Peacebuilding Associates

Karuna Center Peacebuilding Associates have achieved professional excellence in related fields and are engaged in Karuna’s core practice of peacebuilding through conflict transformation and inter-ethnic dialogue. Many have attended the CONTACT (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) Program at the School for International Training (SIT). Both individually and collectively, the Associates strengthen and expand our capacity in international and domestic programs. 

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Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, M.A.: Iranian by birth, Sanam Anderlini currently resides in Washington, D.C. As an activist working at the international level, she strives to bridge the divide between the work and experiences of women in conflict areas and policy makers at the international level. As senior policy advisor to International Alert, Sanam advocated for and drafted the United Nations Security Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. She has since led groundbreaking field research on women’s contributions to conflict prevention, peace processes, governance, transitional justice, and post-conflict disarmament and reintegration issues in over twelve countries. Since 2005, she has provided strategic guidance and training to key United Nations agencies, the British government and non-governmental organizations worldwide. She has taught at Georgetown University and is a research affiliate at the MIT Center for International Studies. Her latest book is Women Building Peace: What They Do, Why It Matters (Lynne Rienner, 2007)

Tatsushi (Tats) Arai, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Conflict Transformation at SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont and a Research Fellow of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research in Hawaii/Tokyo. Previously, Tats taught International Relations at the National University of Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide. As a trainer, mediator, and dialogue facilitator, he regularly designs and facilitates peacebuilding workshops that actively engage participants from civil society, governments, and international organizations in diverse approaches to experiential learning. His publications include Creativity and Conflict Resolution: Alternative Pathways to Peace (2009, Routledge). Currently, he is working on a book project (Peace Potential in Conflict), which seeks to articulate methods of applied practice informed by his field experience in conflict-affected societies. Tats is a Japanese citizen, holds a PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University in Virginia, and lives in Massachusetts with his tri-national family.

Eileen F. Babbitt, Ph.D. is a Professor of International Conflict Management Practice and Director of the International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is also a Faculty Associate of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Her practice as a facilitator and trainer has included work in the Middle East, the Balkans, and with U.S. government agencies, regional intergovernmental organizations, and international and local NGOs. Before joining the Fletcher faculty, Professor Babbitt was Director of Education and Training at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Director of the Program on International Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University. Dr. Babbitt holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a Ph.D. from MIT.

David Blair, M.A., is Chair of the Board of Directors for the Karuna Center. He directs the Mariposa Museum in Peterborough, NH, a museum of folk art that celebrates the diversity and commonalities of the human family. David spent six years in Asia with his family during the 1980s and 1990s: first working with Southeast Asian refugee children and their Filipino teachers at the Philippine Refugee Processing Center, then as co-director with his wife Linda of the American Friends Service Committee's rural development program in Vietnam. David has facilitated Karuna trainings in Macedonia, Kosovo, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Senegal. 

Miki Jacevic, M.S. is deputy director for training and consultations at The Institute for Inclusive Security. He oversees the Institute's training program, as well as strategic consultations with leaders from conflict areas around the globe, to help them remain focused on promoting women’s inclusion in all stages of the peace process. He was the primary author of Inclusive Security: A Curriculum for Women Waging Peace, a highly interactive training manual based on over a decade of experience designing and leading workshops around the world. Miki also directs the Bosnia program of Global Youth Connect, taking delegations of international visitors to study issues of transitional justice and reconciliation in his native Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the Bosnian war, he was involved in numerous projects to ease the suffering of youth and the elderly. Prior to joining Inclusive Security, he directed the Emerging Leaders Project at the State of the World Forum and managed child soldiers’ reintegration efforts at Search for Common Ground. He is married to Guatemalan human rights activist Eva Morales, and they live with their two children in the Washington, DC area, where he is a doctoral student at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He is from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Hercegovina.

Baht Latumbo, M.A., a native of the Philippines, is the chairperson for Action for Conflict Transformation (ACTION), an international program of cross-cultural capacity building in conflict-affected areas located in Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently servicing as the vice-president and Chief Operation Officer of the AKKAPKA Foundation, Inc., a non-government organization in the Philippines espousing active non-violence as a way of life and as a means for social change. Baht works as a faculty member at the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures program (CONTACT) at the SIT Graduate Institute and as an adjunct professor at Assumption College in Makati City, Philippines. 

Mishy Lesser, Ed.D., is the Learning Director of an award-winning documentary film called Coexist on post-genocide Rwanda.  She wrote the film’s four-lesson Teacher’s Guide, which serves as a tool for middle and high school, as well as post-secondary educators who teach about genocide and colonial legacy. The film is used widely for social emotional learning to cultivate beliefs and behaviors that value human dignity, upstanding, and inclusion, and undermine “othering” and scapegoating. Coexist is in the hands of more than 3,000 teachers all over the U.S. Mishy does classroom teaching as well as faculty development, and works with counselors and school administrators who address social tension in their schools.  Born in the U.S, Mishy lived in Latin America for over twelve years. She is developing a new project to create an online interactive new media curriculum to teach U.S. high school students about the intersection between U.S. foreign policy and human rights in Latin American during the Cold War. The first module will focus on Chile and the second on Central America. Mishy is a founding member of the Karuna Center Board or Directors.

