Board of Directors

Jenifer McKenna is a family therapist in Amherst, MA, where she investigates the nature of human conflict and its resolution every day. She served on the core group of 20/20 Vision, a national organization supporting citizen involvement in protecting the environment and promoting a nuclear weapons freeze.

David Bacher is the operational, finance, and IT lead for an independent manufacturers’ representative specializing in architectural lighting. Dave has a diverse skill set that includes decades of management experience and a background in communications, sound production, and film. Dave’s participation on the Board is one of the ways he supports the ongoing peacebuilding legacy of his mother, Dr. Paula Green.

During her work life, Deborah Shriver has been a Waldorf teacher, and more recently, a university researcher and consultant in water resource planning and protection. Now retired, she volunteers with groups in addition to her work with Karuna Center. Foremost is the Valley Syrian Relief Committee which raises awareness, fundraises for humanitarian aid and advocates for an end to the Syrian conflict. 

Deborah serves on the Steering Committee of Deerfield for Responsible Development, a citizen group advocating for sustainable development in the Town. She also serves on the library Capital Campaign Committee. Deborah is a member of the board of the Four Rivers Educational Foundation and Pocumtuck Stewards of the Land. She has an MA in education and an MS in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation with a concentration in Watershed Science and Management.

Allen Davis Ed.D. has had three complementary yet different careers: (1) Higher Education: Dean and teacher at the Western College of Miami University (Oxford OH), where he was co-founder of an experimental residential college of interdisciplinary studies, Sarah Lawrence College (Bronxville, NY), and Northfield Mount Hermon School (Mount Hermon, MA). Also, he was the Director of Graduate Relations at Hampshire College (Amherst, MA); (2) Nonprofit organizations: Executive Director of: Greenfield Community College Foundation (Greenfield, MA), the United Way of Franklin County (Greenfield MA), and 20/20 Vision (Amherst, MA and Washington, D.C), a national grassroots organization dedicated to ending the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union and creating environmental justice. (And, he was Director of Development at Cooley Dickinson Hospital (Northampton, MA); and (3) Peace and Justice: Now, he is devoted to creating a peaceful, just and sustainable world for all sentient beings. In addition to Karuna, he works with 100 Nights, which serves homeless people (Keene, NH), the Divestment Campaign at the University of Massachusetts (Boston, MA), and his grassroots Drive 55 Campaign to persuade people to slow down and thereby reduce their auto carbon emissions by 15%-32%. Plus, he is part of the global Slow Living Movement, which educates people to hurry less, consume less, and work less. And, he has been a consultant to many nonprofit organizations and served on diverse Boards of Directors, including Bill of Rights Defense Committee (Northampton, MA and Washington, D.C.), Survival Center (Greenfield, MA), Literacy Project (Greenfield, MA) and the Board of Trustees of Greenfield Community College.  

Elizabeth (Liz) Hume is the Acting President and CEO at the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She is a conflict expert and has more than 20 years of experience in senior leadership positions in bilateral, multilateral institutions and NGOs.  She has extensive experience in policy and advocacy and overseeing sizeable and complex peacebuilding programs in conflict-affected and fragile states in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.  From 1997-2001, Liz was seconded by the US Department of State to the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo as the Chief Legal Counsel and Head of the Election Commission Secretariats. In these positions, she was responsible for developing the legal framework and policies in support of the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and UN Resolution 1244. After 9/11, Liz worked for the International Rescue Committee in Pakistan and Afghanistan where she established and managed the Protection Department for Afghan refugees and returning IDPs.

Starting in 2004, she served in leadership positions and helped establish the Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation at USAID developing programs and policies to improve the USG’s ability to address the causes of violent deadly conflict.  In 2007, Liz was the Chief of Party for Pact where she managed a USAID funded conflict resolution and governance program in Ethiopia. She also served as a Technical Director at FHI 360 where she managed a USAID funded peacebuilding and governance program in Senegal with a focus on the Casamance one of Africa’s longest-running civil wars. Liz is also an experienced mediator, and she is a frequent guest lecturer on countering violent extremism, international conflict analysis and peacebuilding in conflict-affected and fragile states.

