Roland GILLAH is a conflict analyst and humanitarian access negotiator.
Roland was born in New York City and graduated from Tufts University with a degree in International Relations. He began his career in California as a consultant with the Department of Defense, examining how cutting-edge technologies were reshaping the modern battlefield. Not content with observing from a distance, he moved to Tunisia and joined Mercy Corps’ humanitarian response in Libya.
Unlike many other analyst, the team accurately predicted the 2019 Tripoli War, and during the fighting Roland co-led the Access Working Group with UN OCHA, managing negotiations with warring parties so that aid could be delivered across frontlines. He joined Mercy Corps’ response in the Democratic Republic of Congo, then facing the second-deadliest Ebola outbreak in the world, where he worked to improve the speed and accuracy of rapid responses to displacement and help communities rebuild. Most recently, Roland managed security and humanitarian access for health and demining operations in Syria, where he handled complex relations with tribal leaders and led the evacuation of multiple organizations during an ISIS attack.
Roland seeks bridges between opposing sides and to elevate the voices of people living through conflict. Educated at a Quaker school but choosing to work alongside the military for much of his career, he believes that violence cannot be the solution, and that it is the duty of those with means to fight alongside those without to enable a better world.
Roland Gillah is a Master’s Candidate in SIPA at Columbia University. This past summer, he served as a Research Fellow on Protection of Civilians at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and prior to graduate school, he was a conflict analyst and humanitarian access negotiator. He worked for Mercy Corps’ Libya Analysis Team during the 2019-2020 Tripoli offensive and the Congo Humanitarian Analysis Team during the 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most recently, he served as Humanitarian Access & Security Manager with Humanity & Inclusion in North East Syria, working on demining and health activities. He started his career working on security sector reform in the U.S. Department of Defense and the Hacking for Defense program, based in Silicon Valley. He earned his B.A. in International Relations from Tufts University.
Roland is the quintessential avatar of the ALLIES program I designed with my students.
A courageous person of deep humane sensibility, he is a remarkable amalgam of boldness, self-sacrifice, and citizenship. He is a man of steeled determination and yet a very quiet, humble, reserved demeaner. His intellect and curiosity did not lead him to a life of reflection and criticism, attributes he surely possesses and will refine in academic pursuits, but he is clearly a man of action and determination. In an educational era of a desire for and promotion of "safe spaces" Roland's sensibilities and life are the antithesis. He served as ALLIES Treasurer and its FieldEx planning committee, he ran the media team in SIMULEX, a simulation for the Army War College for the Fletcher School, and journeyed to Turkey on a Joint Research Project trip. Here is one of his entries:
https://www.tuftsgloballeadership.org/blog/musings-after-one-week-gallipoli