Nitchakarn Rakwongrit (Memee)

Nitchakarn Rakwongrit (Memee) is a young feminist activist based in Bangkok, Thailand. She became involved in the Thai pro-democracy protests in 2020 and has been actively engaged in activism ever since. Despite her young age, she has faced political prosecution in at least seven cases, with five occurring when she was still a minor.

Nilda Sevilla

Nilda Sevilla is a lifelong activist steadfastly defending multisectoral rights especially the right of all persons not to be disappeared. Based in the Philippines, she was entrusted with the role of Co-chairperson of the Families of Victims of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) for two decades.

Yin Lae Aung

As a student activist and researcher, Yin Lae focuses on displacement, youth activism, worker rights, gender studies and education. After the 2021 coup in Myanmar, she continued organizing protests, supporting youth and amplifying marginalized voices through Rangoon Voice-Cast (RVC).

Ahmed Mannina

أحمد منينة كاتب صحفي سوري، ومدافع عن حقوق الإنسان، وصانع محتوى رقمي سياسي وحقوقي. من منفاه في الأردن، يركّز أحمد عمله على حقوق الأشخاص ذوي الإعاقة في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا وإدماجهم في العمل المدني.

كذلك يعمل أحمد على رفع وعي حول الصحة والحقوق الجنسية الإنجابية.

Alain Refalo

Alain Refalo is a school teacher in Haute-Garonne (France). A thought leader in the French nonviolence community, Alain is director of publication for the quarterly magazine Alternatives non-violentes (2006-2013) and helped found the Centre de ressources sur la non-violence de Midi-Pyrénées. He is the author of numerous publications on nonviolence in French.

Maria Lakhina

Maria Lakhina is a Russian pro-democracy and anti-war activist. She has participated in Youth Democratic Movement Vesna since 2017, and has been one of its coordinators since 2018. She helped organize nonviolent actions all around Russia in the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Now from exile, her movement works on getting the anti-war and anti-Putin voices from inside the country heard.

Evy Zulyani

Evy Zulyani is an active member of the Asia solidarity movement, known as the Milk Tea Alliance. She serves as an education and research coordinator at the Media and Creative Industry Workers Union for Democracy (SINDIKASI).

Ei Mon Soe

Ei Mon Soe (Ei Mon) is an undergraduate student at PARAMI University in Yangon, Myanmar, after deciding to drop out of university under the military junta rule as a form of civil disobedience in 2021. She was a third-year law student at the time.

Gaia Martino

Gaia Martino is a sociology student at the University of Milan Bicocca and spent a semester at the European School of Political Science at the Catholic University of Lille. Gaia has participated in a number of activist groups, including LINK Coordinamento Universitario, and has taken part in several campaigns for the right to education and environmental and social rights in Milan, with the groups End Fossil and Tende in Piazza.

Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha

Sayed Yusuf Almuhafdha is a prominent human rights defender, researcher, trainer and expert with 15 years experience in human rights advocacy in Bahrain. In spring of 2014, Sayed went into exile in Germany, following continuous judicial harassment and threats to his life.

Rosa Marina Flores Cruz

Rosa Marina Flores Cruz is an Afro-Zapotec from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, and a member of the Assembly of Indigenous Peoples of the Isthmus in Defence of Land and Territory and the Indigenous Futures Network. She holds a Master’s degree in Rural Development from UAM-Xochimilco and a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Sciences from UNAM, Morelia campus.

Solafa Magdy

Solafa Magdy is an award-winning Egyptian journalist and human rights defender who endured nearly two years of imprisonment in Egypt due to her journalistic work. She lives in exile in France, having been recognized by the Paris mayor for her dedication to defending human rights.

Sarah Sheik Ali

Sarah Sheik Ali is a feminist human rights defender from Lebanon and academic researcher on gender, social movements and activism.

Feza Eliane

Eliane Feza was born in Goma, in the province of Nord-Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Trained as a lawyer with a master’s degree in criminal law, she is a slam artist with the Goma slam session collective, and a trainer in slam therapy and women’s slam. She is also a blogger, women’s and children’s rights activist and environmental activist.

