Patrick Schmidt

Alexander Vindman and Patrick Schmidt, 2021

Patrick Schmidt is a Democratic candidate running in the State of Kansas. While stationed at the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, DC, Patrick witnessed the attack on the Capitol. Realizing that the biggest threat facing Kansas and country is authoritarian leaders gaining control of the federal government, Patrick moved back home and filed to run against a member who supported the Big Lie and the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

While on active duty he served as a Division Officer onboard the USS RONALD REAGAN, the Navy’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier, and Fleet Intelligence Watch Officer in support of Commander, Task Force 70. As Division Officer he led a multisource intelligence team providing air, surface, and subsurface threat warnings for the carrier strike group, frequently inside the First Island Chain. He subsequently spearheaded a counter-Iranian Threat Network intelligence and cryptologic team in support of CENTCOM and partner-nation operations and supported national mission forces at the Office of Naval Intelligence.

While at Tufts, Patrick was a member of the 2009-2010 EPIIC class, South Asia: Conflict, Culture, Complexity, and Change. In addition to studying the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan He cites an EPIIC colloquium lecture by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke and the as a primary reason he studied Persian throughout college. Mentorship and support from Sherman Teichman and IGL alumni from Dewick Dining Hall to Dushanbe, and everywhere in between enabled him to earn two Critical Language Scholarships from the State Department and a Boren Award from the Department of Defense to study in Tajikistan. He also credits missile defense research during the 2010-2011 EPIIC Course, Our Nuclear Age: Peril and Promise, with significantly aiding his understanding of the threat environment while supporting operations in the Western Pacific.

Prior to commissioning, Patrick interned with the Economic and Commercial Section of Embassy Nicosia and worked as a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy with the Iran Security Initiative.

Michèle Flournoy, Patrick Schmidt, and Dennis Ross, 2021

Patrick was a freshman when I met him first. I had a really enjoyable experience teaching and interacting with him over the years and most recently serving on the Host Committee for his campaign. Alert, intellectually curious, a thoughtful nonpolemical thinker, he was always imbued with a sense of civic responsibility and was particularly interested in my Institute’s ALLIES (Alliance Linking Leaders In Education And the Services) civil-military program.

Patrick has recently written me this statement:

“One testament to the transformative power of the IGL and Tufts community is that 12 years ago I was the freshman who repeatedly fell asleep overnight inside the IGL house, and now I am the Democratic nominee for KS02. Your support and encouragement led me to study Persian (you wrote me letters of recommendation for the DoD's Boren Award, and the Department of State's Critical Language Scholarship, which I received twice), and it was Persian that led to my getting hired at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy). Thank you for investing in me and equipping me to pursue my passions.”

Seth Karamage

Seth Karamage is a development economist specializing in peacebuilding and good governance.  Seth has been working with the University of Massachusetts (UMass Boston) under the auspices of Center for Peace Democracy and development (CPDD), for11 years managing its peacebuilding and governance projects in Nigeria and Rwanda respectively. Before joining the development work, Seth served in Rwandan Defense Forces (RDF) for 12 years where he draws the passion and expertise of incorporating Civil-Military relations and Early Warning and Early Response (EWER) activities in peacebuilding and good governance programs. With respect to civil-military relations strengthening, he championed the 2012 JRP where he first facilitated the introduction and connection between the Institution for Global Leadership (IGL) at Tufts University with Rwandan embassy in the US for promoting the ALLIES programs in Rwanda.

Currently, Seth is the UMass Boston’s Resident Country Director for the Strengthening of Rwandan Administrative Justice (SRAJ) project.

In Nigeria, he implemented a 5year project tagged as TOLERANCE (Training of Leaders on Religious and National Co-existence), which promoted peace and reconciliation among religious leaders and their constituencies in northern and southeastern Nigerian states.

Seth has also been working with Karuna Center for Peacebuilding in Rwanda and Nigeria teaching and establishing community based dialogues that intend to strengthen civilian security and reconciliation in divided communities.

In addition to the international peace and governance work, Seth founded and owns Rural Economic Development and Management (REDEM) Company which aims at improving rural farmers’ social and economic livelihoods through teaching them modern agriculture hence strengthening sustainable peace and development in Rwanda. 

Seth is a Rwanda and he is a graduate of Brandeis University in USA with a MA in Co-existence and conflict. Prior to Brandeis, he went to National University Rwanda where he attained a BSc in Economics.

Hussainatu Blake

Ms. Hussainatu Blake is a global Edtech professional with 12 years of experience in educational technology, as an owner & operator.  She is the Co-Founder of Twinfold Media— an EdTech company that curates and licenses educational content to companies, NGOs, nonprofits and institutions of higher education.  Twinfold Media produces the edtech webseries, “Twinfold with Hassa & Hussa Blake,” now in its fifth season.

In addition, Ms. Blake co-founded Focal Point Global (FPG), an Edtech non-profit that empowered underserved youth to tackle community issues through global education and innovative technology. FPG had 500 alumni and a reach of over 20,000 people from the US, Cameroon, The Gambia, Namibia, and South Africa.

Ms. Blake is not only an owner & operator; she is also an educator. Currently, she serves an Adjunct Professor of Business Law at Baltimore City Community College.

Ms. Blake has been recognized by the US White House Champions of Change Initiative under the Obama Administration; featured in Black Enterprise; TEDx Speaker; and has served as Keynote Speaker numerous education and tech conferences, and leading institutions of higher education.

Hussainatu has a Bachelor’s of Arts from Tufts University, a Masters Degree in International Policy from Middlebury College and a law degree from Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School.

Rafael Reisz

Sherman was my fencing coach at Boston University in the early 80s. He was a national caliber saber man while I, mediocre on my best day, gravitated to the Epee - the only real weapon in the fencing arsenal.

