Dr Pamina Firchow is an Associate Professor in the Conflict Resolution and Coexistence program at Brandeis University’s Heller School. Her research focuses on political violence, transitional justice, reconciliation, and peacebuilding, with a special interest in the ‘local turn’ in peacebuilding and international support for communities affected by mass violence. Previously, she worked on a global campaign against illicit small arms. Contact: Pamina.Firchow@gmail.com. More at paminafirchow.org.

Fernanda Cabezas is a PhD student in political science at the Maxwell School, SU. She holds a Bachelor’s in political science and economics from the Catholic University of Chile and a Master’s in peacebuilding from the Heller School. Her research focuses on conflict and violence in Latin America, with experience at the Chilean Ministry of Environment, INTE, J-PAL Latin America, and EPI. She has evaluated programs on environmental degradation, city-port conflicts, and organized crime, with fieldwork in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia and South Sudan.

Lindsay McClain Opiyo is the Development and Partnerships Director and US Representative of Generations for Peace (GFP). She was EPI’s first coordinator from 2013-2015. With over a decade of experience, she has worked with NGOs, universities, and conflict-affected communities in Uganda, Jordan, South Africa, and the US. Her expertise includes music and peacebuilding, transitional justice, gender justice, and youth-led peacebuilding. She holds a Master’s in Peace Studies from Notre Dame and a Bachelor’s from the University of Tennessee.

Dr Yvette Selim is a pracademic at the Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney. Her research focuses on transitional justice, victims’ rights, participation, development and peacebuilding. She has collaborated with NGOs and development agencies like the International Development Law Organization, Australian Human Rights Centre and Anti-Slavery Australia. She holds a PhD in International Studies from UNSW, an MA in Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford, an MA in Bioethics from Monash University, a Bachelor of Laws from UNSW and a Bachelor of Medical Science from UNSW.

Dr Julianne Funk is a Research Fellow at the South-East Europe Programme of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Greece. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences and an MA in Conflict and Sustainable Peace from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. Julianne combines peace research and peacebuilding praxis, working with local organizations in Yugoslavia’s successor states. Her work focuses on religions in conflict and peacebuilding, and trauma-sensitive peace practices.

Dr Leslie MacColman earned a PhD in Sociology & Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame in 2020 and is a post-doctoral scholar at Ohio State University. Her research focuses on violence, policing, public sector corruption, and local conflict dynamics in Latin America. Leslie holds a BA in Anthropology and Spanish from the University of Montana and an MA in International Relations, Peace, and Conflict Studies from Universidad del Salvador, Argentina, where she was a Rotary Peace Fellow. She has worked with NGOs like ACIJ, FARN, ActionAid, FAO and World Learning.

Daniel Ortega is a Sociologist who holds a Master’s in Political Science from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. His research interests are armed conflict, peacebuilding, historical memory, and social movements. He has worked with a variety of civil society groups to strengthen social organizations and assist with the implementation of the Colombian Peace Accords. 

Oscar Vargas has worked with EPI for the past five years. Some of the projects he has been involved in include training civil society organizations in Colombia, leading an evaluation and adaptation of the EPI approach for the InterAmerican Foundation, and co-facilitating the Grounded Accountability Model. Oscar is a co-author of the EPI Colombia report, The Dogs Bark at Night: Everyday Peace Indicators in Colombia (2025).

Fiorella Vera-Adrianzén is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of New Mexico and a Research Associate at Brandeis University’s Heller School. Her research focuses on how local politics and victim participation impact post-conflict reparative justice. As an Inter-American Foundation and Fulbright-Hays Fellow, she conducted research in conflict-affected Quechua communities in Peru. She holds an MA and BA in Political Science from UNM and attended law school at Universidad Católica in Peru. She has worked with the National Hispanic Cultural Center, NM Immigrant Law Center and Catholic Charities.

Eduardo González is a Peruvian sociologist with an M.A. from the New School for Social Research in NYC and a leading expert in transitional justice. With over 25 years of experience, he supports post-conflict justice globally and is the UN Independent Expert on Human Rights in Mali. He worked on Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and led the ICTJ’s global advisory work. He has supported truth commissions in Timor Leste, Morocco, Tunisia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, and Mali, and worked on reparations programs in Colombia, Sri Lanka, Mali, and Guinea. He also supports indigenous justice processes and racial justice initiatives in the US. He has taught at several universities, including Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and NYU.