Eliane Feza est née à Goma dans la province du Nord-Kivu à l’Est de la République Démocratique du Congo. Juriste de formation, master en droit pénal, artiste slameuse dans le collectif Goma slam session, formatrice en slamothérapie et slam-féminin, elle est également blogueuse, activiste de droits de la femme et de l’enfant, et activiste environnementale,

Abdou Khafor Kandji

Abdou Khafor Kandji est un activiste et membre de la coordination du mouvement citoyen Sénégalais, Y en a Marre. Il suit un master en suivi et évaluation des projets, programmes et politiques au Centre Africain d’Etudes Supérieur en Gestion (Cesag).

Capucine Quévillon

Capucine Quévillon is a Masters student in contemporary history at the University of Caen, France. As part of her internship at the Institute for Peace, where she is a research assistant, she is working on peace education in secondary schools.

Mostafa Fouad

Mostafa Fouad is an Egyptian human rights lawyer and Legal Researcher who shapes justice through extensive research, including co-authoring the “Advocacy from Exile” guide. With a decade in MENA civil society roles, he leads as HuMENA’s Head of Programs, fueling impactful change.

Robin Boardman

Robin Boardman is a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and languages student. Our world is at a crisis point and he is here to navigate it. He writes to find clarity and brighten stories of resistance during our darkest hour. Read more at robinboardman.com.

Maryjacob Okwuosa

Maryjacob Okwuosa is a Nigeria-based intersectional feminist and education advocate, passionately working to bridge gender and accessibility gaps in education using crude innovative approaches, youthful ARTivism and different forms of creative entertainment. She is the founder of Whisper to Humanity and creative director and writer who explores the use of art in advocacy.

Maneesh Pradhan

Maneesh Pradhan, based in Nepal, is the Asia Regional Coordination Lead at ActionAid International. He is Guest Editor of the REACT mini-series, “Voices of Resilience: Struggles and Triumphs of Women Human Rights Defenders in Southeast Asia”. He is a passionate advocate for harnessing “people power” to challenge and transform injustices.

Nico Plooijer

Nico Plooijer is a senior adviser at the Dutch peace organization PAX. His current focus is on civic space and nonviolent social movements. Nico has over two decades of experience managing peacebuilding programs and conflict mitigation efforts. He facilitated peacebuilding and mediation efforts on local and national levels in Sudan and South Sudan.

Rosie Motene

Rosie Motene is a Queer feminist writer, award-winning author, multi-award-winning film producer and talent manager. Her media career (in front of and behind the camera) has extended close to three decades. She has worked extensively across Africa.

Aurore Pruvost

Aurore Pruvost is an student at the Université Lyon III Jean Moulin, where she is completing an MA degree in International Relations with a specialization in ecological transition and Francophone regions. Previously, she was a student of the Nonviolence and Politics class at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP) and completed an internship with PEXE, a France-based association that works at the nexus between the environment, energy and circular economy sectors.

Nadine Bloch

As an activist artist, strategic nonviolent organizer, and Training Director of Beautiful Trouble, Nadine Bloch explores the potent intersection of art and people power. Find her writings in Beautiful Trouble, SNAP: An Action Guide to Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding, and WagingNonviolence.org.

Yoselyn Guardado Chicas

Yoselyn Guardado Chicas is a feminist activist from Suchitoto, El Salvador. She studied social work. From a very young age, she has been a community leader, defending the rights of peasant communities in Suchitoto and women’s rights at the local and national levels. She is currently part of the Feminist Collective for Local Development.

Yoselyn Guardado Chicas es una activista feminista de Suchitoto, El Salvador. Estudió trabajo social y desde muy pequeña ha sido lideresa comunitaria, defendiendo derechos de las comunidades campesinas en suchitoto y de las mujeres a nivel local y nacional. Actualmente es parte de el equipo de la Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo local.

Amos Oluwatoye

Amos Oluwatoye is Research Director with Building Blocks for Peace Foundation and Research Volunteer with Metta Center for Nonviolence. An ICNC alum, he is actively involved in research, community, and international development projects focused on peacebuilding, nonviolent movements for societal change, political violence, public policy and international development.

María Gabriela Mata Carnevali

María Gabriela Mata Carnevali is a Venezuelan researcher on International Relations with a focus on the Global South and rule of law. She completed her higher education degrees at El Colegio de México and Loyola University, Chicago (USA) and is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the Università degli studi di Palermo in Italy. María served as a moderator of ICNC’s People Power online course in 2019 and 2020. Her motto is “Stand with human rights. Stand with peace.”