That was a pivotal period for me. Behind me were degrees in psychology and philosophy, work on loading docks and in factories in New Jersey, barn building in Pennsylvania, and a good deal of drifting around Europe, North and South America. Understanding the world meant understanding computers. I wrote my first program in high school in 1968 (in Fortran on an IBM 360) and was now determined to master technical development and operations management. I leveraged my experience, amplified by unwarranted self-confidence, to get a job with an analytical processing firm in Cambridge.  Boston University offered a wider arena for application development so I hacked code, designed increasingly complex systems, built teams, and made my clients happy – not always my supervisors.

I learned my management and consulting trade at Arthur D. Little Inc and spent most of the next 17 years re-engineering that firm’s information systems on an international scale.  When ADL went bankrupt in 2002, I was asked to use the systems I built to support litigation. That launched my consultancy practice. My business plan was simple: find interesting people who are doing interesting things and help them do it. I was busy. My clients came from the legal, healthcare, pharma, financial, and education sectors. Companies like Biogen, GE, Partners Health, and Boston University, as well as smaller firms gave me their trust, and I left them better off than when I found them. What my clients have in common is a desire, and very often strategic and existential need, to build quality products and high-performance operations. Knowing how to do that in a technical world that cares about its humanity turns out to be a fairly good career path.

I spend much of my personal time playing tennis, in scholarly and frivolous reading (not always distinguishable), some writing, and, by force of habit, drifting around world.  I teach entrepreneurship and product development courses at Hult International Business School in Cambridge and am helping create the school’s incubator. I am a certified SBA mentor and work with the national Score program to counsel entrepreneurs as they establish and grow their businesses. Score clients contribute $67 into the economy to each $1 investment in the program – not a bad ROI. We are now beginning to expanding our outreach to entrepreneurs, in Boston and abroad, who wish to grow through international trade.

I have had the pleasure to see the launch of quite a few innovative products, organizations and practices. Some are small life-style businesses, some change markets and industries on a global scale; all improve lives.  My clients teach me more than I teach them, not least about the power of imagination, fearlessness and the tenacity required to create a sustainable and valuable reality.

Actually, “unwarranted self-confidence,” turned Rafi into a fun, durable and dependable epeeist, and Boston University won its fair share of bouts and competitions (picture)  Worth noting, our women’s Varsity which I also coached outshone the men. 

Rafi has been a valued friend and advisor over the years. It was Rafi who introduced me to Jeff Aresty, and the surely led to some of the most innovative outcomes for the Institute.

Rafi and I bonded over politics and literature, with many conversations that happily continue, he perhaps more grizzled, skeptical, and wiser. Much of the talk centered on the Shoah, Jewish resistance to the Nazis, rescuers,  and Israeli history, politics and society. Rafi helped me research and translate Hebrew sources, especially when I centered my research over civil -military relations in Israel and the Israeli Lebanon invasions. People I met in Israel in the height of the fighting, who I subsequently befriended,  were the anti-war dissidents and activists of Yesh G’Vul, in particular Dov Yermiya, whose life and controversial opinions impacted me greatly.

His journal was eventually translated and speaks volumes to my own attitudes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_Yermiya

https://www.972mag.com/saying-goodbye-to-israels-oldest-dissident-zionist/

https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/232311

When I was considering what to do in my Emeritus years, Rafi was one of the very first people I consulted. He was patient and thoughtful, (especially with my irritability, stuck in a cast with a catastrophic ankle injury  – think Gordon Hayword – one of his therapists was mine.)  I decided against a for profit entity, but I’m certain that if I had gone a different Rafi route, I would be wealthier. No regrets whatsoever.  And so happy Convisero allows us to interact and embolden our community.

Bhaskar Chakravorti

Bhaskar Chakravorti is the Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School at Tufts University – America’s oldest exclusively graduate school of global affairs -- and the founding Executive Director of Fletcher’s Institute for Business in the Global Context. 

Bhaskar founded the Institute in 2011 with the mission of “connecting the world of business with the world,” exploring issues at the intersection of business and global context, including geopolitics, technology, security, development, the environment and the human condition. Bhaskar serves on the Fletcher faculty as Professor of the Practice of International Business and teaches global strategy and innovation for sustainable and inclusive businesses. He is founder and Chair of the IDEA Council: Imagining a Digital Economy for All, has served on the Global Future Council on Innovation for the World Economic Forum and is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, Senior Advisor for Digital Inclusion at the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress and on the Advisory Board of the UNDP’s Center for Private Sector in Development. Bhaskar has also founded the Digital Planet initiative at The Fletcher School, that follows the evolution of 90 countries as they transition from traditional to digitally intensive economies.  Most recently, as part of this initiative, he has launched a multi-year initiative, Imagining a Digital Economy for All, IDEA 2030, which is investigating the role of data, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and applications as a force for inclusive growth, development and productivity. The first year of the research was entirely devoted to the study of the world operating by digital means during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also started the first all-digital degree program at Tufts and Fletcher, launched a year before the pandemic. The Institute he founded has received funding from numerous foundations, e.g. Gates, Rockefeller, Onassis, and corporations, e.g. Mastercard, Microsoft, Boeing, among others.

Prior to joining Fletcher, Bhaskar was a Partner of McKinsey & Company, a Distinguished Scholar at MIT's Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship and on the faculty of Harvard Business School and Harvard University Center for the Environment. He was a leader of McKinsey’s Innovation and Global Forces practices, served on its Knowledge Services Committee and taught innovation and entrepreneurship at Harvard. In a 30 year career, he has been an advisor to CEOs, senior management and Boards of over 30 companies in the Fortune 500 and policymakers at national and international organizations and worked across the Americas, EU, Asia and Africa, and multiple industries. He is the author of the Amazon best-selling book, “The Slow Pace of Fast Change: Bringing Innovations to Market in a Connected World” (Harvard Business Press) and is the creator of the widely-used Digital Evolution Index. His papers and articles appear in top-tier academic journals, multiple books and in widely-read media, e.g., Harvard Business Review, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Washington Post, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, Bloomberg, Businessweek, Barron’s, The Hill, Salon, among many others. He was a former columnist on innovation for the Washington Post and Forbes and currently has regular columns in Harvard Business Review, the Indian Express, Foreign Policy and The Conversation; he is regularly interviewed by the press, and has appeared in a wide variety of leading media, including New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, NPR, BBC, The Economist, New Yorker, CNBC, CBC, CCTV, Times of London, Al Jazeera, Economic Times, Times of India, etc.