Liz holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from Vermont Law School, and an MA in Negotiation, Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding from California State University, Dominguez Hills. She lives in Falls Church City, VA with her husband and twin daughters. 

Seth Karamage, M.A., was born and raised in Rwanda. He completed his graduate studies in Coexistence and Conflict at Brandeis University, where his focus was on conflict resolution, mediation, strategic organizational leadership, and diversity work. He spent six years in Nigeria planning and coordinating projects designed to promote inter-religious coexistence and peacebuilding in regions troubled by religious violence. Through work with media influencers; military personnel; young people who lost their parents through terrorist acts; and groups of divided religious leaders, ethnic leaders, and women, he has developed expertise in post-conflict stabilization and mitigation, security-risk assessment, recruitment and training of peace practitioners, project management and program design, and facilitating dialogue for institutional and community collaboration.

Among recent projects, Seth was a Dialogue Coach in Karuna Center’s Healing Our Communities project in Rwanda, and is currently Technical Lead for Karuna Center’s Protecting Our Communities Initiative in Nigeria. Seth also led the Strengthening Rwandan Administrative Justice project, a nationwide initiative intended to improve the state of administrative justice in Rwanda and to spur training, civic awareness, and legal and policy reforms.

Khalid Kodi’s body of work calls attention to the impacts of mass violence, and celebrates the humanity and resilience of people who are targeted. He has exhibited and taught in a wide variety of contexts, including leading workshops in art as a form of self-expression for adults and youth within South Sudanese refugee camps.   

Matthew Levinger is Research Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University. He directs the National Security Studies Program, an executive education program for senior officials from the U.S. government and its international partners, as well as the Master of International Policy and Practice Program at GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs. Before joining GW, he was Senior Program Officer at the United States Institute of Peace, where he developed and taught executive education programs on international conflict analysis and prevention for foreign policy professionals from the United States and overseas. From 2005 to 2007, Levinger was Founding Director of the Academy for Genocide Prevention at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. At the Holocaust Museum, he played a key role in launching “Crisis in Darfur,” a joint initiative of the Museum and Google Earth, as well as the Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Before moving to Washington, he was associate professor of History at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon; he has also taught at Stanford University. In 2003-2004, he was a William C. Foster Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. He has consulted for organizations including the World Bank, IREX, the National Democratic Institute, and the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

Levinger’s research and teaching have focused on conflict analysis and prevention, as well as the history of nationalism, revolutionary politics, and genocide. His handbook Conflict Analysis: Understanding Causes, Unlocking Solutions was published by the U.S. Institute of Peace Press in 2013.  He is also the author of Enlightened Nationalism: The Transformation of Prussian Political Culture, 1806-1848 (Oxford, 2000) and coauthor of The Revolutionary Era, 1789-1850 (Norton, 2002). He received his B.A. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago.

Joyce Reilly, MA is a New Jersey-based psychotherapist and co-founder of the Logos Foundation (Chatham, NJ), The Spirit of Gheel and Gheel House (Kimberton, PA), and the Association of Residential Treatment Centers (Stockbridge, MA). She brings over 40-years’ experience in psychiatric and psychosocial care, human rights advocacy, community building and event planning to the Karuna Center, is trained in the Waldorf Style of teaching, and holds Certifications in the Psychosocial Foundations of Peacebuilding, International Trauma Studies, Trauma and Expressive Therapies, and Organizational Development. She recently completed the Darfur Resettlement Project of JVS, East Orange New Jersey, where she helped more than 50 Sudanese refugees to secure access to housing, employment, healthcare and acclimate to American life. Ms. Reilly earned her B.A. in Pyschology from Drew University in Madison, NJ, and is currently completing her M.A. in Conflict Transformation at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, VT.

Olivia Zeydler is a Global Leadership Fellow and member of the World Economic Forum’s Acceleration team, which scales internal projects across WEF that help accelerate solutions to key challenges facing societies today. Olivia is focused on developing effective and innovative business strategies in emerging and underserved markets—and in deepening her own understanding of community-led initiatives, and how to drive investments towards new, equitable business solutions.