Araceli Argueta

Araceli Argueta is a guest editor of the REACT series, powered by ActionAid Denmark. She is an organizer and anthropologist from El Salvador. She has organized with women, youth, and indigenous people, protecting human rights, and supporting biocultural defense. Araceli is the Advocacy and Organizing Director at the Immigrants Rights Program with the American Friends Service Committee.

Araceli Argueta es una organizadora y antropóloga de El Salvador. Ha organizado con mujeres, jóvenes y pueblos indígenas, protegiendo los derechos humanos y apoyando la defensa biocultural. Araceli es la Directora de Incidencia y Organización del Programa de Derechos de los Inmigrantes de American Friends Service Committee.

Peter Tindborg

Peter Tindborg is a guest editor for the REACT series powered by ActionAid Denmark. He has been engaged in youth organizing and activism for more than a decade out of Denmark, Bolivia, Kenya, Nepal and El Salvador. He is currently at the Global Centre for Social Movement Support as part of ActionAid Denmark and serves as co-editor of Minds of the Movement’s REACT blog series, powered by ActionAid Denmark.

Tenzin Dorjee

Tenzin Dorjee is Senior Researcher and Strategist at Tibet Action Institute and a Ph.D. candidate in the department of political science at Columbia University. Dorjee’s research examines the influence of religion on political conflict and the efficacy of nonviolent resistance.

Seyedeh Faezeh Alavi

Seyedeh Faezeh Alavi is an Iranian activist, artist, and MA student in Development Policy at KDI School of Public Policy and Management, South Korea. She is currently working on Human Rights and Sustainable Social Development at iHuman, an NGO that focuses on personal, organizational, and social development, mainly in Iran.

Steward Muhindo Kalyamughuma

Steward Muhindo Kalyamughuma is a Congolese activist with the nonviolent, non-partisan citizen movement LUCHA (Lutte pour le Changement, Struggle for Change), and a researcher on human rights and armed conflict at the Centre de Recherche sur l’Environnement, la Démocratie et les Droits de l’Homme (CREDDHO).

Steward Muhindo Kalyamughuma est activiste Congolais du mouvement citoyen non-violent et non-partisan LUCHA (Lutte pour le Changement) et chercheur sur les droits humains et les conflits armés au Centre de Recherche sur l’Environnement, la Démocratie et les droits de l’Homme (CREDDHO).

Benjamin Naimark-Rowse

Ben Naimark-Rowse is a Topol Fellow in Nonviolent Resistance at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Boston, USA). His expertise on social movements and resourcing of movements draws on two decades of work with movements, scholars, NGOs, and donors.

Leah Rea

Leah Rea is a PhD candidate in Law at the Transitional Justice Institute, School of Law of Ulster University (Northern Ireland). A social justice activist and advocate, she is interested in the connection between nonviolent grassroots movements and human rights progression. She is an alumna of ICNC’s online course on civil resistance.

Patience Nitumwesiga

Patience Nitumwesiga is a writer, producer-director whose work emphasizes utopian and decolonized African themes while boldly confronting our current cultural and political realities. She has made short films, web series, mixed media art, and directed plays at Uganda’s National Theatre.

Olga Sagaidak

Olga Sagaidak is a Ukrainian cultural activist, art manager, and curator. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, she has been representing the Ukrainian Institute in France. As a cultural activist, she initiated and now curates for the Ukrainian Spring project (Printemps ukrainien) at the Ukrainian Cultural Center in Paris. Previously, Olga co-founded the charitable foundation The Depths of Art (Dofa Fund).

Hnoung Eain Thin

Hnoung Eain Thin (pen name) led the 2021 anti-coup protests in Taungoo District, Bago Division of Myanmar, for which he is currently on the Tatmadaw’s wanted list. Formerly a student leader and then a teacher, he is now an artist, a poet and a musician living in exile after the Tatmadaw’s brutal crackdown of the anti-coup protests. Democracy and human rights are central to his artistic work.

Binalakshmi "Bina" Nepram

Binalakshmi “Bina” Nepram is an award-winning scholar and civil rights activist who is Founder-Director of Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network/CAFI. Bina was born in Manipur Nation currently located in India’s northeast region next to Myanmar. She is the founder of two other organizations working on peace and justice and has authored five books.

Tenzin Jigdal

Jigdal has served as Member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile since October 2021. His longstanding commitment to the Tibetan nonviolent struggle for freedom has included positions at the International Tibet Network, Tibet Action Institute and Students for a Free Tibet. Jigdal holds a PG Diploma focused in Computing from London Metropolitan University.

Gaspard Barthélémy

Gaspard Barthelemy is a French graduate student in public law at the Catholic University of Paris (ICP), currently in the process of joining an international relations master’s degree. He enjoys writing about environmental movements, social media and nonviolent action. During his high school years in both Washington, D.C. and Paris, France, he participated in Fridays for Future marches as well as Model United Nations.

Lynette Ong

Lynette H. Ong is Professor of Political Science at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, the University of Toronto (Canada). She is the author of Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press, 2022), and The Street and the Ballot Box: Interactions between Social Movements and Electoral Politics in Authoritarian Contexts (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Matt Gordner

Matt Gordner is a PhD Candidate at the University of Toronto (Canada) where he studies comparative and development politics with a regional focus on the Middle East. Matt is a Tunis-based development and democracy consultant and award-winning academic and community organizer whose doctoral research is supported by a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Scholarship, American Political Science Association Civil Society Fellowship, and Connaught Fellowship, among others.

Thibault Lauroa

Thibault Lauroa is a student in public law and political science at the Catholic University of Paris, France, and rising Masters student in Public Affairs (national and international). Previously, he worked as parliamentary assistant at the French National Assembly and volunteers with Secours Catholique-Caritas France.

Sara Snoussi

Sara Snoussi is a development and democracy consultant who advocates for youth inclusion and empowerment through social innovation and entrepreneurialism. Sara is Fundraising and Business Intelligence Manager at Open Startup Tunisia, an organization that promotes youth entrepreneurship in the MENA region. As a Fulbright Scholar, Sara earned a master’s degree in International Studies from North Carolina State University and Duke University.

Jason MacLeod

Jason MacLeod has spent the last three decades teaching civil resistance, strategy and community organizing at universities, in village settings, and with civil society organizations in Asia, Oceania and Australia. Much of his work has been in conflict zones, accompanying self-determination struggles in the region. Jason holds a PhD in social movements and politics from The University of Queensland.

Sooyeon Kang

Sooyeon Kang is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies (Ohio State University) and a non-resident Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights (Harvard Kennedy School). She received her doctorate from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, and was a 2020-2021 Peace Scholar Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and a Doctoral Research Fellow at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Jacob Lewis

Jacob Lewis is an Assistant Professor of Global Politics in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University. His research centers on conflict processes and political psychology in the African context. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and has worked extensively in the fields of international development and public policy.

Deborah Mathis

Deborah Mathis is a senior journalist. Previously as ICNC’s Director of Communications, Deborah developed, executed and coordinated ICNC’s communications, marketing, and media relations, working in collaboration with the organization’s staff and advisors. She helped develop the Minds of the Movement blog and served as co-editor.

Jonathan Pinckney

Jonathan Pinckney is a Senior Researcher with the Program on Nonviolent Action at the United States Institute of Peace, where he conducts research on nonviolent action, peacebuilding, and democratization. He is the author of the book From Dissent to Democracy: The Promise and Peril of Civil Resistance Transitions, from Oxford University Press, as well as a wide range of academic and general audience publications.

Agnieszka Żuk

Agnieszka Żuk is a Polish feminist, author and translator based in Paris, France. She conceived and edited the book, Hourras et désarrois. Scènes d’une guerre culturelle en Pologne (Cheers and Distress: Scenes of a Cultural War in Poland, Éditions Noir sur blanc, 2019). Agnieszka is an active member of the Polish diaspora and helped organize nonviolent actions in 2020 to support the movement for women’s and LGBT rights in Poland.

Marina G. Petrova

Marina G. Petrova is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy. She received her PhD from the Department of Government, University of Essex in Colchester, UK. Her research interests include political violence, nonviolent action, and conflict processes.

Rev. Tremaine Combs

Rev. Tremaine Combs is the pastor of the historic Mount Zion Baptist Church of Lincoln Nebraska. While living and pastoring in the Saint Louis Metropolitan area, he was involved in the Ferguson Uprising, by participating in a cadre of young black pastors who strove to stand between the protestors and militarized police. He is the founding President of the Lincoln Black Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development.