Rosario Arias Callejas is a historian from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. She has worked on projects in collective memory, oral history, life histories, and social movement archives. Her focus includes peacebuilding, land and development, culture, human rights, and knowledge management. She holds a Master’s in Social Studies from Universidad Pedagógica Nacional and a Master’s in Historical Archiving and Memory from Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá. She has been involved with EPI’s projects in Colombia since 2016.

Dr Tiffany Fairey is a visual sociologist and Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at King’s College London’s Department of War Studies. Co-Founder of the charity PhotoVoice, she has over 20 years of experience in participatory photography and photovoice projects globally. Her expertise includes participatory visual methods, community photography histories, and ethics. Her current research, Imaging Peace, explores the role of images in peacebuilding. She has worked on projects like Art & Reconciliation and Izazov, and co-edited a special issue of Photography & Culture. Her work has earned awards, including the Royal Photographic Society’s Hood Medal (2010).

Dr Naomi Levy is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Santa Clara University and Director of Community Engaged Research at the Possibility Lab, UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on citizen-state relationships, using participatory methods to understand state legitimacy and responsiveness. She aims to amplify community voices to guide public servants. Levy holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and an MA in Social Sciences of Education from Stanford University.

Eliza Urwin is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. Her research focuses on cooperation and resistance in conflict areas. From 2013 to 2017, she worked in Afghanistan as a Senior Program Officer for the United States Institute of Peace, managing peacebuilding research and programming. Eliza holds an MA in Political Science from the University of Paris and a BA from Concordia University in Montreal and the American University in Cairo.

Miranda is a researcher and data analyst with dual master’s degrees in Conflict Resolution and Coexistence, and Health Economics and Data Analytics from Brandeis University. Her research focuses on measurement strategies for evaluating responses to mass violence, with a particular interest in participatory numbers for inclusive peacebuilding. Before joining EPI’s operations team, she worked on EPI’s projects in Mostar and Sri Lanka. She has also led grassroots initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Free Radio Budapest and Ogólnopolski Strajk Kobiet (OSK), to combat government censorship and human rights abuses.

Kate Lonergan is a PhD student at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research and the Hugo Valentin Centre at Uppsala University. Her research focuses on reconciliation and peacebuilding after conflict and mass violence. She holds a Master’s degree from the same department, where she was a Rotary Peace Fellow. Kate has worked with the World Bank on justice and development issues and researched community reintegration of ex-combatants in northern Uganda. She has also been involved in community conflict resolution and restorative justice initiatives in Washington DC.

Abida Pehlic is a human rights activist specializing in preventing human trafficking and gender-based violence. She holds Master’s degrees in Sociology and German Language and Literature. As co-founder and President of the Association “Novi put” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she also serves as the GMMP National Coordinator for Bosnia and Herzegovina. With over 25 years of experience, she has led programs protecting human rights, involving various stakeholders. Her research interests include human trafficking, gender-based violence, and media gender portrayal.

Alli Spring is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh under Dr Pamina Firchow. Her research in the STIS department focuses on peace, technology, and education, using the EPI method in Sri Lanka. Previously, she was a high school teacher and swim coach in California, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, and founding principal of a dual-language school in China. She holds a Master by Research from Edinburgh, an MEd from Vanderbilt, and BA degrees from Claremont McKenna College.

Dr Jessica Smith is the Research and Policy Manager at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. Her research focuses on women’s agency in conflict-affected contexts and localizing the WPS agenda. She completed her PhD at George Mason University and has a decade of experience on gender issues in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Indonesia, Jordan, and the US. She has worked with IRC, Catholic Charities, the UN, USIP and USAID.

Shruthi De Visser has worked in government and non-profits as a researcher, activist, and consultant, focusing on reconciliation, gender, and politics. She holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from Gordon College and a Master’s in Gender and Women’s Studies from the University of Colombo. Her research centers on peacebuilding, transitional justice, and Tamil women’s political experiences in Northern Sri Lanka, using an intersectional lens with a focus on gender.

Zahrah Rizwan is a feminist researcher with a background in advocacy and communications in Sri Lanka’s non-profit sector. She is an Advisor at FRIDA, the Feminist Fund, and part of youth activist groups like Hashtag Generation and Sisterhood Initiative. Zahrah holds a B.A. (Hons) from the University of Colombo and a Bachelor’s in Business from Australia. She is pursuing a Master’s in Gender and Women’s Studies. Her research explores sex work, night economies, violence, and mental health using an intersectional lens.