Peace News Expert Network

Dr. Crystena Parker-Shandal is an Associate Professor in Social Development Studies at Renison
University College at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Parker-Shandal’s research expertise is in
curriculum and pedagogy, restorative justice in education, conflict resolution, inclusion,
antiracism, peacebuilding, and dialogue in diverse global communities. She examines issues such
as how peacebuilding education and conflict dialogue processes could work to foster a sense of
inclusion for marginalized children and youth and how such practices, in their successful
implementation, can challenge young people to engage in authentic dialogue and conflict
learning. She is the author of Restorative Justice in the Classroom: Liberating Students’ Voices
through Relational Pedagogy (2022) and Peacebuilding, Citizenship, and Identity: Empowering
Conflict and Dialogue in Multicultural Classrooms (2016). She is co-editor of Finding Refuge in
Canada: Narratives of Dislocation (2021) and editor of First-Gen Docs: Personal, Political, and
Intellectual Perspectives From the First-Generation Doctoral Experience (2024). For more
about her work, visit: https://www.drparkershandal.com

Dr. Daniel Rothbart is professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University.  He specializes in ethnic conflicts, power and conflict, and the psycho-politics of conflict.  He is co-director of the Program on Prevention of Mass Violence and director of the Laboratory entitled Transforming the Mind for Peace. 

Delphin Ntanyoma is a visiting researcher at the School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) at the University of Leeds. He is interested in microlevel violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), genocide, minorities, and social media.

Denisa Kostovicova is Professor of Global Politics at the European Institute and the Lead ofthe LSEE Research on South Eastern Europe at the Hellenic Observatory, bothat the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She is a scholar of conflict and peace processes with a particular interest in post-conflict reconstruction and transitional justice. Professor Kostovicova is the author of Reconciliation by Stealth: How People Talk about War Crimes (Cornell University Press, 2023) and Kosovo: The Politics of Identity and Space (Routledge, 2005). She is co-editor of 8 volumes on reconciliation and transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction and state-building, and transnationalism.Professor Kostovicova’s research has been funded by a number of prestigious grants, including those by the Leverhulme Trust, MacArthur Foundation and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), among others.Her work has been published in leading academic journals includingAmerican Political Science Review, International Studies Quarterly, Review of International Studies,Security Dialogue, and others. ProfessorKostovicova currently directs a major research programme funded by the European Research Council, titled ‘Justice Interactions and Peace-building (JUSTINT).’ She has authored a number of policy papers on issues concerning Western Balkans’ European integration, post-conflict recovery and regional security. Her academic research and policy contributions have informed policy making at the EU, UN, and in the UK.

Dr Denise Bentrovato is originally from Italy and studied foreign languages, African studies, international relations, conflict resolution, and international and political history in the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom. In 2013, she completed her PhD at the Research Institute for History and Culture at the University of Utrecht, with a thesis investigating the politics of history, identity and education in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Throughout her career, she has worked in academia and for government institutions, international organisations and NGOs in Europe and Africa in the fields of peacebuilding and post-war educational reform, including UNESCO, the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI).

Her academic work combines an interest in memory politics, transitional justice and history education in Africa, and covers questions surrounding the politics and practice of history curriculum and textbook revision and the teaching and learning of sensitive and controversial histories of abuse, conflict, mass violence and genocide in post-colonial and post-war societies.

Dr Maurice Besengis a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University. His research focuses on issues of conflict, security, and development in Cameroon

Dr. Nancy Annan is an Assistant Professor in Peace, Conflict and Global Development at the Centre for Trust, Peace, and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University.

Elizabeth (Liz) Hume is the Senior Director for Programs and Strategy at the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Eugenie Rose Fontepis an Economist passionate for peacebuilding. Her work interests aim to link issues of peacebuilding, conflict, fragility, and violence to development factors, including, labor market, education, and health outcomes among others. She conducts and has conducted severalresearchprojects on war survivors, refugees, internally displaced persons and the stateless community inCameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo,Kenya, Niger,Nigeria, andSierra Leoneamong others. She also contributes to the peace making process by participating in international peacebuilding related debates. The recent ones includeWIDER Development Conference: The puzzle of peace – towards inclusive development in fragile contextsor theUnited Nations Future Forum on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). She holds a PhD in economics.

I am a researcher in the Climate Change and Risk programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). My research focuses on understanding what the relationship between climate change and violence looks like in different settings, and how interventions to address the effects of climate change can be used to build peace. I mainly focus on the connections between climate change, food security, and conflict, and on climate adaptation and peacebuilding.