Luke Abbs

Dr. Luke Abbs is a research fellow at the Centre for Religion, Reconciliation and Peace (CRRP) and visiting fellow at the Department of Government, University of Essex, UK. Along with a forthcoming ICNC monograph tentatively titled, “The Impact of Nonviolent Resistance on Civil War Resolution”, his work has been published in the Journal of Peace Research, Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Global Security Studies and Mobilization.

Chaminda Hettiarachchi

Chaminda Hettiarachchi is a political analyst, academic, technology management specialist, and social entrepreneur based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In 2016, Chaminda attended the 2016 ICNC Summer Institute held at the Fletcher School, Tufts University (Boston, USA). He has also completed an executive education program at Harvard Kennedy School and was a DAAD Scholar at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany and University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany.

Inna Kavalionak

Until May 2020, Inna Kavalionak was a theater producer working at the OK16 cultural hub in Minsk, Belarus. Then she began volunteering for the election campaign of opposition candidate and philanthropist Viktor Babariko. She was soon arrested for her pro-democracy activism surrounding the contested 2020 elections. Since December 2020, Inna has been heading up politzek.me, an activist-run, user content generated website that channels online and offline support for political prisoners in Belarus.

Sara Vazquez Melendez

Sara Vazquez Melendez is an anthropologist, farmer, activist and educator in Ponce, Puerto Rico. Through her school in civil resistance, and her agroecology farm, she provides a framework for decolonization, as well as methods for building an alternative future.

Lindsay Littrell

Lindsay Littrell, MSW, is a PhD student in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky with a graduate certificate in Gender and Women’s Studies. Ms. Littrell is a long-time social work educator with roots in the labor movement and macro practice. Driven by her passion for the building of beloved community, Lindsay keeps her feet on the pavement, connecting with struggles for justice and liberation across contexts and around the world.

Ala Sivets

Ala Sivets is a researcher and human rights activist. She holds an MA in Euroculture from Uppsala University and the University of Udine with a focus on European Union politics and human rights. Her research interests are forced migration and integration, mental well-being, diversity and community building. Observing numerous detentions of her friends in Belarus, Ala joined Politzek.me in 2020 as an advocacy campaigner.

Mary Elizabeth King

Mary King is Director of the James Lawson Institute and a professor of peace and conflict studies at the UN-affiliated University for Peace. She is also a Distinguished Rothermere American Institute Fellow at the University of Oxford, Britain. Her work for the U.S. civil rights movement includes having served on the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

Abdourahman Mohamed Guelleh, "TX"

Abdourahman Mohamed Guelleh, “TX,” is the founding leader of Djibouti’s Rassemblement pour l’action, la démocratie et le développement écologique (RADDE, Rally for Action, Democracy and Ecological Development). The former mayor of Djibouti, TX  abandoned politics in 2018 to advance Djibouti’s pro-democracy movement through grassroots organizing. He is an alum of the Solidarity 2020 and Beyond’s International Activists Convening, held in Kathmandu, Nepal in 2023.

Phil Wilmot

Phil Wilmot is a former ICNC Learning Initiatives Network Fellow, co-founder of Solidarity Uganda, and a member of the Global Social Movement Centre and Beautiful Trouble. Phil writes extensively on resistance movements and resides in East Africa. Write to Phil at phil@beautifultrouble.org.

Charlotte Secco

Charlotte Secco is a research associate at the Institute for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution. Her topics of interest are nonviolent struggle and the climate movement. She served as a peace witness in Palestine and is involved in promoting both unarmed civilian peacebuilding and the study of nonviolent struggle and nonviolence in France.

Charlotte Secco est chercheuse associée à l’Institut de recherche sur la Résolution Non-violente des conflits. Ses sujets de prédilection sont la lutte non-violente et le mouvement climat. Elle a été témoin de paix à Jérusalem et a participé à faire connaitre l’intervention civile de paix, ainsi que l’étude de la lutte non-violente et la non-violence, en France.

Svetlana Kabanova

Dr. Svetlana Kabanova received a PhD in Biochemistry from the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and worked in numerous scientific labs both in Belarus and Germany. She is also a writer and poet and has been published in Belarusian, Russian, English, and German. Dr. Kabanova was born in Minsk, Belarus and closely follows political developments and dissidence in her home country as an expat.

Winnifred R. Louis

Winnifred R. Louis (PhD McGill, 2001) is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Queensland. Her research interests focus on the influence of identity and norms on social decision-making.

Janjira Sombatpoonsiri

Dr. Janjira Sombatpoonsiri is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Asian Studies, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. Her research focuses on civil resistance, civil society’s pushbacks against autocratization, and digital repression in Asia.

Erik Van der Zanden

Erik van der Zanden is a nonviolent trainer and activist who holds a Master’s degree African Studies from Leiden University (the Netherlands). He is also a reviewer for the National Institute of African Studies (NIAS). Van der Zanden recently founded Sankara Revolutions, a Dutch-based organization that publishes blogs and knowledge products that aim to empower (African) activists to liberate themselves from corruption and oppression.

Maciej Bartkowski

Dr. Maciej Bartkowski is a Senior Advisor to ICNC. He works on academic programs to support teaching, research and study on civil resistance. He is a series editor of the ICNC Monographs and ICNC Special Reports, and book editor of Recovering Nonviolent History. You can follow him @macbartkow

Victoria Tin-bor Hui

Victoria Tin-bor Hui is Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. She has testified on Hong Kong at Congress, and published in the Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, The Diplomat, etc.

Michael Wilson Becerril

Michael Wilson Becerril (he/él) is an activist scholar with more than ten years of experience working for social and environmental justice. His written work has appeared in the Journal of Resistance Studies, Feminist Review, Terrorism & Political Violence, Peace Review, Human Rights Review, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, the Environmental Justice Atlas, and Latino Rebels.

Wafa Eben-Beri

Wafa Eben-Beri is a social activist and currently an Obama Foundation scholar at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago (USA). She is the former Head of Government Policy at the Economic Development Authority for Minorities in the Ministry for Social Equality in Israel.

Florian Kriener

Florian Kriener is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Public Comparative and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. His research focuses on the role and regulation of nonviolent protest movements in international law.

Charmaine Willis

Charmaine Willis is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University at Albany, State University of New York (USA). Her research primarily examines social movements, terrorism, and protest repression, with a regional focus on East Asia.

Mariam Azeem

Mariam Azeem possesses nearly fifteen years of experience and expertise in the field of education, training, and coaching for nonviolent civil resistance, human rights, women’s leadership, and movement building. She supports and facilitates youth, women, and gender and sexual minorities in advancing their narratives of human rights and justice.

Indonesian Pacifist

Indonesian Pacifist is a member of the Indonesian diaspora based in France. He started the Markus Haluk blog on West Papua during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic as a way to grow his advocacy and activism in support of this people’s nonviolent movement against Indonesian colonization.

Farai Maguwu

Farai Maguwu is the founding Director of the Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG), a leading organization working on improved governance of natural resources in Zimbabwe. In 2011, Human Rights Watch honored him with the prestigious Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism. Farai is a PhD candidate at the School of Developmental Studies, University of Kwazulu Natal and holds two Masters.

Yunus Berndt

Yunus Berndt is the founder of the Maltese NGO Hal Far Outreach and former activist with Europe Must Act. He holds a B.A. in International Relations and Management and focuses his research on migration, post-modernism and entrepreneurship.

James L. VanHise

James L. VanHise is a writer who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina (USA). He has written about Gene Sharp and civil resistance in The Progressive, Peace Magazine, Waging Nonviolence and elsewhere. James blogs about nonviolent strategy and tactics at nonviolence3.com.

Isa Benros

Isa is a mother, anthropologist, and currently Organizing and Social Movement Documentation Coordinator at ActionAid Denmark. Isa has lived and worked in East Africa for years and done extensive qualitative research on youth and organizing in the informal sector in Kenya.

Jean Sonel Basquin

Jean Sonel Basquin, from and based in Haiti, has a degree in development project management and is currently a computer science student. He has worked with young people in the Haitian community for over 15 years, including with the VDH (Volunteers for Development of Haiti). He is an activist in Haiti’s nonviolent struggle for PetroCaribe transparency.

Gregory François

Gregory Francois is a Haitian activist and social entrepreneur with a Bachelor’s Degree in legal science from the State University of Haiti. He is a consultant in Community Project Management for several organizations in Haiti and is an engaged citizen against corruption and for the rights of people with disabilities.

Ivan Marovic

Ivan Marovic is Executive Director of ICNC. He was one of the leaders of Otpor, the student resistance movement that played an important role in the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. After the successful democratic transition in Serbia, Marovic began consulting with various prodemocracy groups worldwide and became one of the leading practitioners in the field of strategic nonviolent conflict.

