Kevin Ryan

Brigadier General Kevin Ryan (U.S. Army retired) is an Associate Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was previously Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center from 2010 to 2013. 

Ryan was the founding director of the center's U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, where he also founded the “Elbe Group" (retired US and Russian flag officers from the military and intelligence fields). Until his retirement from full time work in May 2017, Ryan was founder and Director, Defense and Intelligence Projects at Belfer Center. He is the author of over 20 articles and book chapters on various leadership and security topics.

A career military officer, he served in air and missile defense, intelligence, and political-military policy areas.

From 1995 to 1996, he was head of the Moscow office of the POW/MIA Commission, searching for missing Americans in the former Soviet states. From 1998 to 2000, he served as Senior Regional Director for Slavic States in the Office of Secretary of Defense and, from 2001 to 2003, as Defense Attaché to Russia.

He also served as Chief of Staff for the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command, an organization with diverse missions that include deployment of missile defenses, cyber assets, satellite management and research in areas like directed energy.

He has commanded at every level from platoon to brigade and served in Europe, Korea, and Iraq. In his last duty assignment he was responsible for Army Strategic War Plans, Policy, and International Affairs and coordinated Army policy in the domestic interagency and with foreign allies.

Ryan holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the U.S. Military Academy, a Masters degree in Russian Language and Literature from Syracuse University and, a Masters degree in National Security Strategy from the National War College.

Ryan has been a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy and was Vice President for Business Development at iRobot Corporation.

General Ryan was a highly valued adviser and participant in the Institute’s civil-military program, Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services. He was involved in ALLIES intellectual roundtables, advised on its simulations, lectured and contributed to several Institute forums, EPIIC symposia and professional security workshops.

On the 30th Anniversary of the Institute in 2016, General Ryan had the honor of presenting The Elbe Group “Salute”  to the Institute’s Founding Director, Sherman Teichman, for “Thirty Years of Dedication and Leadership in Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship” and for the “courage to reach across dangerous divides.”

Jake Sherman

Jake Sherman is the Minister Counselor for UN Management and Reform at the U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations (USUN) and was lead U.S. negotiator for the 2024 UN Summit of the Future process.

From 2017-2021, he was the Senior Director of Programs at the International Peace Institute (IPI), where he oversaw IPI’s research agenda on strengthening multilateral cooperation. He previously has served as Special Adviser on UN Management and Reform at USUN (2015-2017) and as the Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Team Leader for Office of Transition Initiatives (2012-2015) and then coordinator for the 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (2016).

Prior to joining government, he worked for New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (2007-2012); as a consultant on peacebuilding for non-governmental organizations in Cambodia (2005-2007); as a Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (2002-2005); at the International Peace Institute (2000-2002); and for Physicians for Human Rights on a forensic team collecting evidence of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1996-1998).

He is the co-editor of two volumes on the political economy of violence: The Political Economy of Civil Wars and UN Peace Operations (2023) with Mats Berdal, and The Political Economy of Armed Conflict (2003) with Karen Ballentine.

He holds degrees from Tufts University and the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs.

Luke O'Neill

Luke O’Neill is currently the Chief Operating Officer at Wilderness Medical Associates International.

A graduate of Georgetown Law School, he specialized in criminal law, and practiced as both a public defender and advocate for  juvenile justice, and as a corporate lawyer. At the Harvard Business School, he was awarded HBS’ Fellowship for outstanding performance in non-profit sector and the Dean's Service Award upon graduation. 

He has led an extraordinary career specializing in nonprofit management, serving corporate, government, and non-profit groups seeking to accelerate leadership development and team building.

He has specialized in education, creating schools for disadvantaged youth,  raising millions of dollars for non-profit ventures. A  committed and passionate educator and leader he was recruited by The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation to be their Executive Director for their AMERICAN EXPLORERS, LLC, leading the effort to create a world-class youth leadership development program focusing primarily on young men and women growing up in disadvantaged communities.

For a decade he was the Chief Executive Officer, Founder & Board Member of  Shackleton Schools creating and leading a residential high school to inspire young people who experienced little success in traditional academic settings. He secured a 60-acre facility, constructed state of the art facilities. His desired metric and goal was made when  every graduate proceeded onto respected colleges including Amherst, Brown, Bucknell, Haverford, Mount Holyoke, and Northeastern most earning full or near-full four-year scholarships.  

Luke is a person of tremendous, integrity and character. Ultimately revealing, when he won the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship Award, he donated his entire personal grant of $80,000 to support the launch of Shackleton Schools, Inc.

Luke is veteran Outward Bound Professional. Most recently  he revitalized the business plan and management of the Outward Bound Hurricane Island School.

He is also superbly skilled and seasoned as a hands-on Course Director, Facilitator, and Wilderness Instructor with expertise as a wilderness first responder, open water scuba instructor (PADI), licensed Maine guide, ocean sailing,  sea kayaking and CPR Instructor - FCC Marine Radio Operator . Luke’s extensive program areas include the Maine Coast, the Mahoosuc Mountains, San Juan Islands, Northern Cascades, Florida Keys, Croatia, and Panama's Bocas Del Toro region.

Luke leads high-impact educational programs for a wide- range of groups including corporate and community leaders, military veterans, aspiring wilderness educators, incoming MBA students, adults, and teenagers – and University programs.

It is this capacity that I first interacted with Luke and then had the chance over the years to observe and greatly appreciate  his unique inspirational amalgam of physical prowess and thoughtful, calm and decisive leadership when he directed many of our EPIIC program’s Outward Bound intensive weekends.   These weekends were pivotal moments in my ability to create the intellectual student team that would be able to fulfill the intensive requirements of the EPIIC colloquium and symposium, a demanding program that previous Tufts President and current Harvard President, Larry Bacow admiringly termed an “intellectual boot camp.”

My 2015-16 Outward Bound weekend with Luke is pictured here.

Luke was a superb facilitator of the debriefs of the physical and psychological activities we ran under his supervision. He was intellectually curious, and engaged with the academic content of the weekend’s invited guest professorial and practitioner’s talks and simulations.

We established a great rapport over the years. What particularly fascinated me was Luke’s role as the leader of Outward Bound’s  Center for Peacebuilding, serving as the leader of the 2012 and 2015 Emerging Leaders Programs involving carefully selected Israeli and Palestinian participants during a 10-day back- packing expedition in Croatia.

The Institute was considered an “Intellectual Outward Bound,” by HIOBOS. In 2015 he was asked to write this lead article for OB’s International Journal. He also inspired Jerome, whose love for the wilderness and the lure of OB, was honed by Luke’s professional example.

Luke has served The Trebuchet wonderfully as a critical and supportive adviser, as we transition to concentrate more effectively on integrating our Convisero community.  Luke epitomizes a wingman – a person you would want as your protective “six.”

The Israeli-Palestinian Joint Memorial Day Ceremony

We are looking forward to what will be the largest Israeli-Palestinian peace event in history, and we are grateful you will be there with us. On the day of the event, you will be able to watch the live broadcast here: www.afcfp.org/memorial.

Organized by Combatants for Peace, which is an organization fostering a grassroots movement of Palestinians and Israelis working together to end the occupation and bring peace, freedom and dignity to both peoples. We are the only organization, worldwide, that was founded by former fighters on both sides of an active conflict; and we are the only joint Palestinian-Israeli activist group in the region. Combatants for Peace works from the ground-up, building an egalitarian community focused on grassroots organizing and nonviolent civil resistance.

