Language: English

Dr. Pamela Wadende is a senior lecturer at Kenya’s Kisii University where she trains future teachers in Developmental Psychology and supervises graduate students. Dr. Wadende’s cross-cultural work with children explores how they learn and flourish in rapidly changing societies in low- and middle-income countries, such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Cameroon and Zambia.

Throughout her career, her guiding question has been: What spurs human flourishing and how can it be optimised through interventions?  Dr. Wadende believes that developmental outcomes are heavily shaped by environmental factors on a local and global scale, such as political tensions or climate change.  A community’s cultural traditions not only foster a sense of belonging for its members but hold a wealth of tools for interventions aimed at supporting their well-being. 

In line with this approach, Dr. Wadende  recently investigated ways of bridging children’s transition from home to school in Kenya and Zambia, supported by Global Ties and UKRI, and currently explores character development among children in Kenya, Cameroon and Ethiopia in two projects funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

Dr. Timor Sharan is the co-Founder and Programme Director of the HAMRAH Initiative that supports Afghan civil society organisations in exile. Originally from Afghanistan, Dr. Sharan has lived in exile since the fall of the Afghan Republic in 2021. He has over 15 years of experience in international development, with background in programme management, policy analysis, joint advocacy, and applied research. 

In 2020, he founded the Afghanistan Policy Lab—the country’s first policy hub dedicated to experimental research, policy modelling, and behavioural insights. From 2017 to 2019, he served as Deputy Director-General for Policy and Programmes at the Independent Directorate of Governance under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Dr. Sharan is currently a Senior Associate Fellow at the Overseas Development Institute and a Senior Policy Analyst at the Centre on Armed Groups. His previous roles include Visiting Fellow at the Global Security Programme at the University of Oxford, Senior Analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group, and Adjunct Professor at the American University of Afghanistan. 

He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Exeter and an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge. He is the author of ”Inside Afghanistan: Political Networks, Informal Order, and State Disruption.”

Tetiana Kyselova is an Associate Professor at the International Relations department, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and Director of the Mediation and Dialogue Research Centre. Since June 2025, Dr. Kyselova has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the Institute for Conflict Management, Viadrina University. 

She holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford and a PhD from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. She has been a visiting fellow at the Universities of London, Uppsala, Giessen, Torino and Basel. Dr. Kyselova was certified as a mediator by the Search for Common Ground and as a business mediator by the IHK Academy for Munich and Upper Bavaria. 

Dr. Kyselova has been working with civil society and the professional community of mediators in Ukraine since the 1990s, advising them on strategies of peacebuilding, professional regulation, training, and methodologies of mediation and dialogue. She has co-authored a Ukrainian law on mediation, served as an advisor to the Ukrainian government and various international organisations. Her research interests include conflict transformation, peacebuilding, mediation, negotiation and dialogue.

Angelika Rettberg is the dean of the School of Social Sciences and a professor at the Political Science Department at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá – Colombia). Her research has focused on the private sector as a political actor and, specifically, on business behavior in contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding.

She has also been involved in research about other aspects of the political economy of armed conflict and peacebuilding, such as the relationship between legal resources, armed conflict, and crime as well as the dynamics of transitional justice and reconciliation.

In 2018 she served as a negotiator for the Colombian government in the peace talks with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). She regularly contributes to the public media on topics related to the Colombian peace process. She has also been a regular advisor and commentator on issues related to peace and peacebuilding at a global level. She is co-Editor-in-Chief at World Development journal (with Jampel Dell’Angelo). 

Lea Bolt is a Nicaraguan activist, researcher, and poet currently serving as Executive Delegate of the Limitless Foundation for Human Development. 

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Diplomacy and International Relations and a Master’s degree in Creative Writing in Spanish from the University of Salamanca. With over six years of experience, Lea has led political advocacy projects, coordinated regional research and dialogue initiatives, and facilitated learning processes focused on democratic culture, transitional justice, and human rights. She has collaborated as a research assistant, consultant, and strategic advisor for various international organizations, including projects funded by USAID, the European Union, and AECID. She is also the founder of Bolt: School of Oratory & Debate, where she has trained dozens of young leaders in public speaking, argumentation, and civic engagement. 

