International Peace & Conflict Resolution
Faculty & Staff
Director
Warren R. Haffar, Ph.D., earned a B.S. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Utah, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Peace Science from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Haffar is Dean of International Affairs and Director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program. Prior to his appointment at Arcadia University, Dr. Haffar served as a program officer at the Project on Ethnic Relations, an NGO that conducts programs of high-level intervention and serves as a neutral mediator to prevent ethnic conflict in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. His experience extends to mediation of environmental disputes as well as research and publication on the sources of environmental conflict, sustainable development strategies in post-conflict societies, and research methods in conflict analysis. Read more.
Administrative Director
Amy Cox, Ph.D., earned a B.A. in Philosophy from Temple University, an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from Arcadia University, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from McGill University. Dr. Cox is currently serving as Interim Academic and Administrative Director of the IPCR program managing all day-to-day activities, student affairs, curricula and program development. Dr. Cox’s scholarly expertise is in non-traditional international security, particularly political violence and ethnic conflicts, and she has completed fieldwork in Quebec and Ireland. Dr. Cox is also an active facilitator of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) at Graterford Prison, and Healing and Rebuilding Our Communities (HROC) workshops. Most recently, Dr. Cox won a 2013 United States Institute of Peace to Support Public Education for Peacebuilding grant to support the IPCR Forum on Transforming Conflict and Building Peace. Read more.
Assistant Director
Maryam Zarnegar Deloffre, Ph.D., earned a B.A. in political science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, an M.A. in International Relations from the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris-Fondation Nationale de Sciences Politiques (Sciences Po), and her Ph.D. in Political Science from The George Washington University in 2011. She now serves as both an Assistant Professor of Historical and Political Sciences and as Assistant Director of the International Peace and Conflict Resolution program. Her research interests include global governance, international organization, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), organization theory, international ethics, humanitarianism and human rights. Deloffre is currently working on a book manuscript that examines the emergence and development of transnational self-regulatory NGO accountability institutions, such as the Sphere Project, Humanitarian Accountability Partnership-International and COMPAS Qualité. Read more.
Program Coordinator
Sandra Jones, M.A., earned a B.A. in Political Science and an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from Arcadia University. She is a Ph.D. candidate at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, where her dissertation focuses on the individual and social psychological motivations of genocide survivors who have become perpetrators in ethnic violence in Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her master's thesis focused on the legality and efficacy of separation walls in conflict societies, focusing on Israel and the Mexico Border, which she hopes to expand into a study on their impact on transgenerational trauma. Sandra's other research interests include international humanitarian and human rights law, trans-generational trauma, memory, ritualization, and the framing of identity and history, social movements, and the prevention of ethnic conflict and genocide. She is also an advocate for citizen's diplomacy, and has been a delegate on citizen's diplomacy groups in Palestine, Israel and Syria. Sandra is also an amateur photographer focusing on the humanization of victims and the memorialization of conflict. Prior to working at Arcadia, Jones was a senior analyst at a Fortune 500 technology company and she retains a focus on technology in her current position. Read more.
Faculty
Samer Abboud, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History and International Studies, began teaching at Arcadia in Fall 2010. He earned a Ph.D. in Arab and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in 2007 where he conducted research on the political economy of marketization in Syria. In his research and teaching, he explores questions of political economy, migration and mobility, and citizenship, particularly within the context of the non-Western world. Dr. Abboud has published in such journals as Arab Studies Quarterly, New Political Science, and Review of Middle East Studies, as well as in several edited collections. In addition to this, he has written on Syria’s political economy, publishing two monographs on Syrian Trade Policy and Marketization in Syria. Dr. Abboud also serves as a Fellow at the Center for Syrian Studies in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, and as Managing Editor of the International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies. Read more.
Hilary Parsons Dick, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of International Studies, completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She investigates Mexico-U.S. migration from the perspectives of discourse analysis; the political economies of language; and gender, class, and ethno-racial relations. She joins Arcadia University after tenures as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford College and as a Fellow at the University of Chicago's Center for Latin American Studies and Temple University's Center for the Humanities. Dr. Dick teaches courses on globalization, development, and human rights; transnational migration; Latin American cultures, histories, and economies; research methods and writing; crime and punishment; and the language practices of migrants. Her ethnographic research is located in Guanajuato, Mexico and Pennsylvania. Dr. Dick's book, "Words of Passage: A Discourse-Centered Approach to Migration," examines how the social imaginaries that encourage Migration from Mexico are produced in everyday talk. Her new research concerns the criminalization of Mexican migrants and racializing discourses of sovereignty in anti-immigrant ordinances in small Pennsylvania towns.
Alex N. Grigorev, M.A., M.I.A., Adjunct Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, received a B.A. in History from Moscow State University, an M.A. in History from Central European University in Budapest and State University of New York at Albany, and a Master of Internatonal Affairs from Columbia University. An expert on Balkan politics and ethnic relations, Grigorev is currently President of the Council for Inclusive Governance (CIG), a New York City-based international NGO that promotes inclusive and responsible governance, fosters confidence in democratic institutions, and contributes to the cohesiveness of political systems and societies. Prior to his current appointment he was Executive Director of the Project on Ethnic Relations in Princeton where he supervised and conducted programs of high-level mediation in Southeastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Widely respected in the field, Grigorev has authored various articles, essays, and reports on interethnic relations and Balkan politics published in the United States and Europe. He has lectured in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East on ethnic conflict and international relations. Read more.
Geoff Haywood, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History and International Studies, has been teaching at Arcadia University since 1992. Born and raised in New Zealand, he earned a B.A. and an M.A. (first class honors) from Auckland University. Dr. Haywood earned a doctorate in modern European history at Columbia University. His research and publications, focused to date on modern Italy, have been supported by various grants, including the MacArthur Foundation and the Einaudi Foundation. Dr. Haywood's teaching interests are broad and his courses range from ancient Greece to the modern Mediterranean world. Before coming to Arcadia, he taught for three years in Columbia's Contemporary Civilization program and for two years as a post-doctoral lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. He is married with two children, and enjoys music, playing the guitar, and (still) playing a weekly pick-up soccer game. He is a die-hard supporter of New Zealand's national rugby team.
Bill Jacobsen, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, is a conflict specialist, who earned a Master's of Theology and a Ph.D. in Communication and Theology from Princeton Theological Seminary, as well as an MDiv (Bethel University, St. Paul). He is the 2011 Chairman of the Board of the Association for Conflict Resolution, Delaware Valley Chapter. He is an experienced active mediator, conflict coach, trainer and facilitator. He works with the Alternatives to Violence Project at Graterford Prison and with the Compassionate Listening Project, with which he has done conflict resolution and interfaith work in the Middle East.
Angela Kachuyevski, Ph.D., earned a B.A. in International Studies and in Russian Language and Literature from the Ohio State University, and an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. Dr. Kachuyevski specializes in international negotiation and conflict resolution and international security studies. She has lived and worked in Russia on grassroots democratization and peacebuilding initiatives and has contributed to numerous conflict prevention and ethnic conflict management research projects. Her research interests include conflicts in divided societies, minority rights and conflict prevention. Read more.
Charlotte Levine DiBartolomeo, M.A., Instructor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, is a Peace Educator, Conflict Interventionist, and Mediator. She earned a B.A. in English from Immaculata College and an M.A. in Programs in Intercultural Leadership and Management with a specialty in Conflict Transformation from the School for International Training in Vermont. She holds certificates in Civil Society Initiatives in Peacebuilding and Transformational Mediation and Victim/Offender Conferencing. DiBartolomeo worked for Philadelphia’s Good Shepherd Mediation Program before starting her own training and coaching organization, Red Kite Project. She and her co-facilitators at RKP work with organizations, universities and corporations training conflict management, intercultural communication, collaboration, team building and transformational leadership.
Alex Otieno, M.P.H., Instructor of Sociology, earned a B.A. in History and Anthropology from University of Nairobi and an M.P.H. from Temple University, where he is currently pursuing doctoral studies in the Health Studies Department. He has been involved in efforts aimed at developing a research and advocacy agenda for human rights in the context of HIV/AIDS in Africa, as well as in education and advocacy for fostering peace activism in both the United States and his native Kenya. Alex is a member of the American Public Health Association, American Society for Law, Medicine and Ethics, African Studies Association, and the Health Global Access Project. In addition, he is co-founder of the Program for Enhancement of East Africa Communication and Education (PEACE). He has worked on HIV/AIDS and homelessness issues in both Kenya and in the United States and is the community liaison for the Outreach Coordination Center of Project HOME in Philadelphia. Read more.
Jennifer Riggan, Ph.D., began teaching at Arcadia in 2007. She earned a B.A. in English from Trinity College in 1992 and served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1995 to 1997 in Eritrea. She holds a Ph.D. from the Education, Culture and Society program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she received training in political and educational anthropology and African Studies. Dr. Riggan's ethnographic research addresses a variety of issues including nationalism, citizenship, state formation, militarism, development, and education. She has published on the changing relationship between citizenship and nationalism and on the de- coupling of the nation and the state. She is currently working on a project entitled The Teacher State: Militarization and the Reeducation of the Nation in Eritrea which explores the role of teachers in state-making in the east African nation of Eritrea. This research has been funded by a Fulbright research fellowship, a Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship and a Spencer/National Academy of Education Postdoctoral Fellowship. Read more.
Barbara Simmons, B.A., Instructor of International Peace and Conflict Resolution, earned a B.A. from the Institute of Archaeology, London. Simmons completed Family Mediation Training, Community Mediation Training, and Cultural Communications training at the Institute of Multi-Track Diplomacy and holds certificates in the field from institutions across the country. She is founder and producer of Peace Talks, a public radio project, producing documentaries of peace-building around the world, which has aired on both National Public Radio and Public Radio International. Simmons is Executive Director of the Peace Center, located in Bucks County, Pa., whose mission is to educate, empower and support individuals and organizations in efforts to prevent violence, promote conflict transformation and foster inclusive, equitable and safe communities locally, nationally and internationally.
Peter Siskind, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Historical and Political Studies, came to Arcadia in 2004 after teaching at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, from which he received his Ph.D. in History in 2002. He earned an A.B. in Religion from Dartmouth College in 1990. He specializes in American political, urban/suburban, and environmental history, and he teaches numerous courses in those and other subjects. His research focuses on post-World War II American liberalism and concentrates in particular on the growth and development of cities, suburbs, and recreational “vacationlands” on the Northeast Corridor from the metropolitan areas of Boston to Washington, D.C. Recently, he has been studying and teaching about the United States' relationship with world, including courses titled The Vietnam Wars and America as Empire: The United States in the World in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Amy Widestrom, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science, holds a B.A. in Theater and English from Oberlin College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from Syracuse University. Her main areas of interest are income inequality, residential and economic segregation, political behavior, and urban policy in the United States. She is a contributing author to several edited volumes, including Key States, High Stakes: Sarah Palin, the Tea Party and the 2010 Midterm Election, Cities in American Political History, and Education-Based Incarceration and Recidivism. The main focus of her current research is on how economic segregation affects political mobilization and political behavior in the United States, and she is currently working on her book, Impoverished Democracy: Economic Segregation and Civic Engagement in Urban America, which is under contract to be published by University of Pennsylvania Press. Widestrom has also been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Brookings Institution Research Fellowship and an American Political Science Association Congressional Fellowship, during which she worked for the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