Free Ekpar: Commemorating Five Years of Unjust Detention

Join Rayhan Asat (Harvard Law School ‘16) in commemorating the fifth anniversary of her brother Ekpar’s unjust imprisonment by the Chinese government. Speakers include Sophie Richardson (Human Rights Watch), Thor Halvorssen (President of the Human Rights Foundation), Irwin Cotler (Raoul Wallenberg Center), and Professor Gregory Niemeyer, (University Of California, Berkeley). Burst the Bubble UK, a Youth advocacy organization, and LyLena Estabine (Harvard College) will be presenting live special tributes. Additionally, Senator Chris Coons and former Dean of Harvard Law School Martha Minow will also deliver pre-recorded messages. We hope that you will join us in calling for Ekpar’s release and shedding light on the Uyghur genocide.

This event is co-sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation, the Raoul Wallenberg Center, the Jewish Movement for Uyghur Freedom, the Trebuchet, Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, and Harvard Jewish Law Students Association.

RSVP here for the Zoom link >> 

CONSIDERING CONFEDERATION: A PLAUSIBLE FUTURE FOR ISRAEL AND PALESTINE

Monday April 5th, 12:30pm ET

As physical separation between Israel and a future Palestinian state seems increasingly difficult to accomplish, the confederation model is gaining momentum among scholars, analysts, and activists, sometimes from opposing ideological camps. To discuss the possible benefits of such a model, please join the co-authors of a recent New York times article on the topic [2/12/21], Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour. They will be joined by Avrum Burg and Dahlia Scheindlin to discuss various federal ideas in the context of current Israeli and Palestinian politics, and a more progressive U.S. Biden Administration.

Panelists:

Bernard Avishai teaches political economy at Dartmouth and the Hebrew University and is the author of “The Tragedy of Zionism,” “The Hebrew Republic,” and “Promiscuous,” among other books. He writes regularly for “The New Yorker.” He was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1987.

Sam Bahour is a PalestinianAmerican business consultant from Ramallah/Al-Bireh in Occupied Palestine. He is a frequent independent political
commentator and is co-editor of “Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians”
(1994). He blogs at ePalestine.ps.

Avraham (Avrum) Burg is an author, public intellectual, political activist, and professorial lecturer. He is a former Speaker of the Knesset, and former Chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Dr. Dahlia Scheindlin is a public opinion expert and strategic consultant who has advised eight national campaigns in Israel. A co-founder and columnist at +972 Magazine, she is a fellow at The Century Foundation. She co-hosts The Tel Aviv Review podcast and "Election Overdose," a podcast at Haaretz newspaper.

The conversation will be moderated by Sherman Teichman, the Founding President of The Trebuchet.

Shanti Sattler

Shanti Sattler is the Director of VenEsperanza, a large humanitarian cash assistance program currently in operation in the Americas led by Mercy Corps with the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children and World Vision and funded by the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. The program has delivered emergency multipurpose cash and complementary nutrition support to nearly 400,000 Venezuelan migrants and refugees, Colombian returnees and host community members affected by the Venezuela regional humanitarian crisis in Colombia. She previously supported Mercy Corps' teams across the Americas region as Senior Program Officer based in Portland, Oregon as well as Mercy Corps’ teams in Syria and Palestine (West Bank/Gaza) as a Program Officer on the Middle East Regional Program Team. Before joining Mercy Corps, Shanti was the Director of Operations for Amazon Frontlines, an indigenous rights and conservation organization based in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Prior to that, she acted as a strategic development consultant serving diverse clients in a variety of capacities including leading the facilitation of negotiations between the US and Mexico that successfully achieved bilateral cooperation regarding joint action to confront transboundary environmental issues in the Gulf of Mexico. She also supported programming in Southeast Asia and the Great Lakes region of Africa earlier in her career as an international relief and development practitioner.

Shanti also served in a part-time capacity as the Assistant Director for the University of London-based research and advocacy project that made United Nations War Crimes Commission records publicly available for the first time, allowing access to valuable legal precedent for ongoing humanitarian legal initiatives.  As part of the project, she co-authored and co-edited numerous publications on the work and legacy of the United Nations War Crimes Commission. 

Shanti graduated with a B.A. in International Relations and Peace and Justice Studies from Tufts University and later earned an M.A. in International Studies and Diplomacy from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.  

At the Institute, Shanti was a superb member of the Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship (EPIIC) program: Oil and Water.  As an IGL student, she diligently prepared for a summer internship with an Institute INSPIRE Fellow, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela in Cape Town, South Africa. She later  conducted a self-directed research project in Gulu, Northern Uganda that investigated the role of war-affected youth in the transformation of the Northern Uganda conflict. 

Given her accomplishments I had no hesitation in recommending her to serve as an International Fellow at the Cambodia office of the International Center for Conciliation.

 Shanti is a native of Humboldt County, California and has lived in Cambodia, Mexico and England and currently resides in Bogota, Colombia. 

Keith Fitzgerald

Keith Fitzgerald is the Managing Director of Sea-Change Partners, in Singapore.  He has three decades’ experience as a practitioner, trainer, and advisor in Negotiation, Influence, Conflict Management, and Crisis Leadership.  Keith is a Conflict, Peace, and Development Advisor with the United Nations Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery and was a Conflict Advisor to the Asian Development Bank, where he was involved in designing and implementing ADB strategies for negotiations, conflict, crisis situations, and grievance redress mechanisms. He spent most of that time advising the international community in Sri Lanka, during the final, brutal years of the civil war.  Keith was a Senior Fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, where he was Head of the Asian Programme on Negotiation & Conflict Management (APNCM) from 2002 - 2007.  He is a former Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the National University of Singapore and a former Adjunct Lecturer at INSEAD.  He is the co-author of the acclaimed book, Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists (2007).

After surviving three consecutive years as an EPIIC recidivist at Tufts in the late-80s, Keith landed his dream job, working with Roger Fisher, author of Getting to YES and Founder of the Harvard Negotiation Project, where he was also a Teaching Fellow at Harvard Law School.  In that role, Keith and Roger spent most of their time working on peace negotiations and conflict management efforts, worldwide; from Colombia, to Northern Ireland; from Angola to the Caucasus and the Balkans, to South Africa.

 He says he was prepared for that work, and all its dilemmas and nuance, by his experiences at Tufts; especially the year-long EPIIC colloquium on “Confronting Political and Social Evil.” “Abandoning the search for easy answers and embracing the messy struggle with the world’s most frustrating challenges was the pre-requisite. And I don’t think any other university course or program, anywhere, teaches that.” With the support of EPIIC, he conducted field work in Northern Ireland, while a senior at Tufts, on the dilemmas police and security forces experience while trying to maintain civil liberties while conducting counter-terrorism operations. A few years later, while at the Harvard Negotiation Project, Keith became one of the first international consultants to work with the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland; negotiating security and policing inputs in the peace process that resulted in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

In the acknowledgements of Negotiating Hostage Crises with the New Terrorists he wrote: I would not have sought the experiences that allowed me to contribute to this work without the guidance and friendship of Sherman Teichman, Heather Barry, and my friends at EPIIC at Tufts University. Amid the complexities of the world’s  conflicts  and crises, conventional wisdom has a way of turning into a pillar of salt. We find only one conundrum after another; there are no easy answers, yet still we must ask the questions and question our assumptions. Crisis negotiators learn to appreciate that more than others.