A committed feminist and advocate for social transformation, her work bridges political analysis, educational innovation, and poetic expression. Her poetry explores themes of memory, exile, and collective resistance, and she facilitates writing spaces that center emotional truth and dissenting voices. Now living in exile in Costa Rica, Lea continues to contribute to transnational efforts for democracy, justice, and civic participation in Central America.

Chomo Bagu Deme is a Nigerian peacebuilding leader with over 30 years of experience, including ten years as Country Director for leading international NGOs. He has designed and led conflict prevention, mediation, and reconciliation initiatives across Nigeria’s six geopolitical regions, engaging grassroots communities, traditional leaders, and government institutions.

He has served as President of Community Action for Popular Participation, Country Director for Search for Common Ground and Mennonite Economic Associates, and the Founding Conflict Advisor for USAID in Nigeria. His expertise spans farmer–herder mediation, youth deradicalization in the Niger Delta, and national-level conflict sensitivity training for political leaders, civil servants, and traditional chiefs.

Mr. Bagu has conducted conflict assessments for major infrastructure projects and contributed to Nigeria’s Strategic Conflict Assessment. He holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science and a Master’s in Mass Communication, is a former journalist, and is an active member of professional networks including the Forum for Farmer/Herders Relations and the Society for Peacebuilding and Studies. He is a founding member of IFIT’s Middle Belt Brain Trust.

Juanita León is the Founder and Director of La Silla Vacía, a pioneer digital news website focused on Colombian politics that has become a leading reference in the country’s media landscape. A Colombian journalist, writer, and public speaker, León has dedicated her career to political journalism and innovative digital media.

León obtained a law degree from the University of the Andes in Bogotá and a Master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York. She began her career as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal Americas before returning to Colombia in 1998, where she worked for the newspaper El Tiempo and Semana magazine, serving as editor-in-chief of the weekly’s website.

In 2006, León was selected as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and upon her return, she helped launch the alternative online news magazine Flyp in 2008. The following year, with support from a grant from the Open Society Foundations and her family resources, she founded La Silla Vacía in 2009.

León has continued to expand her expertise through international academic engagement, serving as an Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Oxford, from 2018 to 2019. She is the author of several books, including “Country of Bullets: Chronicles of War in Colombia.” She is a member of the IFIT Brain Trust for the Colombian Transition.

Sean J. Westwood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College and director of the Polarization Research Lab (PRL). His primary area of research is political behavior and public opinion. His work focuses on understanding where partisan biases originate, where they manifest (inside and outside political domains), and their bounds. 

He is particularly interested in examining how partisanship and information from political elites affect the behavior of citizens. He has expertise in both survey methods and computational social science. His work has been published in journals including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Political Science Review, Nature Human Behavior, and the American Journal of Political Science.

His work has been covered by The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Slate, Vox, Foreign Affairs, New Republic, Newsweek, ABC, CBS, CNN, Fortune, Financial Times, Bloomberg, NPR, New York Magazine, USA Today and other local outlets.

Lucas Lorenzo Johnson is a global leader in conversations about shaping public life and building community across lines of difference. He has been shaped by his time learning from veterans of the civil rights movement in the U.S., and by his work with human rights activists around the world, especially in Africa, Europe, and Latin America. He has deep experience in the lived philosophy of nonviolence, conflict transformation, and community organising. 

Lucas was a leader in the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, organising against mass incarceration, the militarisation of policing and the drug war in the U.S. He also led IFOR’s International Secretariat in the Netherlands, supporting nonviolent human rights defenders around the world and defending the right to conscientious objection to military service at the UN in Geneva. 

In 2018, Lucas joined the award-winning media and public life organisation, On Being. He led the organization’s work focused on social healing until last year. He continues to collaborate with On Being, and he also regularly consults with groups in conflict and in support of initiatives focused on democracy and depolarisation.

Dr. Kevin Casas-Zamora has been the Secretary-General of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), a Stockholm-based intergovernmental organization with a mandate to advance democracy, since August 2019. He is also Senior Fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research centre in Washington, D.C.

Casas-Zamora has over 30 years of experience working on democratic governance issues as a public official, academic and international consultant. Previously, he was Costa Rica’s Second Vice President and Minister of National Planning; Secretary for Political Affairs at the Organization of American States; Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution; and National Coordinator of the United Nations Development Program’s Human Development Report. 

He has taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, and the University of Texas in Dallas, among many higher education institutions. He holds a Law degree from the University of Costa Rica, a Masters in Government from the University of Essex, and a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford.