Language: English

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. 

Jennifer McCoy, PhD, is Regent’s Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta and Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as Research Affiliate at CEU’s Democracy Institute in Budapest.  Her areas of expertise include democratic resilience, erosion and recovery; political polarization and depolarization; crisis prevention and conflict resolution; democracy promotion and collective defense of democracy; election processes and international election observation; and Latin American Politics. 

Dr. McCoy was named a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow for her project, “Mitigating Pernicious Polarization through Innovative Civic Educational Interventions.” Her current book project is Depolarizing Politics and Remaking Democracy with Murat Somer, under contract with Princeton University Press. Her latest volume is Polarizing Polities: A Global Threat to Democracy, co-edited with Murat Somer (2019).   

Dr. McCoy served as Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program (1998-2015), leading projects on democratic strengthening, mediation and dialogue, and hemispheric cooperation.  She has authored or edited six books and dozens of articles.  McCoy is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Women’s Forum and the Scholars Strategy Network.

Originally from Australia, Miranda Sissons is a long-time human rights defender. She has 20-plus years’ experience in human rights work, and is currently Senior Director of Human Rights Policy at Meta Platforms. 

A former diplomat, Sissons has worked at Human Rights Watch, the International Center for Transitional Justice, and the social impact agency Purpose. She has consulted for the UN Human Rights Office. She has extensive on the ground experience with local and global organizations Timor Leste, Israel Palestine, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere. 

She has published on topics ranging from international criminal law and the law of armed conflict to transitional justice and sexual and reproductive rights. She has co-led initiatives that have won multiple Cannes and Webby awards.

Sissons has also taught human rights/transitional justice at NYU and the City University of New York. She studied at the University of Melbourne, was a Fulbright scholar at Yale, and recently studied organizational leadership at the Said School of Business at Oxford.  She speaks Arabic, German and English. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

Johan Vibe has dedicated over three decades to diplomacy and international relations. After completing law school at the University of Oslo in 1989, he joined the Foreign Service, beginning with legal work at the International Court of Justice before taking on postings in Central America and NATO Brussels and serving as advisor at the Foreign Minister’s Cabinet.

His expertise in conflict resolution became the defining aspect of his career during his leadership of Norway’s Section for Peace and Reconciliation from 2005 to 2009, where he oversaw several peace processes including Colombia, Spain and Afghanistan. This specialisation led to his appointment as Norway’s Ambassador to Colombia from 2016 to 2018, where he played a crucial role in implementing the historic 2016 peace accords between the Government of Colombia and FARC.

Vibe’s distinguished diplomatic career includes serving as Minister and Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC, Ambassador to Spain, and Ambassador to Italy from 2021 to 2025. In August 2025, he assumed the position of Director of the Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution (NOREF), bringing his extensive experience in peace processes and high-level diplomatic leadership to this influential international role.