Over the past thirty-plus years, he has been involved in negotiations and conflict management efforts in more than 136 countries and counting.  In addition to peace process work, he has trained and advised governments, police, and security forces on several crisis and hostage negotiations around the world, and he trains and consults to private sector clients, because he enjoys working with just about everyone, and he also has bills to pay.

Keith holds a B.A. from Tufts University, has studied and taught negotiation at Harvard Law School, and holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.  He is also a professional photographer and former martial arts champion, having been a martial arts instructor for over twenty years.

Takis Metaxas

P. Takis Metaxas is a Professor and Chair of Wellesley's Computer Science department and a research scholar at the Center for Research on Computation and Society at Harvard University (USA), and the Center for Technology and Global Affairs at Oxford University (UK).

His research on the propagation of misinformation online and the un-predictability of electoral results by social media has been extensively covered in the news and honored with several National Science Foundation grants and four “best paper” awards.

Takis' interest in the power of mathematics to discover "the truth" goes back several decades. His first paper on the topic entitled "Of course it's true, I saw it on the Internet" was published in 2003, followed by a 2005 paper entitled "Web Spam, Propaganda and Trust", the first Computer Science paper that was raising the issue of propaganda on the Web and pointing to the dangerous effects of manipulating search engine results.

In the 2010 paper entitled "From Obscurity to Prominence in Minutes: Political Speech and Real-Time Search" they documented the first effort to use Social Media and bots to influence elections in the US. While this work received the Best Paper Award at WebScience 2010 and an NSF grant to develop "TwitterTrails", a tool for measuring rumor propagation on Twitter, lawmakers did not pay much attention.

Unfortunately, the disinformation and propagandistic techniques Takis and his team discovered and warned in "The fake news spreading plague: Was it preventable?" have been used successfully ever since. His current approach to solving the problem is described in a book chapter entitled "Technology, Propaganda, and the Limits of Human Intellect" published this year by MIT Press.

I was first introduced to Takis by my former student Lucas Kello when he was the Founding Director of the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs at Oxford and I had a non-resident research associate position. Takis was teaching there in the Trinity semester.

Takis is a passionate teacher and was Director of the Albright Institute at Wellesley from 2015-2019. We bonded over ideas and music, and our Institute’s had strikingly similar goals and objectives as Lucas well knew. And we bonded over our passionate love of Futbol. dedicated soccer player/coach/referee/fan.

I spent a wonderful year at his invitation at the Institute as their Inaugural Fellows Mentor in 2018-19 helping their wonderful students celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Institute. It was a privilege to help them prepare their presentations before, Ambassador Samantha Power, the Institute’s Scholar in Residence.

Barry Bluestone

After a university career spanning nearly fifty years at Boston College, UMass Boston, and Northeastern University, Barry Bluestone is now a Professor Emeritus at Northeastern.  Arriving at Northeastern in 1999, he became the founding Director of the university’s Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy and in 2008 became the founding Dean of the university’s School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs. 

Professor Bluestone was raised in Detroit, Michigan and attended the University of Michigan where he received his B.A. (1966), M.A. (1968), and his Ph.D. in labor economics in 1974. 

As a political economist, Bluestone has written widely in the areas of affordable housing, income distribution, industrial policy, labor-management relations, and urban and regional economic development.  He contributes regularly to academic, as well as popular journals, and is the co-author of eleven books including The Boston Renaissance: Race, Space, and Economic Change in an American Metropolis (2000) and The Urban Experience: Economics, Society, and Public Policy (2008). Earlier co-authored books included The Deindustrialization of America (1982) which detailed the loss of manufacturing in the U.S. and its consequences for workers, their families, and their communities and The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (1988), the first major research detailing growing inequality in the U.S. 

As part of his work, Bluestone spends a considerable amount of time consulting with civic organizations, community foundations, industry groups, housing developers, trade unions, and with various federal and state government agencies. 

He is board chair of the Mistral Chamber Music group in Brookline, Massachusetts, a member of the board of the Payomet Performing Arts Center on Cape Cod, and serves as president of both the Madison Park High School Technical Foundation in Boston and Housing Forward Massachusetts.

We have been good friends for decades. I first met Barry in 1982 when I wrote a review of The Deindustrialization of America   for the Boston Review where I was a social science editor. His work on inequality is prescient. He advised me numerous times over the years, and presented at EPIIC’s Global Inequities Symposium in 2002 and Global Cities symposium in 2009. 

We sit together on the Mistral Chamber Music Group’s Advisory Board. We share dreams for a “Black Mountain College”  model for community students on Cape Cod, where we both have homes in Truro.

Biz Herman

I am a Borders and Boundaries postdoctoral fellow at the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research lies at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and political behavior. It examines the ways in which experiencing trauma and violence, both at the individual and collective levels, shape social cohesion and prospects for peace.at the Perry World House at the University of Pennsylvania and received my Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. My research lies at the intersection of international relations, comparative politics, and political behavior. It examines the ways in which experiencing trauma and violence, both at the individual and collective levels, shape social cohesion and prospects for peace.

My book project, Individual Trauma, Collective Security: The Psychological Consequences of Conflict and Forced Migration on Social Cohesion, examines how the psychological implications of living through conflict and forced migration affect social cohesion. My broader research agenda investigates how to mitigate factors that make individuals and communities vulnerable to violence, as well as how violence and trauma experienced at the collective level shape group identity. I am additionally undertaking methodological research on how to conduct ethical microlevel research with populations that have experienced violence and conflict; a recent article on ethical considerations when conducting field experiments in the Global South was recently published in PS: Political Science & Politics.

My research has been supported by the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation (IGCC) Dissertation Fellowship, the Simpson Memorial Research Fellowship in International & Comparative Studies, the Malini Chowdhury Fellowship on Bangladesh Studies, and the Georg Eckert Institute Research Fellowship. I have also received the IGCC Academic Conference Grant with collaborators Justine M. Davis & Cecilia H. Mo to convene the inaugural Human Security, Violence, and Trauma Conference in May 2021. This multidisciplinary meeting brought together over 170 policymakers, practitioners, and researchers from political science, behavioral economics, psychology, and public health for a two-day seminar on the implications of conflict and forced migration; recordings from the events are now available online.

I have served as an Innovation Fellow at Beyond Conflict’s Innovation Lab, which applies research findings from cognitive and behavioral science to the study of social conflict and belief formation. I am currently serving as a Visiting Scholar at The New School for Social Research’s Trauma and Global Mental Health Lab and as a Predoctoral Research Fellow with the Human Trafficking Vulnerability Lab at the University of California, Berkeley.

On this site you can download a copy of my CV and my job market paper, read more about my book project and research, view recordings of selected talks and interviews. To get in touch, please navigate to the contact page or email me at elizabethdherman@berkeley.edu.

I am an Emmy-nominated photojournalist published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The Boston Globe, and The Nation, among other national and international publications. For The New York Times, I pitched, researched, and co-photographed The Women of the 116th Congress, which included portraits of 130 out of 131 women members of Congress, shot in the style of historical portrait paintings. The story ran as a special section featuring 27 different covers, and was subsequently published as a book by Abrams Books with a foreword by Roxane Gay. You can view some of my photography here.

Matt Bai

Matt Bai is a nationally known journalist, author and screenwriter. Starting in 2002, he covered three presidential campaigns for the New York Times, where he was the chief political writer for the Sunday magazine and a columnist for the newspaper. He then spent five years as the national political columnist for Yahoo News. In January 2020, he became a contributing columnist for the Washington Post.

Bai’s most recent book, All the Truth is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid(Alfred A. Knopf, 2014) looks back at the ruinous scandal involving the presidential candidate Gary Hart in 1987 and how it shaped the political and media culture. It was selected as one of the year’s best books by NPR and Amazon and was one of 10 books long-listed for the PEN Faulkner Award in nonfiction. 

Bai also co-wrote, with Jay Carson and Jason Reitman, the feature film adapted from the book, titled “The Front Runner.” The film, directed by Reitman and starring Hugh Jackman as Hart.

Bai is also the author of The Argument: Billionaires, Bloggers and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics (Penguin Press, 2007), which was a New York TimesNotable Book for 2007. Bai has appeared frequently on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and played himself in a recurring role on season two of the Netflix drama “House of Cards.”  

In his early twenties, Bai was a speechwriter for UNICEF, where he worked with Audrey Hepburn during the last year of her life. He began his journalism career as a city desk reporter for the Boston Globe and spent five years as a national correspondent for Newsweek. His international experience includes coverage from Iraq and Liberia. 

Bai is a graduate of Tufts and Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, where the faculty awarded him the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship. He has been a visiting fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Harvard, the University of Chicago and Stanford. He serves on the board of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts. 

A native of Trumbull, Connecticut, Bai lives with his wife and two children in Bethesda, Maryland. He rarely misses a Yankee game or a Timescrossword. You can follow him (occasionally) on Twitter at @mattbai. Matt enrolled in the Institute’s “Militarization of the Third World” EPIIC program in 1990 and was our symposium’s briefing book editor.

One major pedagogical approach I deployed in EPIIC was to prepare my students in the colloquium model in the standard definition of a colloquium, with its numerous guest lecturers, to expose them to a spectrum of opinions, even purposively radical different perspectives.

Matt intrinsically understood the value of colloquia and wrote this for the University’s Institute CASE statement in 1999, when as an alumnus, he had graduated Columbia University’s School of Journalism, being awarded its prestigious Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship , and was a national correspondent for Newsweek.

“Most classroom learning is, by necessity, the reflection of one professor's view, aided by a few select books and media tools that support the point. This is an effective way to teach names and dates, but it does little to encourage students to independently evaluate information. EPIIC is refreshingly different. Students have the opportunity to read a dizzying amount of material from opposite perspectives, to question personally many of the experts themselves, and to discuss their impressions with one another.

In EPIIC it's all right to be conflicted or critical, or even downright wrong now and then; what isn't acceptable is to abdicate your responsibility to think. This is the essence of intellectual leadership. It breeds confidence and wisdom in a world where too many people are simply overwhelmed by the flood of information.

A good friend for decades, his friendship, clarity, self-effacement and directness is tremendously valued and rare.

Chike Aguh

Chike Aguh is Chief Innovation Officer at the U.S. Department of Labor.

He is a Senior Principal at the McChrystal Group, a firm founded by Gen. (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal.  He serves as the firm’s subject matter expert on future of work.  As a Council of Foreign Relations (CFR)term member, member of CFR’s Future of Work Taskforce, inaugural Future of Work Fellow at the International Society for Technology in Education, and advisor to the American AI Forum, Chike writes and speaks on the future of work, particularly through the lens of  underserved communities. At the Carr Center, Chike’s research was on the impact of new technologies on the human right of economic dignity and how America can secure that right for all, regardless of race.

 Previously, he worked as an education policy official under the Mayor of New York City, a 2nd grade teacher and Teach For America corps member, a Fulbright Scholar in Thailand, a corporate strategy director at the Advisory Board Company, and CEO of a national social enterprise which helped connect 500,000 low-income Americans in 48 states to affordable internet and digital skills.

 Chike holds degrees from Tufts University (B.A.), the Harvard Graduate School of Education (Ed.M), the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (MPA), and the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (MBA). He is a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar, past Council on Foreign Relations term member, Washington Business Journal 40 under 40 honoree, Wharton 40 under 40 honoree, and past member of the HKS Alumni Board of Directors.  He has been featured at and in the White House, CNNMoney, Forbes, Wired Magazine, and Fast Company.  

I have known Chike for years, ever since he was a prominent member of the Tufts undergraduate community, as President of the Tufts Community Senate. I enjoyed some wonderful thoughtful conversations with him, particularly on inequality and race.

He was a close friend of one of my treasured alumni Asi-Yahola Somburu, an EPIIC veteran of our 2004 colloquium/symposium “Oil and Water.” Together they created one of the campus’ most important forums, the Emerging Black Leadership Symposium. Of its origin, Asi kindly wrote me – Furthermore, the mental seed for the Emerging Black Leadership would never have been created nor watered (in my mind or in Chike’s if not for EPIIC).

 As TCU’s President, Chike was instrumental in awarding the University’s highest alumni award, The Light on the Hill Award,” to another of our mentors, and EPIIC alumni, UNDP’s Nick Birnback.

Uwe Kitzinger

Uwe Kitzinger, CBE/Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 

A refugee from Nazi Germany, Uwe Kitzinger was educated at Balliol and New College Oxford, where he was elected President of the Oxford Union.  In 1950, he graduated with a 1st class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1951.

He was appointed the first British economist of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1951. In 1956 he returned to Oxford as a Fellow of Nuffield College, where he became a prominent advocate of British adhesion to the European Community. 

He took various sabbaticals during his time at Nuffield: first in 1964/5 to the University of the West Indies as Visiting Professor of International Relations and consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation to advise on training diplomats and economists for the newly independent countries of the Caribbean.

In 1969/70 he was invited to Harvard as Visiting Professor of Government taking over the seminar on European Politics from Henry Kissinger who had been called to the White House; then in 1970-73 he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Paris.

When Britain joined the European Union in 1973,  he was appointed Political Adviser to the first British Vice-President of the Commission, Sir Christopher Soames, who carried the chief responsibility for the Community’s external relations. In 1976 he was appointed as the Dean of the Management School INSEAD in Fontainebleau. Then in 1983, he negotiated the foundation of Templeton College, Oxford, of which he became the first President.

Uwe was active in various other spheres: in 1967-70 he founded and chaired the Committee on Atlantic Studies; from 1982 to 1987 he was founding Chairman of the Major Projects Association of leading international finance and engineering companies engaged on macro-projects like the Channel tunnel; he served on the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) 1973-84, the National Council of the European Movement 1974-76 and the Council of Oxfam 1983-91. Kitzinger was also a member of the British University Committee of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe in Lausanne.

He founded the Journal of Common Market Studies in 1962 and wrote many books, including German Electoral Politics 1960, The Challenge of the Common Market 1963 and Diplomacy and Persuasion 1973 and in 1998 co-edited Macro-Engineering and the Earth.

Uwe is a very close friend and adviser.  I met him in 1993 when he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard a position he held until 2003.  He was an enthusiastic supporter the Institute’s academic initiatives, and served on the Institute’s External Advisory Board until I retired in 2016.