Pradeep Mahamuthugala, MBA, is a peace worker and practicing attorney. As a qualified analyst, consultant, trainer, and academic faculty at Aquinas University (Sri Lanka), Pradeep brings a world of experience to the peacebuilding field. He began working in the humanitarian sector in 1990. In 1999 he joined an INGO and became responsible for providing support services to civilians in war zones. Pradeep works to empower individuals and communities in their personal journeys towards peaceful co-existence. As an advisor for Children, Protection and Peacebuilding with World Vision International, Pradeep had the opportunity to work in areas of Indonesia, East Timor, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Philippines, South Sudan and Sri Lanka. He has facilitated workshops in the areas of Conflict Sensitive Programming, Human Rights, Community based Advocacy, Conflict Resolution, Negotiation, Mediation, Micro and Macro Conflict Analysis and Religious Dialogue. He is currently a trainer for Karuna Center's USAID-funded program in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. There he works with Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian religious leaders.

Hugh O'Doherty was raised as a Catholic in Northern Ireland, where he experienced first-hand the "intractable conflict" of his land. As a consequence, he has dedicated himself to the study and practice of peacemaking. As a Senior Associate with Cambridge Leadership Associates, he consults extensively with a wide variety of clients including the Irish Civil Service, the National Conservation Training Institute, the Episcopalian Clergy Leadership Program, and the city of Somerville. He has also consulted in Bosnia, Croatia, and Cyprus, been a third-party member of an Armenian-Turkish Dialogue process, and has addressed the United Nations Global Forum on Re-Inventing Government. In 2001 Hugh was invited to help launch Harvard University's Center for Public Leadership at the John F Kennedy School of Government, where he received the Dean's award in teaching excellence. He has taught leadership and conflict resolution at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Maryland, Richmond University, and at the McGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, where he directed the Ireland-US Public Leadership Program for "emerging" leaders from all the political parties in Ireland, North and South. For four years Hugh was Program Director at the Glencree Center for Peace and Reconciliation, Ireland. From 1995-98, he directed the Northern Ireland Inter-Group Relations Project. He earned a B.Ed. from Manchester University in England, an M.A. from the Irish School of Ecumenics, and an M.Ed. and Ed.D. from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Jan Passion, M.A., is the International Human Resources Manager with the Nonviolent Peaceforce. Between 2003 and 2006 Jan worked with the Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP) in Sri Lanka as the Deputy Director. Prior to his work in Sri Lanka, he worked with NP conducting field research and outreach in West Africa and Palestine/Israel and helping to develop NP's infrastructure. Jan has worked as a peacebuilding trainer with the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures Program, (CONTACT), the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and as guest faculty with Lesley College in Israel. Jan has been a peace activist and war tax resister for over twenty years. For ten years he worked as a psychotherapist working with perpetrators and victims of various forms of violence and trauma. In other lives Jan served as volunteer emergency medical technician, bus driver, mediator, self-defense instructor and refugee host. Jan's peacebuilding experience includes work in the USA, Macedonia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Palestine, Thailand, Israel, Kenya, Sierra Leone, India, Ecuador, the former USSR, Guinea, Ghana, South Africa and Cyprus. Jan earned his first degree at the University of Massachusetts with a self-designed programme on gender and power. He earned a masters degree in International and Intercultural Management from the School for International Training and wrote his thesis on building nonviolent intercultural peaceteams. Jan lives in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Elizabeth Powley. M.A. is a consultant in gender and post-conflict reconstruction, with more than fifteen years of experience in non-profit leadership and program development. She has expertise in conflict analysis and resolution, training and curriculum development in cross-cultural settings, and field-based research. She has worked extensively on issues of gender and political participation in sub-Saharan Africa. Elizabeth lived in Rwanda for two years as director of the Rwanda Project of the Initiative for Inclusive Security, which provided technical and financial support to Rwanda’s women parliamentarians. An experienced teacher and trainer, she has designed curricula and conducted leadership training for women activists in half a dozen African countries. 

Mehlaqa Samdani, M.A.P.D. is a native of Pakistan, currently based in Massachusetts, USA. She has researched and worked in various conflict and transitional settings over the past twelve years. Samdani has field experience working with refugee communities in the Sudan, Bosnia and Afghanistan and has managed political development projects with women contesting local council elections in Pakistan. She has also worked as a researcher and consultant with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations where she examined the role of civil society in effecting social, political and economic change in the Islamic world. Her current area of interest includes exploring the role of civil society in combating militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Samdani's writings have been published in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Times (Pakistan) etc. and she has been invited as a guest on NPR, KCBS and news channels in Pakistan. She is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Denver.