Bhaskar's prior appointments were as a Partner and Thought Leader at the Monitor Group, a game theorist at Bellcore (formerly Bell Labs), assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and TAS (India’s Tata Group’s “talent pipeline for leaders”). His PhD in economics is from the University of Rochester, where he was a University Fellow. He is a graduate of the Delhi School of Economics and in economics with honors from Delhi University’s St. Stephen’s College.

Boaz Wachtel

An innovative entrepreneur, independent peace and environmental activist; Boaz is the Chief Executive Officer, Chairman & chief innovator at Roots Sustainable Agricultural Technologies Ltd. Roots is an incubator dedicated to increasing crop optimization. It develops and commercializes unique root zone heating and cooling, creating technology  for the cannabis and general agriculture sector. Utilizing unique irrigation by condensation processes they are able to sustain full life cycle of plants, grape vines and young trees, irrigating them just with water from the humidity in the air.

Boaz is also the Co founder and Executive Chairman of The Board of CresoPharma, with offices in Australia and Israel.  Creso-Pharma leverages science and research, to develop, register, and commercialize innovative therapeutic approaches that target the body’s endocannabinoid system.

A former IDF combat medic in the Prime Minister’s Special Forces, he was a former Assistant Army Attaché at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. He is the founder of Israel’s 'Green Leaf Party'  advocating cannabis legalization, promoting environmental protection, human rights and stridently anti-occupation

Boaz was a researcher and consultant for the democracy think tank, Freedom House on issues regarding Middle-East water and regional cooperation. Together with a former director of Israel’s foreign ministry, he authored  a proposal,  The Peace Canal on the Golan Heights; Benefits and Risks to Regional Water Cooperation, as part of back channel Israeli/Syrian peace negotiations.

Boaz has an MBA  degree from the University of Maryland. 

A dear friend, I have known Boaz for over forty years. We rode motorcycles together while fasting on Yom Kippur, cleared cross-county ski trails in Maine, and started a fun, short lived, and surely non-lucrative, firewood business.

All the while we engaged in non-stop fun- filled discussions on politics and life  He provided wonderful insights into Israeli life.  I introduced Boaz to the dissident thinking  of Chomsky and Zinn, who class he enrolled in at Boston University.  I invited Boaz to speak at my EPIIC symposium on the "Future of the West Bank and Gaza.”  At that time, in 1987 it was illegal for Israelis to meet with PLO representatives in any forum. Regardless, he agreed, believing that dialogue is essential.

He is a truly thoughtful, passionate maverick, and is the inspiration for Trebuchet’s and LISD’s current initiative to explore the potential of frameworks of accountability for environmental crimes, including a People’s Tribunal.  

Izzeldin Abuelaish

Professor Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Palestinian Canadian physician and an internationally recognized human rights and inspirational peace activist devoted to advancing health and education opportunities for women and girls in the Middle East, through both his research and his charitable organization The Daughters for Life Foundation. He has dedicated his life to using health as a vehicle for peace, and, despite all odds, succeeded, aided by a great determination of spirit, strong faith, and a stalwart belief in hope and family. He is a man who walks the walk and who leads by example.

Professor Izzeldin Abuelaish was born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp in the Gaza Strip. He is the first Palestinian doctor to receive an appointment at the Soroka hospital. Through his work, he has experienced firsthand the impacts of conflict in countries like Palestine, Egypt, Israel, Uganda, Yemen, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. His experience working as both an insider and outsider to conflict has led him to believe that doctors are particularly well-poised to serve as peacemakers, based on the moral doctrine of their profession. His work as both a healthcare practitioner and a peace advocate build on this philosophy and mobilizes health as a tool for peace. Dr Abuelaish believes that medicine and health can be an engine for the human peace. Health and medicine are human equalizer, socializer, harmonizer, and stabilizer. He continues to advocate for justice, health, peace and human rights worldwide.

Professor Abuelaish has overcome many personal hardships, including poverty, violence, and the horrific tragedy of his three daughters’ and niece’s deaths in the 2009 Gaza War. He continues to live up to the description bestowed upon him by an Israeli colleague, as a “magical, secret bridge between                     Israelis and Palestinians”. He is now one of the most outspoken, prominent, and beloved researchers, educators and public speakers on peace and development in the Middle East.  

Professor Abuelaish has been nominated five times for Nobel peace Prize, and he is fondly known as Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Ghandi and the “Martin Luther King of the Middle East”, having dedicated his life to using health as a vehicle for peace. Despite all odds, he has succeeded remarkably; aided by a great determination of spirit, strong faith, and a stalwart belief in hope and family. As a Palestinian physician and internationally recognized human rights and inspirational peace activist, Professor Abuelaish is devoted to advancing health and education opportunities for women and girls in the Middle East, through both his research and his charitable organization The Daughters for Life Foundation.  The Belgian Parliament named him the “Martin Luther King of the Middle East”. Again in 2016, Mr. Jean Marc Delizee from the Belgian Parliament nominated Dr. Abuelaish for the 2016 Noble Peace Prize and remarked that “Our world has more than ever need peace ambassadors such as him, of men and women capable of building bridges and links between people and between peoples.” 

Many influential figures within the diplomatic community have spoken exaltingly of Professor Abuelaish’ s work. In his nomination for the Sakharov Prize, Dr. David Naylor, then President of the University of Toronto, called Professor Abuelaish a remarkable ambassador for peace and an exemplar of forgiveness and reconciliation.  The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering spoke of him in his speech in Strasbourg, Germany at the opening of the exhibition “From Hebron to Gaza”. President Barak Obama referred to him as an example of strength and reconciliation in his address on May 19th, 2011.  when he discussed the possibility of peace within the Middle East. And the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to cited Professor Abuelaish in his speech Walk for Solidarity: Kindness and forgiveness are not signs of weakness but strength. It needs more courage to be nice and make peace than to be angry and want revenge.  

Professor Abuelaish’ s impact on peace-seeking communities is exceptional. He is an internationally renowned speaker, having spoken at the Canadian House of Commons, the American Congress, the Chilean Senate and Parliament, the European Parliament at Place Du Luxembourg in Brussels, the State Department, Forum 2000 in Prague, and many more. Professor Abuelaish has also spoken at academic institutions and organizations in Canada, the United States, Europe, Africa, and Australia and Asia. 

In addition to speaking to live audiences, Professor Abuelaish has been interviewed extensively by leading journalists and prominent personalities, including Christiane Amanpour, Anderson Cooper, Sir David Frost and Zeinab Badawi, and has appeared on prominent media outlets such as BBC News Hard Talk, Fox News Channel (FOX), CNN, Al Arabiya News, London’s The Telegraph, ABC, TVO, The Globe and Mail, The Economist, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, the Boston Globe, People Magazine. 

Professor Abuelaish’ s book, I Shall Not Hate: A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity, an autobiography of his loss and transformation, has achieved worldwide critical acclaim. Published in 2010, (currently in 23 different languages), and inspired by the loss of his three daughters – Bessan, Mayar, and Aya – and their cousin Noor to Israeli shelling on January 16th, 2009, the book has become an international bestseller. It has also become a testament to his commitment to forgiveness as the solution to conflict and the catalyst towards peace.  

Elis Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said about the book I Shall Not Hate: This story is a necessary lesson against hatred and revenge.

President Jimmy Carter said: in his book, Dr Abuelaish has expressed a remarkable commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation that describes the foundation for a permanent peace in the Holy Land.

The daily telegraph: A great work of insight and compassion that tries to point the way towards peace and reconciliation… If there is to be peace in the Middle East, it will come through men and women of the giant stature and epic capacity for forgiveness.

Sunday times: A remarkable study of compassion, and of daily life in the Gaza Strip

Professor Abuelaish believes that hatred is a chronic, contagious, and destructive disease. He focuses his research to promote awareness about the impact of hatred on health and wellbeing, and how to prevent spread of this destructive disease through positive resilience, tolerance, compassion, and reconciliation. 

Professor  Abuelaish’ s extensive list of awards and honors include countless national and international awards including 16 honorary doctorate degrees, The order of Ontario, The Meritorious Service Cross, and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, The Governor General’s Medallion,  the World Citizenship in Action Award, presented by the Canadian Branch of the Registry; the Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award of Canada; the Foundation P&V Citizenship Award; the Calgary Peace Prize; the Lombardy Region Peace Prize, the Stavros Niarchos Prize for Survivorship; Dr. Abuelaish has been named one of the Top 25 Canadian Immigrants; one of the 500 Most Powerful Arabs; and one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims by the Royal Islamic Strategies Centre in Jordan for five consecutive years. He was one of three finalists for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. 

Professor Abuelaish has founded Daughters for Life a Canadian charity, in memory of his daughters and to honor his commitment to women’s empowerment.  Daughters for Life that provides young women in high school and university the opportunity to pursue higher education so that they can become strong agents of change and advocates of peace; functions of women’s vital role in improving the quality of life throughout the Middle East and the world at large. 

Currently, Dr. Abuelaish lives in Toronto where he is Full Professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. He remains deeply committed to his humanitarian activism in addition to his roles as a charity leader and inspirational educator.  

I met Izzeldin in 2011 when I was in Oslo, Norway for my first encounter with the Human Rights Foundation’s annual meeting. I became a strategic advisor to the HRF and founded the Oslo Scholars Program, which allowed my students to be introduced to HRF's notable human rights activists. For the last decade, many have obtained research internships, and Izzeldin offered the very first two to student swho helped create his foundation and its website, Daughters for Life. 

Shahidul Alam

Time magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year, photographer, writer, and human rights activist Shahidul Alam, obtained a PhD in chemistry from London University before taking up photography. Returning to his native Bangladesh in 1984, he campaigned to bring down autocratic general Hussain Muhammad Ershad. In his pursuit of social justice, he set up the award-winning Drik Picture Library, Pathshala South Asian Media Institute, and Chobi Mela international photography festival. His book My journey as a Witness has been described by John Morris, the legendary picture editor of Life magazine, as the “most important book ever written by a photographer.” A recognized public speaker, Alam has lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale universities. He has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, the Tate Modern, and Centre Georges Pompidou. His awards include a Lucie Award, as well as the Shilpakala Award, the highest cultural award given to Bangladeshi artists. Alam is the only person of color to have chaired the prestigious international jury of World Press Photo. He is a visiting professor of Sunderland University and an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society. In 2018, he was jailed and tortured for speaking out against his government’s repressive practices.

Shahidul is a wonderful friend. We served together on the VII Foundation Board. I have had the pleasure of hosting him at my home and, most importantly, the privilege of working for his freedom on behalf of VII mobilizing Laureates, such as Amartya Sen, and many other distinguished folks to help to secure his freedom. He has lectured for me and has hosted my students at DRIK, in Bangladesh. We are currently conceptualizing, together with Gary Knight, an overture to SaiU for a program on narrative documentary practice.

Maria Ferraz

I am currently a Master of International Business candidate at The Fletcher School, where been diving into business digitalization, cybersecurity and international strategy. Prior to the program, I spent a few years split between the art auction market and private equity consulting. 

This is by no means my first encounter with Tufts. Originally from Brazil, I transferred to Tufts as a junior from University of Sao Paulo and joined Sherman’s last EPIIC class, 2015-2016 “The Future of Europe.” The class was completely out of my comfort zone and sparked my curiosity for international history, diplomacy and ethics in different societies. My best friends at Tufts were EPIIC students as well and, like the class, shaped my understanding of the world.

I continue to strive for positive impact in the world through business. I was recently awarded a FASPE Fellowship to study contemporary and professional business ethics in the context of the Holocaust, and hope to find new ways to collaborate with peers to foster financial wellbeing across the globe.

Kate Konschnik

Kate Konschnik is a former environmental litigator and energy policy expert focused on the challenge of climate change. Kate directs the Climate and Energy program at the Duke University Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and a Senior Lecturer at Duke Law, where she teaches Climate Change and the Law. A proud product of the American public school system, Kate earned her B.A. in political science from Tufts University, and a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Her mother was born in Queens, New York, to second generation Americans from Ireland; her father was born in a small coal-mining community in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Long road trips to National Parks and dinner table discussions of justice shaped Kate’s passion for environmental protection and politics.

Her Tufts experience deepened these interests, through biology and political science coursework, two tours of duty with Sherman Teichman’s immersive Education for Personal Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program, study in France, and bilingual research with a botanist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Kate capped her senior year at Tufts with an invitation to the U.N. Development Program’s conference in Stockholm, where she presented her EPIIC paper on the ties between political marginalization and environmental degradation in the African Sahel.

Kate began her career as a community organizer at small environmental organizations in Washington, DC and San Francisco, California. Working alongside people of color and undocumented immigrants, Kate witnessed firsthand the inextricable linkages between poverty, racism, and pollution. In law school, Kate worked for three years under Karen Musalo, a groundbreaking asylum and refugee lawyer; spent a summer on Saipan helping the Attorney General of the Northern Mariana Islands make a case to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up World War II era PCB contamination; and studied climate, human rights, and immigration law at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Following law school, Kate was admitted into the prestigious Honors Program at the United States Department of Justice, to serve as a litigator in the Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). For seven years Kate brought cases against electric utilities, aluminum smelters, cement plants and landfills for Clean Air Act violations. Her work earned her an EPA Gold Medal for Exceptional Service on a case, as well as two EPA Bronze Medals.

Kate then moved to Capitol Hill where she served as Chief Environmental Counsel to U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and managed his Oversight Subcommittee on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. There, she worked extensively on climate change legislation and Deepwater Horizon oil spill response efforts, and represented the Senator at the 2009 U.N climate conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2012, Kate moved to Harvard Law School, where she founded and directed the Environmental Policy Initiative (now the Harvard Energy and Environmental Law Program). There, Kate’s work led to greater transparency of hydraulic fracturing chemicals in the U.S. oil and gas industry, informed the EPA as it designed the Clean Power Plan to control carbon pollution from the power sector, and offered constitutional guideposts to states pushing for more aggressive clean energy policies. Kate also taught Oil and Gas Law at Harvard Law School for four years.

Kate now focuses on climate policy as it relates to the electricity sector and the oil and gas sector. Kate was the lead author on a climate policy study for Governor Cooper of North Carolina, and represented eight former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioners on an amicus brief in D.C. Circuit Court litigation over the Trump administration’s rollback of the Clean Power Plant. Kate also runs an inter-disciplinary, multi-university research effort into decision-making in U.S. electricity markets and implications for decarbonization and innovation. Kate spent three months at the International Energy Agency in Paris to study methane abatement policies in 2019-2020, and coauthored the IEA’s regulatory roadmap on the topic. In addition to her course on Climate Change and the Law, Kate taught a course on the Future of the Grid with Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, former FERC Chair Norman Bay, and Dr. Brian Murray of Duke University. Kate regularly consults with congressional offices and state and federal agencies on climate and energy policy, and is invited to speak to governmental, industry, and environmental audiences on these topics.

Talia Weiss

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Talia Weiss is a researcher in particle physics and technology ethics, currently pursuing a Physics PhD at Yale University. Her physics research centers on measuring the mass of a fundamental particle. Talia received her B.S. in Physics from MIT and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago, where her masters thesis investigated how scientists who invented gene editing technologies viewed the ethics of their research and acted in response. She has also written and spoken on the moral failings of Nazi nuclear physicists, as well as the history of scientific self-regulation.

In 2018-19, Talia developed a new program for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists which fostered conversations among researchers in disparate fields with common areas of concern—especially climate, nuclear, and emerging technology policy. She moderated expert panels for the program, which were followed by small-group participant discussions on core practical questions. As an undergraduate, Talia worked for the MIT Washington Office, where she reported on federal R&D policy developments for university leadership. She also served as a Content Developer for the MIT Museum, where she wrote materials to illuminate quantum and astrophysics concepts.

Curt Rhodes

Curt Rhodes is the Founder/International Director of Questscope, a non- profit, non-governmental organization established in 1988 for youth mentorship, alternative education, juvenile justice, community-building, mental well-being, and humanitarian aid programs in partnership with marginalized and refugee communities in the Middle East. Curt holds an MPH degree (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) and MS and PhD degrees (University of Wisconsin, Madison).

Curt was recognized in 2011 as Social Entrepreneur of the Year in the Middle East by the Schwab Foundation/World Economic Forum for visionary, pragmatic, and courageous contributions that significantly improve the state of the world. In 2014, he was awarded the Tufts University/Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship Award for his dedication to        solving the most pressing problems facing the world. He has lived continuously in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Egypt since 1981 and is a fluent  Arabic speaker.

Curt has emphasized inclusivity and participation as two foundational principles in the works he has fostered and the roles he has developed with  and for local leaders over the past 35 years. He also emphasizes the importance of knowing people as spiritual beings - who must be known in relationships of trust that go beyond their physical needs for food, shelter, clothing, education, etc.

Curt began his career in the Middle East as an associate professor and assistant dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon in February 1981. He redirected his career towards social development initiatives in 1984 after observing outcomes of the 1982 war in West Beirut and founded Questscope in 1988.

1980: He worked in the midst of war and conflict in the 1980s with communities in the south of Lebanon and in what was once West Beirut with associations of Lebanese who came from a wide variety of religious  traditions and heritages.

1990: In the late 1980s and 1990s he focused again on communities of varied traditions and backgrounds in Syria and Jordan, developing programs for at-risk and marginalized youth (mentally challenged youth/young adults, incarcerated youth, or those at risk of incarceration or post-incarceration, out-of-school youth) that served as focal points for  cooperation among people of good will from all communities.

2000: In 2000-2010, he built up leadership teams and organizational capacity in Jordan and Syria with experience in expanding participatory approaches to social issues. Work with youth in mentoring and alternative education spread to Sudan, Yemen, and northern Iraq during this time.

2011: From 2011 until now, his teams have modeled developmental  approaches within humanitarian/relief crisis situations (in refugee camps and in host communities) that have brought people of widely  divergent experiences and traditions together for the benefit of all concerned.

More than a decade ago, Curt met Sherman Teichman and the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) which has led to remarkable internships with Tufts students for ideation and creation of unique programs (including community mental trauma alleviation) to change the life trajectories of  marginalized youth in the Middle East. 
Curt is known as a resourceful peacemaker, practical innovator, and appreciative respecter of persons and traditions. He is relentlessly committed to putting the last first - the "motto" of Questscope - by engaging with individuals and their communities, institutions, and decision- makers at multiple levels.

Duncan Pickard

Duncan Pickard is a lawyer at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP in New York and London. His practice focuses on international dispute resolution and public international law, with representations including proceedings before the International Court of Justice and advice to States and international organizations. He clerked at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, and the Court of Justice of the European Union, in Luxembourg.

Before law school, Duncan was a student of the "Arab Spring." He worked as an adviser on constitution making and design for Democracy Reporting International, a Berlin-based NGO, supporting its work in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. In 2013, Duncan ran DRI's Tripoli office, where he organized a delegation of Tunisian parliamentarians to Libya's legislature to share lessons regarding the two countries' political transitions. He published reports from North Africa as a Nonresident Fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, including in the Washington Post, the Journal of Democracy, and Foreign Policy.

Duncan serves on the boards of DRI, the Council for European Studies at Columbia University, and MVYouth, which provides grants and scholarships in support of young people from Duncan's native Martha's Vineyard. He also received a Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, which promotes ethical reasoning through its flagship two-week study tour to Germany and Poland. Duncan was proud to participate in a Convisero panel of FASPE alums on how the fellowship contributed to his professional development.

Duncan holds degrees from Stanford Law School, the Harvard Kennedy School, and Tufts University. At Tufts, Duncan served as student body president, a Jonathan M. Tisch Scholar of Citizenship and Public Service, and a Synaptic Scholar at the Institute for Global Leadership. Sherman avidly supported Duncan's education at Tufts, including through encouraging him to pursue an internship at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, a two-year undergraduate honor's thesis with fieldwork in Peru, and publishing opportunities through Discourse, a student-led journal that Sherman convinced Duncan to join while tossing a lacrosse ball.

Julia Samson

Julia is a youth advocate committed to empowering youth around the world, transforming the private sector, and much more. She currently works as a Sustainable Finance Capital Markets Analyst at French investment bank, BNP Paribas, helping clients finance impactful projects. She is extremely passionate about the private sector's role in financing climate solutions and social impact initiatives. 

She is graduate from Columbia University with a Bachelor’s degree in Sustainable Development, while also studying Mandarin, Korean, and French. During her time at Columbia, Julia was captain of the NCAA D1 Women's Swim Team, in addition to a 2018-2019 Executive Board member of Columbia's LIGA Filipina. She was a Zhi-Xing US-China Young Leaders Fellow in Summer 2018 where she participated in geopolitical and economic development programming. Julia has been part of Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society as a data analyst on the ACToday-Bangladesh project team working to improve climatic variability solutions for small-landholders in Bangladesh. 

Beyond her professional commitment, she has been involved in many youth engagement initiatives around the world. She served as a US Core lecturer in Harvard’s Summit for Young Leaders in China in 2020 and 2021 where she taught Climate Change-Development Economics and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In Spring 2021, she founded the Sustainable Ocean Alliance NYC Hub working to bring awareness and drive innovation for local marine ecosystems in the New York City region. She is a 2021 speaker at the Wall Street Green Summit.

Rayhan Asat

Rayhan Asat is a leading human rights attorney and Uyghur advocate. Rayhan is selected for Yale University’s a prestigious World Fellow class of 2021 for her commitment to make the world a better place, talent, and inspiring leadership.

A graduate of Harvard Law School and former anti-corruption attorney at a major U.S. law firm, Rayhan specializes in international human rights law and compliance with best business practices. Her legal and policy work centers around enforcing international human rights norms, civil liberties, curtailing forced labor, and promoting corporate accountability. She advised the World Bank Group and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to design Human-Centered Business Integrity Principles. She works with civil society, diplomats, lawmakers, and businesses to address human rights concerns, especially the atrocities in Xinjiang involving her own brother Ekpar Asat. Harvard Law School Professor William P. Alford who worked with Rayhan closely described her as “a person of real courage and integrity."

She has been featured in various media outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, Foreign Policy, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Harvard Law Today, and Al-Jazeera among others. She has testified before the Canadian, British, and Lithuanian Parliaments. Her policy recommendations have been adopted by the US and other Western countries.She is a sought-after speaker at various national and international forums and conferences.  She will present at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in June 2021. Rayhan’s writing has also been published in many legal journals, and her opinions have appeared in Foreign Policy, NBC News, The Hill Magazine, and other prominent publications. She is a Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights and is also the founder and president of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association. 

While at Harvard Law, she was a teaching fellow and partnered with a leading Harvard Business School professor to teach a course on emerging markets. Rayhan loves mentoring students and young advocates. She serves an advisor to several human rights organizations including the Jewish Movement for Uyghur freedom and Harvard Human Rights Working Group. She has coached American University Washington College of Law’s moot court team for three consecutive years, and she also serves as a mentor with LawWithoutWalls, a multi-disciplinary legal shark tank-style competition.

Rayhan and I are both Senior Fellows at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and I have the honor of working with Rayhan on the Board of Advisers for the Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom. We collaborated on several Harvard hosted programs with the Human Rights Foundation and Harvard Law School.