With his wife Sheila he founded “Lentils for Dubrovnik” in 1991, a charity to deliver essential supplies to refugees in Croatia. In 1998 he was elected President of the Federation Britannique des Alliances Françaises and now serves as Patron of Asylum Welcome and Chairman of GARIWO, a campaign for civil courage in the Balkans.

He introduced me to his remarkable courageous friends, the Yugoslavian human rights activist, Svetlana Broz, https://www.humanityinaction.org/person/svetlana-broz/ and General Jovan Divyak,  https://en.gariwo.net/righteous/the-righteous-biographies/former-yugoslavia/exemplary-figures-reported-by-gariwo/jovan-divjak-7505.html allowing us to send many of our students into Bosnia on distinctive research projects.

Uwe participated in may IGL forums, notably in a powerful Brexit panel during the last symposium of my directorship in 2016, “The Future of Europe.”

He is a fantastic raconteur, and I always envied my students who I selected to crew for him on his wooden ketch, The Anne of Cleaves, sailing the Adriatic coastline and cruising the Mediterranean

He often hosts me in London, and at his home in Standlake Manor, Oxfordshire.

David Dapice

David Dapice is an emeritus economics professor who was in the Tufts Economics Department from 1973 to 2017. He continues to work in the Vietnam and Myanmar Programs of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He has worked widely, particularly in Southeast Asia, as a development economist. His education included a BA from Williams College in political economy and a PhD from Harvard University in economics. Since 1989, when he began working with the Vietnam Program, his work has centered on Vietnam, Myanmar and Indonesia. Previously, he had focused on Indonesia, India and Thailand.

David was our formidable and caring faculty liaison for the Institute for decades. Preserving the Institute’s independence, and participating in scores of programs and advising scores of our students as their thesis, independent, or directed study, he was an indispensable ally and critic. His recommendations were eagerly sought after.

A brilliant scholar, strong-minded, creative, noted as an independent thinker, he was at times, quietly provocative, and possessed a wry rapier wit.  He is a friend of tremendous loyalty and unflinching in his criticism of herd or ideological thinking. We shared many battles and many laughs

Richard Jankowsky

Richard Jankowsky is the Chair, and Associate Professor in Ethnomusicology, in the Department of Music of Tufts University.

Through long-term fieldwork-based methods, Professor Jankowsky's research revolves around the intersection of music and power in North Africa, particularly music's capacity to give voice to underrepresented populations, to articulate religious sentiment, and to serve as a flashpoint for debates over cultural, religious, and political identities. His music analytical work explores issues of repetition, density, and transformation in contemporary trance rituals. His book Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia (University of Chicago Press, 2010) received three honorable mention awards for book prizes from academic societies in the fields of anthropology, ethnomusicology, and North African Studies. His most recent book, Ambient Sufism: Ritual Niches and the Social Work of Musical Form (University of Chicago Press, 2021) examines the important yet virtually undocumented role of women and underrepresented minorities in North African trance healing musics and theorizes the capacity of ritual musical form to make social, devotional, and therapeutic interventions. His articles appear in the journals Ethnomusicology, Ethnomusicology Forum, Analytical Approaches to World Music, and the Journal of North African Studies. He authored the North Africa and Middle East chapter of the textbook Excursions in World Music and the Music and Ritual chapter of the reader Critical Themes in World Music. He is editor of the Middle East and North Africa volume of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Musics of the World and is co-editor of the Brill book series Studies on Performing Arts and Literature of the Islamicate World. He is a two-time National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and a recipient of fellowships from the American Institute for Maghrib Studies, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, and the Fulbright Program.

Rich was an extraordinary student in the EPIIC year on The Future of Democracy. He presented his research on jazz and democracy at a concert evening where Chick Corea and Gary Burton, the famed jazz icons performed on behalf of the Institute, to a packed audience at Cohen auditorium.

Chick that evening also sat in on the piano for a special performance of Rich’s original composition, Habibi, which he dedicated to the Institute. It was one of the most memorable moments of my 30 years at Tufts.

For Rich, my undergraduate student, to return to his alma mater, Tufts, after his Fulbright year in Tunisia, gaining his PhD at the University of Chicago, and teaching at SOAS in London, to become a tenured faculty member and Chair, is a  powerful, meaningful trajectory for me to witness. To have had a minor role in his education, the privilege to write some of his recommendations, and then to benefit from his generosity and knowledge, as he mentor subsequent generations, is profoundly gratifying.

Rachel Svetanoff

Profile

Rachel Svetanoff is a social entrepreneur, activist, and futurist with a history of supporting initiatives that align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). She has contributed to mobilizing resources for over 120 organizations across 40 countries.

Through entrepreneurship, Rachel founded the SDG advocacy youth organization Global Futurist Initiative™, the community development consortium Project Energy for Life Cameroon Consortium, and her consulting practice Protea Consulting, LLC. Through consulting, she works for institutions such as BluScope Consulting, Sesame Workshop, Johnson & Johnson, Friends of the Global Fund Against HIV, Tuberculosis, and Malaria and UNA-USA award-winning fashion designer Berny Martin.  For example, as the Foundations Partnerships Consultant for UNICEF USA, Rachel supported a $300 million portfolio by working with organizations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and UN Foundation to align on safeguarding children’s and youth rights worldwide.  

Rachel holds appointments that have also enabled her to promote the SDGs including the following: International Monetary Fund as a Youth Fellow, United Nations Association of the USA as the Global Goals Ambassador Lead, U.S. Global Leadership Coalition as an Indiana State Advisory Committee member, and Foreign Policy for America as a Next Gen Delegate.

Rachel also holds a Visiting Associateship of Policy & Practice at the University of Notre Dame Pulte Institute for Global Development where she conducted U.S. policy research on the SDGs. Her presentation, journal article and blog publication can be found here. Receiving numerous appointments and 31 awards, Rachel is a sought-out speaker and actively contributes to publications on matters concerning youth, sustainable development, and human rights. Her most recent award received was the 2024 Domer Dozen distinguished program for Notre Dame alumni (which Sherman, among several colleagues, nominated her for).

2024 Snapshot

Recent Professional History

Rachel has taken on many opportunities in promoting youth. One noted event was her 2024 keynote panel where Rachel spoke for the United Nations Foundation Our Future Agenda program alongside the UNA-USA Advisor Sophia Kianni and the U.S. Youth Observer to the United Nations Ose Ehianeta Arheghan. This event was entitled the “National Vision for 2100 Intergenerational Townhall.”

UNA-USA 2024

Rachel was a member of the Major Group for Children and Youth for the UN Summit of the Future where she can be seen speaking to H.E. Mr. Brian Christopher Manley Wallace, Permanent Representative of Jamaica and H.E. Ms. Yoka Brandt, Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands on issues related to the well-being of youth and future generations. She was also invited by the Future Generations Commissioner of Wales to attend the Future Generations Forum, UNECE Forum on Engagement and Sustainable Development, UN SDSN Youth side event, UNESCO Youth Forum, and other high-level engagements on youth and future generations.

Additionally, Rachel is an active member of the United Nations Association for the USA where, now the GGA Lead, she previously was the Global Goals Ambassador for SDG 17.