Joe Macaron

Joe Macaron is a fellow at the Arab Center Washington D.C. and a Ph.D. student at the University of Bath (U.K.). His research primarily focuses on U.S. policy, international relations, and conflict analysis in the Middle East.

Kelly Fielding

Kelly Fielding is an environmental psychologist at the University of Queensland whose research focuses on developing ways to promoting environmental attitudes and actions. She addresses a range of environmental issues including climate change communication and action.

Geoffrey Pleyers

Geoffrey Pleyers is a Fonds National de la Recherche scientifique (FNRS) researcher and professor at the Catholic University of Louvain (UCLouvain, Belgium). He is currently the International Sociological Association’s vice president for research. He holds a PhD in sociology from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris, 2006).

Theo Roncken

Theo Roncken is a Dutch community psychologist with on-the-ground experience in Bolivia (1993-2019) and Nicaragua (1985-1991). He developed community-based psychosocial support for traumatized children and conducted action research with a variety of local stakeholders and a focus on social justice.

Biram Dah Abeid

Biram Dah Abeid is an anti-slavery activist and politician from Mauritania. He founded the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA-Mauritania). IRA was a recipient of the 2016 James Lawson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonviolent Conflict.

Robyn Gulliver

Dr Robyn Gulliver is a multi-award winning environmentalist, writer and researcher who has served as an organiser and leader of numerous local and national environmental organisations. Her research focuses on the antecedents and consequences of environmental and pro-democracy activism.

Pearce Edwards

Pearce Edwards is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. His research focuses on repression and resistance in authoritarian regimes. His research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science.

Lisha Sterling

Lisha Sterling is executive director of Geeks Without Bounds, a nonprofit organization supporting open source technology in low resource situations through education, hackathons, and an accelerator program to help promising humanitarian technology projects become sustainable. She is also on the board of directors at Frontline Wellness United.

Shaazka Beyerle

Shaazka Beyerle is a senior fellow with the Terrorism, Transnational Crime, and Corruption Center, George Mason University. She’s a researcher, writer, and educator in nonviolent action, focusing on anti-corruption, peacebuilding, gender, and human rights, and author of Supporting Nonviolent Action and Movements: A Guide for International Actors (United States Institute of Peace).

Laurence Cox

Laurence Cox is co-author of The Irish Buddhist: the Forgotten Monk who Faced Down the British Empire (Oxford University Press, 2020) and co-editor of the activist/academic journal Interface. He is Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Ireland Maynooth and has been involved in many different movements since the 1980s.

Ahmadullah Archiwal

Ahmadullah Archiwal has two MAs, one in journalism and mass communication from the University of Peshawar (Pakistan) and one in international affairs from the New School University in New York (USA), where he studied as a Fulbright scholar. Archiwal has done pioneering work on civil resistance and has authored three books—two on Khudai Khidmatgar, and one on nonviolent civic mobilization in Pashto.

Andy Buschmann

Andy Buschmann is a PhD student in Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (USA) as well as Oxford University (UK). His work focuses on the interlinks between protest, authoritarianism, and public opinion. He has been studying the emergence and development of the “Be Water” movement while residing in Hong Kong since early June 2019.

Mina Yousefi

Mina Yousefi is an Iranian journalist and academic. She has been working in investigative journalism for more than 12 years focusing on civil society and governance. During the last three years, at Brandeis University (USA), she has been conducting Masters-level research on corruption in Iran and the way this phenomenon has been changing civil dynamics.

María Belén Garrido

María Belén Garrido is a research lecturer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, a researcher at FLACSO, Ecuador, and a Ph.D. student at the Catholic University of Eichstätt/Ingolstadt. Her main expertise is in peace and conflict studies.

Elizabeth A. Wilson

Elizabeth A. Wilson is the author of People Power and International Human Rights: Creating a Legal Framework (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, 2017). She is a human rights lawyer, currently visiting scholar at Rutgers Law School-Newark and formerly Assistant Professor of English at Yale University.

Poncho Hernández

Alfonso Poncho Hernández is a Mexico’s City based activist, community organizer, philosopher, and anthropologist with more than 10 years of work in nonviolence and peacebuilding. His academic work is focused on the use of arts in social responses to violence, including in civil resistance and creative social movements in Latin America. He is specifically interested in peacebuilding through cultural practices in communities with high levels of violence in Mexico.

