Mayesha Alam 

Mayesha is a native of Bangladesh who grew up in Indonesia and Canada. Prior to  enrolling at Georgetown, she completed her B.A. in international relations and biology from Mt. Holyoke College. She also studied abroad at the University of Edinburgh. Her current academic concentration is on multilateral human rights protection, gender mainstreaming and post-conflict reconstruction. She has previously worked with UNICEF, UNFPA, the Stimson Center and the Kenyan Truth, Justice & Reconciliation Commission. Passionate about research, Mayesha aspires to continue onto a PhD and enter academia or policy making.  

Kaitlyn Allen

Kaitlyn focuses on religion and conflict, and the enhancement of public policy for effective conflict management. She currently assists Dr. Moghaddam in research on psychology and conflict resolution, and will serve as an intern at the State Department. Since coming to Georgetown Kaitlyn has participated in a cross-cultural human rights delegation to Rwanda, and received the State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship to learn Turkish. She has worked as an elections observer in El Salvador; an immigration legal caseworker at refugee resettlement agencies in her hometown of Houston, Texas; and in culturally sensitive research at Baylor College of Medicine-Texas Children’s Hospital. She completed her B.A. in international relations and Latin American studies at Trinity University in San Antonio and has had the great fortune to study extensively in Latin America. Kaitlyn speaks Spanish, French, Portuguese, and conversational Turkish.

Tierney Anderson

 Tierney hails from Southern California, which is also where she completed her undergraduate studies at UC Irvine. She is passionate about human rights, in particular how conflict affects youth and what role youth play in peacebuilding processes. She spent the summer of 2011 living and working in Nakuru, Kenya with Peace Cop, a conflict management organization that works on the community level. Tierney also has a background in mediation and alternative dispute resolution. She is interested in Africa and the Middle East, regions she has studied and traveled in extensively. 

Jonathan Barsness

Jonathan enlisted in the U.S. Army as an infantryman in 2001 but later received an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector in 2003. He graduated cum laude from the University of Washington in 2007 with a degree in English literature and a minor in philosophy. Afterward, he worked for Feed the Children Vallarta, a nonprofit organization focused on providing after school sport and educational programs in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He also spent a year living in Mexico City where he taught English and studied Mexican literature. Jonathan’s academic interests include the implementation of peace agreements, religion and conflict, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and South Asia. 

Christopher Bassett

Shade Brown

Shadé graduated from Smith College in 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and psychology. Afterward, she spent two years researching organizational behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Her exposure to negotiation research at Stanford drew her to Georgetown's Master of Arts program in Conflict Resolution. Shadé's academic interests are at the intersection of business, international labor rights, and conflict resolution/management. She presently interns at the Overseas Private Investment Corporation's Office of Investment Policy in the Labor and Human Rights Division. In the future, she plans to work in the field of corporate social responsibility in stakeholder engagement.

Sarah Cechvala

Sarah grew up in South Hadley, Massachusetts and graduated from Boston University with a B.A. in international relations and a minor in art history. She then moved to Guayaquil, Ecuador where she taught English as a second language  for a year. Upon her return to the U.S., she moved to Washington, D.C. where she worked for BBYO, Inc. for two years as a program associate, developing community service curricula and programs for teenagers. In 2010, she attended the World Cup and backpacked and volunteered through Southern Africa. She spent the 2011 summer working at the Refugee Consortium of Kenya in Nairobi. She is focusing her MA on humanitarian interventions and issues of displacement and is a candidate for the Refugee and Humanitarian Crisis Certificate. She is passionate about working in the humanitarian community in disaster situations potentially in the environment or health sectors.  

Greg Cohen

Christopher Woodrow Covington 

Jordan Cox
 

Matthew Fargo

Matthew was born and raised in California where he also completed his undergraduate studies at U.C. Berkeley. He majored in Near Eastern studies and currently focuses on non-proliferation, strategic arms control and civilian nuclear issues. During the summer of 2011, Matthew traveled to Tbilisi, Georgia to complete a language course and also interned at Search for Common Ground in D.C. 

Aaron Karako

Jessica Lippman

 Jessica was born and raised in New York State, where she also completed her Bachelor's degree at Colgate University in Peace and Conflict Studies and Spanish. She studied abroad at Universidad Torcuato di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her current academic focus is on Latin America, post conflict reconstruction, and the environment and conflict resolution. During the summer of 2011 she traveled to Bogotá, Colombia to take a course on Crime, State, and Society at Universidad at Los Andes, and to also intern at a Colombian NGO called Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris.