In 2023, Rachel was selected as one of six finalists for the AFS Young Global Citizen Award sponsored by DHL and presented by AFS Intercultural Programs.  The AFS Award for Young Global Citizens recognizes young people for their commitment to improving the global community and whose actions contribute to a more just, peaceful, and tolerant world. The Permanent Mission of Malta to the United Nations was the lead endorser for the celebration of International Youth Day on August 11, 2023. The International Youth Day celebration took place at the UN with 800 young leaders and participants from around the world in attendance. The AFS Youth Assembly Delegates were included in the celebration of International Youth Day at the UN.  

IYD 2023

Above is a snapshop of Rachel at the UN and AFS Youth Assembly in 2023. Photo 1: Rachel at UNGA. Photo 2: Rachel with SDGs at the UN HQ. Photo 3: Rachel speaking at International Youth Day at UN HQ. Photo 4: from left to right - Julia Samson, Andrea Cuellar Medina, and Rachel. Photo 5: Rachel on UN webTV. Photo 6: Celebration of proclamation for AFS Youth Assembly Day signed by Mayor Jerome Adams of New York City. Photo 7: from left to right UNA USA Youth Obersever Ose Ehianeta Arheghan, White House Office of the First Lady Deputy Associate Director Himaja Nagireddy, Julia and Rachel. Photo 8: Rachel right before her Young Global Citizen Award presentation. Photo 9: Rachel with all award finalists. Photo 10: Rachel and Julia Samson at AFS Youth Assembly in Convene. Photo 11: Rachel recognized as Youth Ambassador. Photo 12: Rachel pointing to Global Futurist Initiative as a program partner. Photo 13 and 14. Rachel’s presentation on youth upskilling for the future. Photo 15: Youth Assembly culture festival.

In her previous work at UNICEF USA, Rachel helped the organization steward partners to meet health several thematic needs including systems strengthening, infectious disease aid, sexual and reproductive health, nutrition, education, climate action, gender equality, emergency aid, and innovation impact. Seen below is Rachel’s visits to both the New York City and Washington, D.C. offices.

UUSA '22-'23

Snapshot of Rachel’s year with UUSA featuring the Foundations Partnerships former Vice President Lorin Kavanaugh-Ulku (photo 2), team members Katie Beirne, Hana Sahar, Carisha Pranyoto (photo 3), Rachel and Carisha at the UN General Assembly side panel on the state of Tuberculosis with Indonesia’s Minister of Health (photo 4)

After attending the 2023 UNA-USA Leadership Engagement Summit seen below to advocate to her state representatives in Congress about the need of continued and sustainable U.S. leadership with the United Nations, Rachel, in collaboration with various actors, is set to organize a Midwest SDG Summit in Indiana as well as partner with various engagement areas to spearhead the localization of the SDGs in the country.

UNA-USA GES 2023

Above is a snapshot of the 2023 UNA-USA Leadership Engagement Summit from meeting Trebuchet mentor Julia Shufro (photo 1); photo of Rachel on the first day of the conference (photo 2); taking photos with her Indiana advocacy group (photo 3); UNA-USA’s President Rachel Bowen Pittman (photo 4); Grassroots Advocacy Manager Maria Amalla (photo 5); Senior Associate of Youth Engagement Rachel McCave (photo 6); Senior Director of Programs & Policy Farah Eck (photo 7); UNA-USA Youth Observer to the UN Himaja Nagireddy (photo 8); meeting Sen. Mike Braun’s Legislative Assistant Sydney Cox (photo 9); meeting Rep. Jim Baird’s Legislative Assistant Tanner Brown (photo 10); meeting Sen. Todd Young’s Legislative Assistant Gavin Laffoon (photo 11); meeting various UNA-USA youth leaders (photo 12-19); Rachel at UN Foundation HQ (photo 20).

In May 2023, Rachel was also selected to become a Visiting Associate at the University of Notre Dame, where she received her MS in Global Health. In this role, she is collaborating with faculty members, including Dr. Paul Perrin, at the Pulte Institute for Global Development to establish a strategy for implementing legislation that commits the United States to support the SDGs by building local capacity for data systems that measure progress towards meeting the Goals. In this work, Rachel has had the opportunity to meet with the Office of Federal and Washington Relations as well as the Washington Office of the Keough School of Global Affairs to glean insights from university staff who have worked with members of Congress to collaborate on issues that advance the university’s research portfolio as well as provide a venue on programming, teaching, and outreach in the D.C. area.

Notre Dame '23

Above is a snapshot of Rachel at the University of Notre Dame in July 2023: Rachel meeting Pulte Institute for Global Development Executive Director and USGLC State Advisory Committee member Michael Sweikar, Pulte Institute Director of Evidence & Impact Dr. Paul Perrin (photo 1); Rachel reuniting with MSGH ‘15 classmate and former roommate PhD candidate/ Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholar Lupita Quintana (photo 2); Rachel and Lupita reuniting with Eck Institute for Global Health adjunct professor and former advisor Lacey Ahern (photo 3); Rachel meeting MSGH ‘16 alumni and founder of Cameroonian-based Jumbam Family Foundation Desmond Jumbam (photo 4).

Rachel, nominated by Sherman, was also selected to become a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition Next Gen Global Leader and a Foreign Policy for America NextGen Initiative delegate for their 2023 cohorts. Both programs are influential Washington DC-based networks of businesses, NGOs, national security specialists, and foreign policy experts that Rachel is leveraging for her SDG advocacy work.

As part of the US Global Leadership Coalition’s 2023 Global Impact Forum, Rachel was back on Capitol Hill just two days after her first visit on behalf of UNA-USA to support a strong commitment to maintaining the international affairs budget as a matter of national security, economic prosperity, and strong leadership on the global stage. Seen below is her involvement with the program’s biggest event of the year.

USGLC GIF 2023

Snapshot of Rachel at the USGLC 2023 Global Impact Forum including a photo of Rachel at the reception before the first day of the forum (photo 1); US State Department’s Special Envoy on Youth Issues and former Iowa Congresswoman Hon. Abby Finkenauer (photo 2); USGLC Next Gen Leader and founder of nonprofit Girls Leading Africa Giftie Umo (photo 3); USGLC Founder Liz Schrayer (photo 4); USGLC Next Generation Leaders Program Director Emily French (photo 5); USGLC Program Associate Anna Krebs (photo 6); Mohamed Abdel-Kader, Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Director for the Innovation, Technology and Research Hub, USAID (photo 7); photo of Dr. David Walton, U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator (photo 8); photos of Rachel and the Indiana delegation meeting with Legislative Assistants to Rep. Gregg Pence (photo 10), Rep. Frank Mrvan (photo 11), Rep. Andre Carson (photo 12), Sen. Todd Young (photo 13), Sen. Mike Braun (photo 14), Rep. Victoria Spartz (photo 15), and two photos of the team before and after activities (photos 15 and 16).

Rachel has held many past appointments including, but not limited to, the following: AFS Intercultural Programs 28th Youth Assembly Ambassador, YOUNGA Youth Delegate, One Young World Youth Digital Delegate, Youth Delegate for the 27th Youth Assembly, young alumni advisory board member for Purdue University’s Vice Provost for Student Life, and strategic advisor to InternetBar.Org Institute.

Prior to her Domer Dozen honor, Rachel became a 2023 Purdue Rising Professional, inducting her as a Purdue Distinguished Young Alumna. With this recognition, she is becoming one of Purdue University’s most decorated young alumni with over 10 honors and scholarships presented to her throughout her Boilermaker journey.

