Our Peacebuilding Associates

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

Dr. Tatsushi Arai is a peace researcher and conflict resolution practitioner with more than 20 years of international experience. He is an associate professor at Kent State University’s School of Peace and Conflict Studies in Ohio. Previously, he taught international relations at the National University of Rwanda in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, and peacebuilding at School for International Training. Dr Arai has worked extensively as a United Nations adviser; independent mediator; designer of peacebuilding initiatives; and conflict resolution trainer across Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East, as well as in the United States. His latest activities include training Syrian and Lebanese government and civil society professionals in mediation skills; working with Nigerian government agencies and traditional leaders to establish a sustainable platform of reintegration and reconciliation support for rehabilitated former Boko Haram members; providing an advisory role in Rwandan initiatives for community-based healing; empowering Burmese civil society actors to rebuild relationships between Buddhist and Muslim communities in western Myanmar; and carrying out problem-solving workshops on the Taiwan Strait and on East Asia’s reconciliation challenges. Dr Arai holds a PhD in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University in Virginia and is the author of many publications including Creativity and Conflict Resolution: Alternative Pathways to Peace (Routledge). He is a Japanese citizen and currently lives with his tri-national family in northeastern Ohio.

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

Joachim Diene is a Senegalese conflict specialist, based in Dakar, with over 20 years of experience working with various international and local non-governmental organizations to design and implement community-based programs to promote peace and mitigate conflict. Mr. Diene has expertise in civil society strengthening, peacebuilding training, and governance projects. His professional experience includes work with international donor- funded projects as well as a consortium of 170 civil society and religious organizations. Mr. Diene has a solid understanding of challenges faced throughout the region and relevant approaches to reconstruction and reconciliation. He has developed and led numerous facilitated dialogues, training programs, and seminars focusing on conflict resolution, communications, peace advocacy, good governance, and organizational and financial management in Senegal and abroad. His background includes living and working in multi-cultural environments and supervising multi-national staff.

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, he is serving as a Dialogue Coach in Karuna Center’s Healing Our Communities project in Rwanda, and leading 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.

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

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

Joshua Miller Ph.D, MSW is a professor at Smith College School for Social Work who specializes in psychosocial capacity building in response to major disasters, including armed conflict.  He believes that without peace and reconciliation, psychosocial healing is compromised and without psychosocial healing, peace and reconciliation is incomplete.  His recent book, Psychosocial Capacity Building in Response to Disasters, published by Columbia University Press, examines the social ecology of major disasters and armed conflict; the intersection of history, social and economic factors, politics, social identity, and culture with a specific disaster or conflagration.  He has worked domestically in the United States in response to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Boston Marathon bombing and has consulted with mental health professionals after mass shootings.  He has collaborated with local NGO’s and colleagues in Sri Lanka after the Tsunami, Haiti after the earthquake and in Sichuan Province China after two earthquakes.  He has an ongoing project in Northern Uganda that integrates medical capacity building with psychosocial healing and recovery, utilizing a training of trainers model.

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

Mehlaqa Samdani, M.A.P.D. is a native of Pakistan, currently based in Massachusetts, USA. She has researched and worked in various conflict and transitional settings over the past fifteen years. Ms. Samdani has experience working with refugee communities in the Sudan, Bosnia and Afghanistan and has managed political development projects with women contesting local council elections in Pakistan. She has also worked as a researcher and consultant with the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations where she examined the role of civil society in effecting social, political and economic change in the Islamic world. Her current area of interest includes exploring the role of civil society in combating militancy in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Samdani’s writings have been published in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, Daily Times (Pakistan) etc. and she has been invited as a guest on NPR, KCBS and news channels in Pakistan. She is a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and has an undergraduate degree from the University of Denver. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the 501(c)(3) NGO Critical Connections based in Longmeadow, Massachusetts.

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

Katherine Stoessel, M.A. is a facilitator and trainer specializing in mediation and restorative justice. Living in the UK for 14 years she was part of an award-winning team facilitating victim and offender interventions across a range of criminal and civil cases and partnering with probation, mental health, and domestic abuse experts. For 20 years she has used a variety of restorative and transformative interventions including family, workplace and community mediation, conflict coaching and harm reduction restorative circles. Her experience extends to a variety of contexts and cultures including the United States, France, the Balkans, Ukraine, Central and West Africa and the United Kingdom. Currently living in upstate New York, Katherine has an independent mediation practice, volunteers with local mediation centers and is involved with the Alternative to Violence program in state prisons.

Ken Williams, Ph.D. is the Graduate Dean at SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vermont. He completed his doctorate in organization and leadership at Columbia University and his master’s degree at the London School of Economics. He teaches the courses Organizational Behavior and Team Development; Organizational Behavior and Leadership; Social Identity; Research, Decision-Making, and Analysis; Qualitative Research Methodology; Quantitative Research Methodology using SPSS and Excel; Leadership, Community and Coalition-Building. His interests include leadership development, multicultural organizational development, change management, educational administration and reform, developing learning organizations in NGO and for-profit management.

Williams has worked, studied, and/or lived in the UK, Bermuda, Bangladesh, Thailand, Jamaica, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Oman, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States as well as in Barbados, where he founded a number of small- and medium-sized enterprises. A consultant to NGOs in Bermuda, Thailand, Tanzania, the United States, and Barbados, Dr. Williams is a member of Kappa Delta Pi, the American Educational Research Association, and the Academy of Human Resource Development.