Amanda Munroe

Amanda became passionate about education and social justice during her undergraduate studies in Global Studies and French at North Park University in Chicago. Raised in Michigan but having traveled and worked in Western Europe, Northern Africa, and the Middle East, she is interested in issues of managing cultural diversity, negotiating national identity, and how local engagement effects global change. As a Generations For Peace Summer Research Fellow, Amanda spent the summer of 2011 in Germany, Italy, Belgium and France researching sport as a tool for peace education and intercultural integration. In DC, she volunteers as a Peace Mover for the global non-profit Dance4Peace. 

Patrick Molitoris

Originally from North Carolina, Patrick proudly called Rhode Island home for several years prior to entering Georgetown. Since completing thesis research in Argentina and the Falkland Islands during the austral winter of 2007, Patrick has spent time researching possibilities for dialogue at the intersection of sexual and national identities in Palestine/Israel. During the summer of 2011, he joined Search for Common Ground in Indonesia, an INGO that aims to stem the tide of religious extremism in Islamic boarding schools. Patrick earned his A.B. in International Relations from Brown University in 2008.
 

Keavy Nahan

Ryan Nichols

Ryan is from rainy Seattle and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Washington in Near Eastern languages and civilizations with a concentration on Islamic studies. Ryan is proficient in Arabic and has spent considerable time working and studying in the Middle East.  Interested in conflict resolution and health, he is currently at Bennington College where he is a post-baccalaureate pre-medical student. He intends to return to Georgetown next year to complete his M.A. before heading off to medical school. Outside of work, Ryan enjoys competing in triathlons and playing soccer. 

Ilana Nixon

After completing a year of architectural studies, Ilana changed her B.A. focus to political science, philosophy and economics and graduated from Hebrew University. Originally from Jerusalem, Ilana's specialization is in Middle East politics and the Arab-Israeli peace process. She is also passionate about mediation and negotiations as forms of conflict resolution. She hopes to return to her homeland to work in a think-tank or in a policy making role in the future. In her free time, she enjoys bowling, driving and watching cooking shows. 

Hugh O'Donnell

Valerie Oliphant

Originally from Arizona, Valerie holds a BA in International Studies, with a focus on development in Africa, from the University of Arizona. Her academic interests include intrastate conflict in Africa, resource wars, post-conflict effects on health and psychology, and gender mainstreaming. She previously worked with the Somali Bantu Association of Tucson, Arizona to help Somali Refugees work towards obtaining their US citizenship and for the Alliance for Peacebuilding, where she worked on projects on conflict prevention in West Africa and evaluation methodologies in the peacebuilding field. She is currently in Nigeria on a year-long Boren Fellowship, where she is studying Yoruba, interning with Search for Common Ground, and conducting independent research.

Inna Pletukhina

Rebeccah Ratner

Rebeccah grew up in Asheville, North Carolina and attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she completed her B.A. in international and area studies and a minor in modern Hebrew. She also studied abroad at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva, Israel. Her current academic focus is in alternative dispute resolution processes and the role of third-party intervention. During the summer of 2011, she interned with the Dispute Resolution Service at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission where she developed a training on teambuilding, drafted brown bag presentations on mediation, and worked on landowner inquiry calls. She will continue to work for FERC during the school year.

Patrick Scullin

A graduate of CUNY, Patrick's specialization is in international human rights but he has a plethora of experience in mediation, theology, new media and technology, physical therapy and event management. At Georgetown, Patrick is involved in various extracurricular projects related to his interests including sitting on the Student Planning Committee for the Conflict to Peace 2011 Conference to be held at Georgetown in September.  Deeply connected to his Irish heritage, Patrick has conducted research on the Northern Ireland conflict and was a member of the CR delegation to Queen's University, Belfast, in early 2011. Patrick is also a certified Tai Chi and Qi Gong instructor. 

Rebekka Sprenger

Gina Vorderstrasse

Meeghan Zahorsky

Meeghan Zahorsky is the Generations For Peace Graduate Scholar for Sports and Peacebuilding at Georgetown. In the summer of 2011, she conducted field research in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine through this scholarship. Beyond this research, Meeghan focuses on post-conflict reconstruction in Central Africa, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding efforts, and economic dimensions to peace negotiations. Meeghan hopes to pursue a career in international consulting, working at the nexus of peace negotiations and peacebuilding efforts, as well as, becoming a published author of both fiction and nonfiction. She received her BA from Brown University in international relations, global security. Meeghan grew up in Hawaii and Washington State.

Shannon Zimmerman 

Shannon enrolled at Georgetown for her Master's in 2009 but received a Boren Fellowship and took some time off of classes to instead study Arabic and French in Tunisia. While there, Shannon also conducted research into embedded cultural norms and their influence on society's response to conflict. Originally from Colorado, Shannon considers herself fortunate to have been a first-hand witness to the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and studied abroad at such a crucial time. Having returned to DC, she will finish her degree in May 2012.