Rayhan is a tireless advocate for her people and the universality of human rights. 

William Elias

William Elias is the Executive Director of the Legal Division and Chief Legal Officer for Sandia National Laboratories. He also serves as Secretary of NTESS, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Honeywell International, Inc. NTESS operates Sandia National Laboratories as a contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Will joined NTESS in May 2017 as part of the new leadership team at Sandia. 

 Prior to joining NTESS, Will was General Counsel at Argonne National Laboratory, the nation’s oldest and preeminent multi-purpose national science laboratory, based in Illinois. Before joining Argonne, Will was General Counsel and Secretary of the Corporation at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., an independent, nonprofit research and development laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Draper is primarily a contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, other national security agencies, and NASA. While at Draper, Will was also a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law, focusing on intellectual property and business strategy. 

Will began his legal career as a judicial clerk for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and was an attorney in private practice with Ropes & Gray and Peabody & Brown. He received his Juris Doctorate magna cum laude at the Boston University School of Law and his Bachelor of Science degree from Tufts University.

I first met Will in 1986, when he became engaged in the spring semester of the EPIIC program on International Terrorism.  He enrolled in the summer version of our colloquium program, and became a full-fledged member of EPIIC’s 1986 program on The Future of the West Bank and Gaza [1]. It was immediately clear that he was a brilliant, thoughtful student academically, but more so he made an impact on me with his non-ideological thinking and his articulate and deliberate mode of questioning. He never shied away from controversy and forcefully voiced his opinions, but never in an _ad hominem_ manner.  He controlled this sensitive panel very capably.  

We became close his senior year when he decided to shift his emphasis from his premed studies to the possibility of entering law school. It was late in the year, and despite the deadlines having passed for admission to law school, I encouraged him to apply to Boston University, and attempted to intervene on his behalf with several of my faculty friends, notably Pnina Lahav, with whom I had worked on Israeli politics and Israeli Supreme Court issues when I was a director of Hillel at Boston University, and Steve Trachtenberg, then Dean of Academic Affairs.  

Will succeeded in his application and would continue his stellar studies there, entering the private practice of law at a prominent national firm.  He eventually transitioned his career to focus on serving in national security, serving as the general counsel to several national defense, science, and security entities.

He has an extraordinary voice -- bass, I think -- and was a prominent member of the famed Tufts acapella group, the Beelzebubs.  We maintained our friendship over the years; on occasion, he would visit the Outward Bound weekend of the EPIIC program, for he loves the outdoors and was the first person to introduce me to GPS in the woods.  Will always had the most updated technological gizmos and the best wilderness outfits. My students loved him. 

There was always a distinguished aura about him. I was honored to be called upon by him to advise and mentor his son Hunter, fulfilling one of my dreams to be of service to the university-age children of my alumni.  

He has been a loyal friend, who could always be called upon, and I remember my visits to both Argonne and Sandia Labs in my pursuit of Pugwash activities. At Argonne, he importantly introduced me to Pete Heine, Director of the Center for Strategic Security, which develops and implements practical approaches and technical solutions to address severe threats to national and global security.

During a recent family dinner together, I was very surprised when Will told me that I, and EPIIC, featured prominently in his “leadership story” that he, as an executive mentor, tells to participants in the National Security Leadership Development Program.  I am glad that I have had such a positive impact on his life.

Brian Moore

Brian Moore is a global security and development executive. He was the National Security Council Advisor, in the Executive Office at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Dr. Moore led USAID interagency coordination on national security issues. He previously served as a Senior Advisor in the USAID Middle East Bureau, Executive Office. There he focused on defining the bureau’s future programming in the Middle East and North Africa through the lens of the Great Power Competition. Dr. Moore is a Middle East Affairs specialist who has lived primarily in the region since 1996. He returned to the US in late 2015 and was the Global Security Manager for an NGO, establishing a comprehensive security program. He also started a nonprofit focused on displaced people and food security primarily in Jordan and Iraq. Prior to that, he worked as a United Nations Officer in Gaza and the West Bank at UNRWA. He has served as a US Foreign Service Political Officer in Egypt, Iraq, Tunisia, and Yemen, and as an Air Force officer in Bahrain and Oman. He speaks Arabic and Hebrew and received a PhD from Bar Ilan University in Israel. His thesis focused on political history. He is also a graduate of the US Air Force Academy.

Jeff Aresty

Jeff Aresty is based in Houston, Texas, and is an international business and e-commerce lawyer who has led the non-profit Internet Bar Organization (IBO) since 2005. IBO’s mission is to promote and shape the emerging online justice community by advancing the rule of law for the emerging global society.

To assure that a worldwide justice system operates in harmony with land-based legal systems and that the dignity of every human is respected, IBO’s vision is to bring international humanitarian law to cyberspace. 

IBO has worked tirelessly toward achieving this vision by organizing a global movement using music, documentaries, publications, concerts, legal empowerment networks, and both long term projects and use cases from around the globe and has become a multidisciplinary movement to create access to justice and economic opportunity for disadvantaged people (primarily women and children) in developing and transitional countries. 

IBO’s key innovation has been to bring self-empowering solutions which allow its clients to build  sustainable e-commerce businesses that will operate in an open world marketplace based on the design and proof of concept of an open-source “Justice Layer” of the internet. This new “layer” of the internet is the foundation for a fair trade e-marketplace and is intended to catalyze a youth-led movement to empower communities everywhere.

IBO’s first project, PeaceTones®  was initiated in 2008 at the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University,  to provide musicians in conflict, post-conflict or impoverished areas with access to economic and legal resources through digital platforms. PeaceTones® mentors have trained and educated musicians, artists, and entrepreneurs from conflict zones and impoverished communities in countries around the world in their legal rights and facilitated their access to international markets through innovative internet-based activities.  PeaceTones® is an example of IBO’s constant search for inspiring collaborators across the globe, such as the founding director of the IGL, Sherman Teichman, who bring their own talents and outreach to promote equity and justice for all.

