Research Associates & Affiliates
Aldo Civico, Ph.D.
Adjunct Associate Research Fellow
For the past twenty-five years, Aldo Civico has served as a negotiation advisor and facilitator in armed conflicts in Colombia, the Western Balkans, and Syria. He led efforts to curb urban violence in Colombia, Mexico, Haiti, Italy, and the United States and advised national governments on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of former combatants. Since 2001, Aldo has been intimately involved in the peace talks between the Colombian government and a insurgent group, the National Liberation Army. Aldo is an author of four books, including his most recent The Para-State: An Ethnography of Colombia’s Death Squads (University of California Press, 2016) in which he shares the lessons he learned from dealing with armed insurgents. He is an associate research fellow at AC4 and lectures on conflict resolution and youth violence prevention at Columbia University’ Master in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.
Geneviève Souillac, Ph.D.
Affiliate
Dr. Souillac brings to the Sustainable Peace Project international experience and extensive interdisciplinary expertise in the field of Peace and Conflict Studies. She is conducting research at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, on peace, theology and ethics. Dr. Souillac has held academic positions in the USA, Finland, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan, including as Academic Program Associate with the Peace and Governance Program at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Most recently, she has taught in the Anthropology of Peace and Human Rights Master’s Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Prior to that, she was Senior University Researcher at the Tampere Peace Research Institute at the University of Tampere, Finland, where she pursued her interest in the philosophical anthropology of peace and global peace civics from a transdisciplinary perspective. Dr. Souillac and her collaborator, Dr. Douglas P. Fry, have written articles for Current Anthropology, Common Knowledge and the Journal of Moral Education, and published various book chapters. Souillac and Fry are currently working on a book that tackles related dominant assumptions in philosophy and anthropology about human nature and social organization, and identifies sources of existential hope in the potential for peace. Dr. Souillac’s books include Human Rights in Crisis. The Sacred and the Secular in Contemporary French Thought (2005), The Burden of Democracy. The Claims of Cultures, Public Culture, and Democratic Memory (2011), and A Study in Transborder Ethics. Justice, Citizenship, Civility (2012).
Larry Liebovitch, Ph.D.
Adjunct Senior Research Scientist
Larry.Liebovitch@qc.cuny.edu
Dr. Liebovitch is Professor of Physics and Psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the City College of New York and a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard University. At Florida Atlantic University he served as the interim director of the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and as the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Studies in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. Dr. Liebovitch uses nonlinear methods to analyze and understand molecular, cellular, psychological, and social systems.
Philippe Vandenbroeck
Affiliate
pv@shiftn.com
Philippe Vandenbroeck co-founded the Belgium-based futures consultancy shiftN, a network of professionals that works with leading organizations using systems thinking, multi-stakeholder dialogue, and design to better understand complex systems. With a background in bio-engineering, philosophy, and urban planning, for the last 20 years he has used systems thinking approaches to study complex business and societal issues such as transition to sustainability, management of food, water and energy systems, armed conflict, novel governance systems, challenges in public health and social policies. Philippe is currently serving as an expert group member for AC4‘s Sustainable Peace Systems Mapping Initiative.
Visiting Scholars
Gorka Roman, Ph.D.
Visiting Scholar (current)
Gorka Roman is a professor at the University of the Basque Country. He holds a PhD in Political Science and is currently finishing another PhD in Psychodidactics. He has several Bachelor’s Degrees in Social and Cultural Anthropology, English Studies and Basque Studies. He also has different Master’s Degrees in Nationalism, Visual Anthropology and Conflict Resolution and Migrations. His expertise includes nationalism, discourse analysis and processes of inclusion with migrants and refugees in the European and Basque contexts. His current research combines different international investigation groups working in fields related to sociocultural inclusion and civil networks. He is also Principal Investigator in an Erasmus+ project working on Aumentative and Alternative Communication. He has diverse publications on different topics such as political violence, identity formation and social inclusion.
Poonam Arora, Ph.D.
Visiting Scholar (current)
Dr. Poonam Arora is an Associate Professor and in-coming Department Chair in the Management Department at Manhattan College. Her research combines laboratory and field experiments to study the role of social context and relationships in high-conflict situations, such as environmental dilemmas. She conducts game-theoretic experiments in the laboratory, and works with businesses and NGOs in the field to model real world decisions within their social contexts. Dr. Arora’s research is funded by the National Science Foundation, and she has published in both psychology and economics journals. Prior to joining academia, Dr. Arora worked as a consultant at McKinsey and Co., and an investment banker at Citi for a total of nine years. She earned her BBA summa cum laude in Business Economics from John Cabot University in Rome, Italy, an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, where she was an NSF Graduate Fellow.
Hakim M.A. Williams, Ed.D.
Visiting Scholar (2015-2016)
hwilliam@gettysburg.edu
Dr. Williams is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Education at Gettysburg College, where he is also a member of the Globalization Studies and Public Policy programs. His research centers on school/structural violence and youth empowerment in Trinidad. During this year, he will begin work on his book and collect data via a critical youth participatory action research project (over a 7-month period in Trinidad). Dr. Williams has a bachelors degree (honors) in Psychology from St. Francis College, Brooklyn, and his master of arts, master of education and doctorate of education from Teachers College, Columbia University in the fields of international educational development and peace education.
Michael A. Gross
Visiting Scholar (2016)
Dr. Gross is a Professor in the Department of Management at Colorado State University and is the Editor-in-Chief for Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, the 2016 Past Division Chair, Conflict Management Division, Academy of Management, and the 2015 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award for the College of Business. He earned his PhD at Arizona State University. His current research interests focus on crying in the workplace, trust and trust repair, conflict and verbal aggression, and personality and abusive supervision. He has published in a variety of journals including Decision Sciences, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Management Inquiry, the International Journal of Conflict Management, Management Communication Quarterly, Journal of Applied Communication Research, and the Journal of Management Education. He serves on five the editorial review boards. He teaches negotiation and conflict management at the undergraduate level and in the graduate and executive programs as well as courses in organizational behavior and human resource management. In addition, he has received numerous awards for excellence in research, teaching and service.
Learn more about Michael Gross.
Aline Mugisho
Visiting Scholar (2016)
Aline Mugisho came to AC4 to further her research as a doctoral student at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, University of Erfurt. She has a Master’s Degree in Migration and Displacement from the African Centre for Migration and Society, Wits University, and a Bachelor in Journalism and Communication. Her research interest includes: Gender, Protection and Community Development, Social Resilience; Public Policy; Politics of Reconstruction in Post-Conflicts; Research Methods in Conflict; Transitional Justice; Migration and Diaspora Dynamics. She has substantive work experience in Southern Africa and Great-Lakes Region of Africa, especially in Democratic Republic of Congo, Post-genocide Rwanda, and Burundi.
Dahlia Simangan
Visiting Scholar (May – August, 2015)
Dahlia came to AC4 as PhD candidate from Australian National University (ANU) to further her dissertation examining how United Nations transitional administrations in Cambodia, Kosovo, and East Timor incorporated local perspectives into their post-conflict rebuilding strategies. Her focus was on four crucial areas according to the rebuilding component of the 2001 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) document: security, justice and reconciliation, development, and good governance. She has returned to ANU to finalize her research.
Learn more about Dahlia Simangan.
Shahar Sadeh, M.A.
Visiting Scholar (2012 – 2014)
Shahar traveled to AC4 as a PhD student at Tel Aviv University, in the Porter School of Environmental Studies, researching the interconnectivity between peace and environment, environmental peace building, and environmental peacemaking, peace parks, borders and cross border environmental projects. She is currently serving as Director of the Faculty Engagement Initiative, Israel & International Affairs at the Jewish Community Relations Council.