Tom Schaub, M.P.A. is a Founder and Managing Partner at CMPartners, an international negotiation and conflict management advisory and competency development firm that leads the field of interdependence management. Mr. Schaub's public practice centers on leadership capacity building, education, and direct strategic assistance. He has led recent and ongoing projects with the World Bank, various parties to the conflict in Kashmir, The American University in Beirut, the Bahrain Economic Development Board, and The Nepal Constitutional Assembly. In his private practice, Mr. Schaub provides negotiation advisory services and training in negotiation leadership, complex procurement, consultative sales, and strategic relationship management. Before forming CMPartners, Mr. Schaub held both the Africa and Asia Directorships with Conflict Management Group (CMG). Mr. Schaub earned his BA from the University of Minnesota and his MPP from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. In addition to his work with CMPartners, Mr. Schaub also serves as the Founder and Board Member of A Public Good (APG). 

Joseph Sebarenzi, Ph.D., is the former speaker of the Rwandan parliament, a position he held from 1997 until 2000. In this role he represented his country all over the world, including as a speaker at the United Nations, the European Union Assembly in Belgium and France, the Inter-parliamentary Union in Egypt, and the U.N. Human Rights Commission in South Africa. A survivor of the 1994 genocide, today Joseph resides in the U.S. and is a professional public speaker who has spoken about reconciliation and conflict management to thousands of people at high schools, colleges, universities, and fundraising events across the United States and Canada. He has also provided expert commentary on National Public Radio, BBC, and the Voice of America on matters related to genocide, reconciliation, and restorative justice. Joseph has been a teaching fellow at the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures program (CONTACT) at the SIT Graduate Institute. He is the author of God Sleeps in Rwanda: A Journey of Transformation.

Chhaya Sharma, based in Nepal, is the Vice President of the Federation of Woman Entrepreneurs’ Association of Nepal (FWEAN) a non-profit association working on empowerment of women through entrepreneurship. She is also the Founder/principal of the Nepal College of Travel and Tourism Management (NCTTM) in Nepal, the first tourism college to offer tourism studies as an academic discipline. Ms. Sharma has been conducting peacebuilding trainings and inter-communal dialogues in rural districts of Nepal where the ten years of insurgency has devastated lives of thousands, especially women and children. Ms Sharma is a graduate of the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures program (CONTACT) Graduate Certificate Program at the SIT Graduate Institute.

Katherine Stoessel. M.A., based in the U.K., is a human relations and conflict resolution professional with extensive skills and experience in education, program design, training, cross-cultural communication, curriculum development, dialogue facilitation, and mediation. She consults nationally and internationally with educational institutions, non-profits, and community groups.

Adin Thayer, M.S.W., is an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work in Massachusetts (USA), where she teaches Collective Trauma, and also at the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont (USA), where she is Associate Director for the Graduate Certificate Program in Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. She works independently as a Consultant in Peacebuilding and Psychosocial Recovery, primarily in the Great Lakes region of Africa. She also works in the fields of dialogue and racial reconciliation in the USA. Prior to her international work she practiced in the fields of social work and community mental health for many years.

Judith Thompson, Ph.D., is a peace practitioner, scholar, organizational leader, and public speaker with a successful twenty-five track record in developing and managing programs dedicated to respecting difference and celebrating common ground between diverse groups. Judith co-founded and directed the celebrated international youth peace organization, Children of War, Inc., has organized international peace practitioner learning communities, and has received the Peace Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. 

Mary Watkins, Ph.D., clinical psychologist and core faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, works at the interfaces between Euro-American depth psychologies and psychologies of liberation from Latin America, Africa, North America, and Asia, promoting peacebuilding and social justice through the teaching of critical, dialogical, and participatory approaches. Her recent work concerns the creation of psyches and cities of hospitality. She is the co-author of Toward Psychologies of Liberation, Talking With Young Children About Adoption, and In the Shadows of Paradise: Testimonies from the Undocumented Immigrant Community in Santa Barbara; author of Waking Dreams and Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues; and a co-editor of Psychology and the Promotion of Peace.

Demaris Wehr, Ph.D. taught Religion and Psychology for many years, including at Swarthmore College, Harvard Divinity School and the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Demaris currently has a private practice as a psychotherapist on Martha's Vineyard. She is the author of Jung and Feminism: Liberating Archetypes (Boston: Beacon, 1987) and many articles and chapters bringing together Jungian psychology and women's issues. She is working on a book provisionally entitled: Making It Through: Healing from Genocide in Bosnia.

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