Recently, working with Sherman and the Trebuchet, he introduced Jeff to many leaders from academic, government, business, technology and non-government communities, to develop a shared understanding of how to shape a new layer of justice which would be fair and accessible to all. Together with Sherman’s colleagues, Curt Rhodes and Jordan Chaney of Questscope, they are proposing a plan to empower youth to overcome distrust, disinformation, exclusion from justice,

and conflict. Teams have been assembled to: 

- Build legal and technical support structures for justice in a new “digital country” in cyberspace– for a culture of respect for the rule of law founded on human dignity and the right to sovereignty of every human being over personal identity.

- Build trust networks for economic empowerment and protection of intellectual assets, particularly in the fields of arts, music and culture.

Jeff’s background both in technology and the law, and as an e-commerce lawyer goes back to the start of his career.  He has co-authored chapters on technology and law topics in several books from 2006-2012 including several chapters in the casebook, Cyberlaw: Text and Cases (2011, SouthWestern Cengage Learning), a chapter on mobile technology and the rule of law in Mobile Technologies for Conflict Management (2011, Springer) and a chapter on “Online Dispute Resolution and Justice” in Online Dispute Resolution: Theory and Practice (2012, Eleven Publishing).  His most recent article which explains how blockchain technology can empower stateless refugees, the foundation for his current work with Sherman, Curt and Jordan, was published by Lexis-Nexis https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3297182.  

Jeff has also taught (both face to face and online) several undergraduate courses on Global Cyberlaw, Law and the World Wide Web, and International Business Transactions at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Jeff earned his law degree at Boston University School of Law in 1976 and a Master of Laws degree in Taxation (1979) and International Banking (1993), both from Boston University School of Law, Jeff has completed training as an international commercial arbitrator and as a certified mediator in Texas.

Email: jeffaresty@gmail.com

Bio on internet: https://www.internetbar.org/board-of-directors/jeff-aresty/

I met Jeff through Convisero mentor Rafi Reisz. He was one of my first INSPIRE fellows. As noted, we began Peace Tones, and went on to collaborate many humanitarian efforts, most recently related to relief for Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced peoples. I introduced one of my former Trebuchet team members, Rachel Svetanoff, to Jeff, and the rest is history. 

James Glaser

James M. Glaser is dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Tufts University. Prior to his appointment as dean of the school in 2014, he served as dean of academic affairs for Arts and Sciences (2010–2014) and dean of undergraduate education for Arts, Sciences, and Engineering (2003-2010). He was also chair of the political science department for four years (1999-2003).

As dean, Glaser aims to work with faculty colleagues and Arts and Sciences staff to improve faculty governance; to update and refresh the graduate and undergraduate curriculum; to improve residential life for undergraduates, to support the new facilities being designed and built on campus; to fulfill the school's commitment to the diversification of the faculty, staff, and student body; and to enhance the research profile of the school through new faculty hires and support of the outstanding scholars and researchers already on staff.  As the School of the Museum of Fine Arts was acquired by the university during his deanship,  Glaser has tended to the integration of SMFA at Tufts into the university and its growth and diversification. 

Glaser received his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-author (with Timothy J. Ryan) of Changing Minds, if Not Hearts: Political Remedies to Racial Issues (2013, University of Pennsylvania Press), in which they argue that strategic politics can change how members of the mass public think about issues of race, while not operating through how they feel about people of other races. His previous books, The Hand of the Past in Contemporary Southern Politics (2005, Yale University Press) and Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South (1996, Yale University Press), each received the Southern Political Science Association's V.O. Key Prize awarded to the year's best book on southern politics and were both recognized by Choice as Outstanding Academic Titles. His current research project, with Professors Jeffrey Berry and Deborah Schildkraut, is a study of how liberals and conservatives fundamentally differ in how they think about politics -- compromise, civility, power, and obligations to others -- as opposed to policy.

As the Founding Director of The Institute for Global Leadership, I had the pleasure to report to Jim who was a consistent advocate and supporter of our efforts. In particular Jim cared about our Synaptic Scholars program and attended and introduced many of its forums. He also chose Synaptics to host significant speakers including the theoretical and mathematical physicist, Freeman Dyson and Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia.

Jack Margolin

Jack Margolin is a Program Director at C4ADS, a non-profit that uses publicly available information and emerging technology to investigate and disrupt illicit networks. Jack's team, Conflict Finance and Irregular Threats, focuses on the financial drivers of conflict — war economies, the illicit trade in small arms, and the actors behind war crimes and mass atrocity. He is interested in how emerging technology and novel partnerships can improve human security and create accountability for the networks profiting from organized violence. At C4ADS, Jack has investigated issues ranging from corruption in South Sudan, to the war in Eastern Ukraine, and nuclear proliferation networks in South Asia. 

Jack is an alumnus of the 2014-2015 EPIIC "Russia in the XXIst Century '' Colloquium and the Oslo Scholars program. He graduated from Tufts in 2016 with a Major in International Relations and a Minor in Russian Language, before teaching English and conducting research in Odesa, Ukraine with Fulbright. He is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. 

On his experience with EPIIC:

There's a fairly straight line that I can draw from my initial involvement with EPIIC to the work I am doing now. EPIIC and Oslo Scholars forced me to interrogate my own values and exposed me to people who were doing profoundly impact work. Over the span of that Colloquium year, my interests shifted from a more conventional focus on international security to an interest in the causes of conflict and mass atrocity — and the corresponding levers of accountability. Consequently, I discovered the Institute for Global Leadership's Initiative on Mass Atrocity and Genocide (IMAGE). I was exceptionally lucky to find essentially everything I was looking for — in particular, a route from study into practice — in one place. The EPIIC experience and the people I met through it are unquestionably one of the brightest parts of my time at Tufts,

Aside from the influence that EPIIC and other programs within the broader IGL had on my own intellectual development, I'm most indebted to the program for the folks that I got to know as a result. I've had the great fortune to work alongside some of the crew that I originally got to know through my reading group in EPIIC. I continue to find myself collaborating with people that have come through this community again and again.