.

Sehar was a founding member of Pakistan's premier think-tank, the Jinnah Institute, where her work focused on issues of human rights, governance and national security.  

Sehar has also worked with international aid organizations on governance related projects. At the Asia Foundation in Islamabad, she helped set up the largest national civil society coalition on election monitoring during the 2008 elections in Pakistan and oversaw activities for mobilizing and educating women and first time voters. Her work in the development sector has been targeted at amplifying citizen demands for democracy and transparency. She has also worked with local police departments and civil society groups on raising awareness about police reforms and has worked on projects related to increasing the Rule of Law and getting citizens, particulalrly women, access to justice in Pakistan.

Ms. Tariq holds a Bachelor’s degree in Women’s Studies from Yale University and a Master’s in Public Policy from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs. 

She also contributes regularly to Pakistani Newspaperson matters pertaining to education, foreign relations, extremism and women’s rights. She blogs at www.sehartariq.wordpress.com.

Philippe Leroux-Martin is a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He currently focuses on justice and security dialogue efforts in the Maghreb and Sahel regions.

Before joining USIP, Philippe was a fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Prior to his fellowship, he headed the legal department of the International Civilian Office in Kosovo, the organization responsible to support and supervise Kosovo’s accession to independence. He also headed the public law unit of the Office of the High Representative in Sarajevo and acted as chief legal advisor to former Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens during his tenure as chair of the Police Restructuring Commission of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Philippe is a member of the Québec Bar. He holds a law degree from the Université de Montréal, a master’s degree in public law from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a master’s degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

He has been a contributor on BBC World News, BBC Radio, CBC Radio, Al Jazeera, Radio-Canada and the New York Times.

Publications:

• “Diplomatic Counterinsurgency: Lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina” Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Douglas is a program officer in the Rule of Law Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He joins the institute after five years in Sudan and Afghanistan, where he designed and managed conflict mitigation and stabilization programs for USAID. Most recently, Doug served for two years as the deputy country representative for USAID/Office of Transition Initiatives in Afghanistan, managing that office’s programs preventing electoral violence, countering violent extremism and monitoring, evaluation and learning in highly insecure environments. Doug brings with him to the Institute technical experience in post conflict stabilization, program design and management, conflict analysis and monitoring, evaluation and program learning.

Douglas began his career in international development serving three years with the Peace Corps in Mongolia. He holds an M.A. in international relations with a focus on post-conflict stabilization and reconstruction from the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University. While pursuing graduate studies, Douglas published numerous articles in the Elliott School’s online journal and worked at USIP as a research assistant on grant programs in Sudan and Nigeria.

On February 2, 2015, Nancy Lindborg was sworn in as president of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Prior to joining USIP, she served as the assistant administrator for the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) at USAID from 2010 through 2014, Nancy Lindborg directed the efforts of more than 600 team members in nine offices focused on crisis prevention, response, recovery and transition. The nine offices of DCHA include the newly established Center for Excellence for Democracy, Rights and Governance, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the Office of Food for Peace, the Office of Transition Initiatives, and the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation. Ms. Lindborg led DCHA teams in response to the ongoing Syria Crisis, the Sahel 2012 and Horn of Africa 2011 droughts, the Arab Spring, the Ebola response and numerous other global crises.

Ms. Lindborg has spent most of her career working on issues of transition, democracy and civil society, conflict and humanitarian response. Prior to joining USAID, she was president of Mercy Corps, where she spent 14 years helping to grow the organization into a globally respected organization known for innovative programs in the most challenging environments.

Ms. Lindborg has held a number of leadership and board positions including serving as co-president of the Board of Directors for the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; one of the founders and board members of the National Committee on North Korea; and chair of the Sphere Management Committee. She is a member of Council on Foreign Relations.

She holds a B.A and M.A. in English Literature from Stanford University and an M.A. in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Jumaina Siddiqui is a program officer for South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. She joined USIP after three years with the National Democratic Institute (NDI) where she served as the program manager for Pakistan, working on programs focusing on political party development, election observation and reforms and increasing the participation of women and youth in the political process.  Jumaina was also a US-Pakistan program fellow with the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council where her research focused on efforts by political actors on education reform in Pakistan and the relationship between donors, civil society, politicians and the government to move these reforms forward.  Prior to joining NDI, she worked at Global Communities on a US Agency for International Development-funded project to increase stability in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan by providing improved livelihood and economic growth opportunities.

Jumaina holds over 12 years of experience in program management, research and analysis. Other key positions included serving as a program officer at American Bar Association’s Rule of Law Initiative focusing on programs in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Thailand, as well as thematic programs related to media legal defense and access to justice in Asia; a research associate at the Stimson Center where she examined non-traditional security issues in South Asia; and program coordinator of the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University – SAIS, conducting research on international human trafficking and managing a training program on human trafficking in the United States. She holds BA in Political Science from American University and an MA from New York University, where her work focused on democracy promotion and the rule of law in the Muslim world, culminating in a thesis on rebuilding justice systems in post-conflict Afghanistan.