Purdue RP 2023

Snapshot of Rachel’s induction ceremony and programmatic activities for the 2023 cohort of the Purdue University Rising Professionals Early Career Distinguished Young Alumni program.

Convisero: How does it function?

A case study of trust-building interactions for strategic impact

UNGA 2022

Above is a snapshot of Rachel’s UNGA week where she met numerous individuals from the following institutions: UNICEF USA, Concordia, Johnson & Johnson, Catou, Africa Diaspora Network, Wall Street Green Summit, New York Stock Exchange, Empow’HER, Unite for Health Foundation, Women’s World Banking, Schmidt Futures, World Benchmarking Alliance, Sustainable Finance Podcast, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeepers, among many others.

Rachel joined The Trebuchet community from working alongside Sherman as a member of the Pugwash movement. Both individuals were on the same Board at Student Pugwash USA, yet it was not until they had the opportunity to connect directly to get to know each other’s work more expansively nearly two years into Sherman’s advisory role at Student Pugwash that it was understood that there was much more overlap and alignment in efforts.

Rachel, Sherman, and Jeff, April 2022

Rachel helped operationalize many of The Trebuchet’s programmatic activities throughout 2021 (as well as occasionally in present day). Even before Rachel took on the operations role, she was introduced to many of The Trebuchet Convisero community members, most prominently Jeffrey Aresty, President and Founder of InternetBar.Org Institute (IBO). Rachel’s journey with IBO began because of her past role at Johnson & Johnson’s CaringCrowd, which Sherman thought could help IBO with fundraising. Because Rachel was also on the Board of the nonprofit J.B. Dondolo, Inc. who hosts an annual international song competition, Sherman thought there was additional overlap with the model and mission of PeaceTones (an IBO initiative). PeaceTones was an initiative that began with Sherman’s collaboration with Jeff at Tufts’ Institute for Global Leadership, which Sherman led for thirty years.

Less than a year later, Rachel became the Co-Founder of the social enterprise Global Futurist Initiative™. She brought Sherman onto the initiative’s advisory board as Global Futurist Initiative went beyond the scope of Pugwash. Upon meeting Global Futurist Initiative’s Co-Founder, Julia Samson, Sherman invited her also to be part of the Convisero mentor network. Global Futurist Initiative has recently merged with ImpactVest to become the philanthropy arm of the company, operating as a nonprofit subsidiary. In this merger, Rachel will be starting her new role in May 2023 after the completion of her consultancy for UNICEF USA.

G-Fi activities

Rachel Svetanoff and Jeffrey Aresty, March 2022

As IBO’s past Executive Director from 2021-2022, Rachel worked with Curt Rhodes who started collaborating with Jeff at Sherman’s invitation. Sherman and Questscope have a longstanding relationship; many of Sherman’s interns have intervened and become professionals at Questscope in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp.

Curt’s organization Questscope and IBO are partners on a Web3 project called Data as Truth & Art (DATA). Sherman introduced Sasha Chanoff, the founder of RefugePoint, to Jeff and Curt, initially because of Sasha’s connections to the Patrick McGovern Foundation for funding the DATA project. In this manner, Sherman had also connected Rachel with Sasha, whose 10-year anniversary of RefugePoint she attended. It is through this project that Sherman connected the photographer Richard Sobol to IBO and Questscope. He was interested in creating digital assets for IBO, particularly related to the PeaceTones initiative within the context of climate justice.

Diving deeper into climate justice, Sherman introduced Rachel to Peter Droege who supported her becoming a LEAP fellow at Peter’s organization, the Lichtenstein Institute for Strategic Development. Coincidentally, near the same time, Sherman’s intern Julia Shufro was working on a research project over the summer pertaining to climate justice and the feasibility of the creation of international criminal court for environmental crimes. Learning about this assignment, Sherman convened Julia Shufro, Peter Droege, Julia Samson, Boaz Wachtel, Duncan Pickard, Julian Agyman and Rachel together (all of whom are part of the mentor network) to serve on Julia Shufro’s group of advisors. This group formed a loose coalition looking to gain momentum on creating a people’s tribunal for environmental justice. Rachel and Julia remain good friends and colleagues given their work intersecting as fellow members of the UN system.

While there are strings to follow to integrate the environmental justice movement with IBO’s climate justice mission, there are additional overlaps with Rachel’s work at IBO and other human rights efforts. Because IBO’s work also focuses on civic engagement, she was introduced to Marcy Murningham, another LEAP fellow. In a similar manner, Sherman also connected Rachel with Hussainatu and Hassanatu Blake, Sherman’s former students at Tufts and now Convisero mentors. They are currently serving as external advisors to the IBO-partnered Project Energy for Life Cameroon Consortium. 

PEFL Cameroon

Snapshot of PEFL Cameroon activities including the packing and shipping of the humanitarian aid boxes, the delivery and testimonials of the boxes, the training of how to use the medical devices and solar panel kits, and the visit of Elvis Ndansi, Founder of Unite for Health Foundation at Purdue University in May 2023.

Project Energy for Life Cameroon is similar to IBO’s other current effort, Tech for Justice Ukraine which works to help meet the needs of Ukrainians by increasing access to opportunity and justice for the long-term in addition to short-term relief.

When Sherman started his colloquium at Sai University in 2021, Curt, Jeff, Julia Samson, and Rachel were invited to be the first guest panel alongside George Mathew and Amitai Abouzaglo (both mentors). George and Rachel met before the lecture since they shared programmatic activity through music. George is the Founder of Music for Life International, and Rachel as overseer of PeaceTones. George and Curt also know one another, working together in the past and again introduced by Sherman.

Cody Valdes has been an instrumental help to Sai University as its Senior Tutor for Sherman’s class and for the overall institution. Jamshed Bharucha (mentor), is the new President of the university with whom Rachel shared a brief correspondence. Two of Sherman’s newest interns, Shaheer Rahman and Ravi Patel, serve as his teaching assistants. Rachel helped interview these two students as well as his other interns Ingyin Khine, Ashleigh Mahabir, and Liz Shelbred. Ingyin and Ashleigh volunteered their time at IBO for the Spring 2022 semester. Ingyin was a project management assistant to the Project Energy for Life Cameroon consortium and Ashleigh was a social media assistant to IBO’s Ukrainian response project.  

From left to right: Rafael Reisz, Rachel Svetanoff, Jeff Aresty, and David Schleiker (2022)

Knowing that Rachel’s work with youth is integral as an intersecting point across all her efforts, Sherman acquainted her with Christopher Ghadban (mentor). She also met Ananda Paez through Sherman as well as Nithyaa Venkataramani, Ajaita Shah, Lumay Wang Murphy, Patrick Schmidt, and Talia Weiss. Due to a catch-up call between Sherman, Jeff, and Rachel, this led to the re-connection between Rafael Reisz (mentor) and Jeff who have known each other for more than 15 years when Jeff first formed IBO. Rafael, now a Professor of Management at the Hult International Business School, is currently working with Rachel on IBO’s business strategy.

There was a full-circle moment between Rafael and Jeff, and the same was true when Sherman had Rachel meet Talia Weiss (mentor). Talia was interested in learning about Rachel’s history with Pugwash when, at Sherman’s instigation and advocacy, she became an International Student/Young Pugwash representative. Rachel left Pugwash after 10 years of service also alongside mentors David Guston, Ezra Friedman, and Steve Miller who currently are in the Pugwash network, but she is always willing to pass along opportunities that come across her desk for Talia and ISYP.

Because Rachel is on call ad hoc, she finished helping Sherman support Patrick Schmidt’s 2022 Congressional campaign. She most recently assisted in the initiation of a Trebuchet operation alongside fellow mentor Eva Armour. Through this effort, she also met Sherman’s newest intern cohort Grace Spalding-Fecher, Sandenna, McMaster, and Grace Patrice.

Organically, Rachel is even meeting Convisero mentors without overtures just because her network now overlaps with Sherman’s. Most recently, she met Justin Hefter of 30 Birds Foundation to whom are in touch with one another. Rachel has also met Soshana Grossman and Sarah Arkin due to intersections and alignments in work, particularly from consulting and governmental relations standpoints, respectively.

Student Pugwash

Snapshot of Rachel’s Purdue Pugwash activities as a student from 2013-2018 including hosting Eli Lilly & Co. Vice President of Marketing, Emerging Markets Nancy Lilly (photo 1); IU School of Medicine Professor and Rachel’s Research Advisor Dr. Robert Stahelin (photo 3); Astronaut David Wolf (photo 5); and President of University of Virginia Dr. Tim Sands (photo 8).

The Trebuchet team, October 2021

I first became acquainted with Rachel while serving on the board of Student Pugwash USA. Rachel began attending Convisero webinars where she came to learn about our community and its involvement with driving progress towards a more sustainable and humane future. She now proudly serves as a mentor for aspiring leaders, shakers, and changemakers to help elevate each other and the world around us. I have rarely met somebody so young who is so accomplished in the context of extraordinary initiative and the capacity to create. Diligence, intelligence, dedication and a massive passion to embrace daunting challenges mark this woman.

For Sherman:

Complex, interconnected, and “serendipitous” (as Sherman would say): this is how the Convisero network functions. I would have never come across these many connections and opportunities if it wasn’t for this network of caring mentors. Meeting Sherman was unexpected, unannounced, and unassuming in the best way possible. Being able to meet him, Sherman’s wife Iris, and The Trebuchet interns in October 2021 was nothing short of fun and meaningful. Working with Sherman has opened my mind by teaching me more about the world than I could have ever anticipated. He has helped me amplify my voice to advocate for what I believe in through his genuine support. Lastly, he inspired me to be true to myself by demonstrating that it is okay to be just that and show others that you truly care about your work and the people who are part of it. A true role model, mentor, and nakama.“

For the readers who made it down here: (2024)

If any of you have found this golden nugget, you can count on my surprise and admiration of your loyalty. First coffee is on me! I may be the only person in this community from Indiana, and certainly the only one from the Gary/Merrillville region. Where I come from is foundational to the reason I am here because I would not be who I am today otherwise. It is also why I am addressing you, the reader, because I know what feels like to struggle between identifying with where you came from versus where you are today, wondering if anyone would accept the whole of you.

It has taken time to process and love both parts of myself but as a result, I realized that if I can put up those barriers, I also have the power to break them down.

It is because of Sherman and his community that those barriers started weakening, moving the scaffolding away from walls and towards building human connections. The community had started becoming a part of me to where I now refer to them as any of my own colleagues, friends, and even family. Convisero truly lives up to its mission to break down barriers and build bridges because they all — especially Sherman — have helped me do exactly that, with hard work and perseverance no less. And should you join in what I am proud to say our community, I hope you find yourself moving forward with the creation of your own bridges.

Lucas Kello

Lucas Kello is Associate Professor of International Relations and co-Director of the interdisciplinary Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security at Oxford University. His publications include The Virtual Weapon and International Order, “The Meaning of the Cyber Revolution: Perils to Theory and Statecraft” in International Security, and “Security” in The Oxford Companion to International Relations . His forthcoming book, Striking Back, considers how western nations can fight back to preserve the international order against relentless technological aggression occurring below the threshold of war – i.e., in the realm of what he calls “unpeace,” a term that he coined in his first book. The new book "delves into recent history to reveal the failures of the present policy in preventing and punishing cyberattacks and other forms of technological aggression. Drawing upon case studies and interviews, Kello develops a bold new solution—a coordinated retaliation strategy that justly and effectively responds to attacks and deters further antagonism. This book provides an approachable yet nuanced exploration of national security and survival in the twenty-first century."

I have known Lucas since 1995 when I helped him conceive and sponsor his research trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the aftermath of the Dayton Accords.  He specifically was engaged in helping to document the destruction of Bosnian cultural, architectural, and religious institutions and sites. We worked with Harvard University’s Andras Riedlmeyer, the Agha Khan bibliographer in Islamic Art and Architecture at the Fine Arts Library Foundation, and the noted war crimes expert Professor Cherif-Bassiouni who charged the Milosvic regime with "cultural genocide."

Lucas and I have collaborated and interacted closely over many years of friendship. I was one of his sponsors for his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Harvard Belfer Center for Science and Technology when he was my Institute’s INSPIRE Fellow.  He helped run and participated in several of the Institute's professional workshops, most recently during the 2016 EPIIC year on The Future of Europe.

Together that year we created a chain of acknowledgement to honor the renowned Professor Stanley Hoffmann who was Lucas' senior honors thesis advisor at Harvard College, alongside his close Oxford colleague and Stanley’s longtime friend Professor Kalypso Nicolaïdis. Stanley had been my friend and advisor for many years, starting with his Advisory role to my publication Leviathan: Middle East Politics and Culture in the late 1970's.

Lucas was the liaison for my appointment as a non-resident research associate in Oxford University’s Centre for International Studies.

Ben Paganelli

Originally from Upstate New York, Benjamin “Pags” Paganelli graduated from the United States Air Force Academy with a B.S. in International Affairs. He spent the next 22 years in operations, training, and strategic planning, during which he earned an M.S. in International Relations and eventually served as an Assistance Professor of Political Science at the Air Force Academy.

Ben’s military career centered around operations (qualified in the F-4E, RF-4C, F-111F/G, F-15E, and T-39) and leadership at the tactical level. In 2004 he completed the NATO Strategic Planning Course, and he spent the next three years as NATO’s Strategic Air Planner for the International Security Assistance Force (Afghanistan) and standing up the first NATO Response Force, before finishing his first career in the classroom.

While faculty at USAFA, Ben started the Alliance Linking Leaders in Education and the Services (ALLIES) chapter there. ALLIES is a program initiated at the IGL, and Ben worked closely with us, and with Gregg Nakano, the first intellectual ramrod of ALLIES - to support student leaders from six universities and three military academies work and study together, conduct Joint Research Projects (JRP), and forge life-long relationships. When Ben left the Air Force, he was named an INSPIRE Fellow at the IGL, and served as the ALLIES national advisor for the next five years, which included advising and participating in the 2012 JRP to Rwanda.

As a principal and Senior Consultant for Viable International Applications Unlimited, LLC, Ben has worked with educational, government, corporate, and non-profit organizations to improve their cross-organizational and cross-cultural relationships. He adjuncts at Tacoma Community College, and has lectured or taught at a dozen or so institutions to include The Belgian War College, US Air Force Special Operations School, Technion (Israel), Boston University, the University of Colorado, Seattle University and the University of Puget Sound.