Søren Warburg

Søren Warburg is a dad, political organizer, social movement and civil resistance strategist, and Rosa Luxemburg lover (beware of the spontaneity of movements). He has been supporting movements globally for the past two decades and currently works as the Head of Youth Organizing and Activism at ActionAid Denmark.

Sonja Stojadinovic

Sonja Stojadinovic is an MA student in Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. She holds bachelor and master degrees in political science and international relations, both obtained on the Faculty of Law, Skopje, University of St. Cyril and Methodius, Republic of North Macedonia. She is also an activist and well-known columnist for North Macedonian daily newspapers and regional political web sites.

Stephen Zunes

Dr. Stephen Zunes is a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco. He serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, an associate editor of Peace Review, a contributing editor of Tikkun, and served for seven years as the first chair of ICNC’s academic advisory committee.

James Gomez

Dr. James Gomez is Chair, Board of Directors of the Asia Centre, a not-for-profit social enterprise that seeks to create human rights impact. A Singapore national and former politician, he is a regular news contributor and international expert.

Lilit Makunts

Since May 2018, Lilit Makunts serves as Minister of Culture of Armenia. Previously, she was an Associate Professor at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan. Since June 2012, she has been fostering civic awareness both in Yerevan and rural areas of Armenia. She is an ICNC Curriculum Fellow (2016-17) and ICNC Summer Institute alumna (2015).

Julius Okoth

Julius Okoth is a social justice crusader based in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently serves as coordinator of the Kenyans for Tax Justice movement. Julius is an alum of ICNC’s Learning Initiatives Network Fellowship (2016).

Hasler Iglesias

Hasler Iglesias is a 27-year-old Venezuelan engineer, activist, and leader of the Voluntad Popular party. He is an alum of the ICNC Latin America Regional Institute (2018) and ICNC-Rutgers Course (fall 2018).

Rachel MacNair

Rachel MacNair has authored several books in peace psychology. She is Director of the Institute for Integrated Social Analysis, research arm of the Consistent Life Network. She has a Bachelor’s in Peace and Conflict Studies, and a Ph.D. in Psychology.

Lester R. Kurtz

Lester R. Kurtz is professor of public sociology at George Mason University Korea, where he teaches peace and conflict studies, comparative sociology of religion, and social theory. He is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Nanjing Massacre History and International Peace and an ICNC Academic Advisor.

Omar Lopez

Omar Lopez is President of the Latin American Center for Nonviolence and Human Rights Director at the Cuban American National Foundation. Previously, he worked as a radio talk show host with Radio Television Marti for 25 years. He is a regular contributor to a variety of newspapers, magazines and websites on human rights, literature, and international relations.

Brian Martin

Brian Martin is Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He has been researching nonviolent action since the late 1970s, with a special interest in strategies for social movements and tactics against injustice. He is the author of 21 books and over 200 articles on nonviolence, dissent, scientific controversies, democracy, education and other topics.

Kara Kingma Neu

Kara Kingma Neu, PhD (International Studies, Josef Korbel School, University of Denver) is a Research Fellow at the Sie Cheou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy and a Visiting Teaching Assistant Professor at the University of Denver. Kara was a recipient of the ICNC 2016 Research Fellowship award.

Maria Stephan

Dr. Maria J. Stephan directs the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace, which focuses on applied research, training and education and informing policies and practice related to civil resistance, nonviolent action and their roles in transforming violent conflict and advancing just peace.

Carinne Luck

Carinne Luck is an organizer, trainer, and strategist living in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is a co-founder of civil resistance groups If Not Now and By The People, a project to impeach Donald Trump, and a member of the Momentum community. She currently co-leads the Rooted in Resilience Mapping Project with Faith Matters Network.

Oakley Hill

Oakley Hill is currently pursuing a masters degree in conflict analysis and resolution at George Mason University, USA. His research interests include peace education in divided societies, using political science data to inform nonviolent resistance strategies, and systemic violence in the United States.

Lee A. Smithey

Lee A. Smithey serves as Coordinator of the Peace and Conflict Studies program at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, USA. He is associate professor in the same program and also serves as ICNC Academic Advisor. Previously, he served as Chair of the Peace, War, and Social Conflict section of the American Sociological Association.

Leonie Fleischmann

Dr. Leonie Fleischmann is a Lecturer in International Politics at City, University of London, where she Directs the Postgraduate Program in Human Rights. She is also a 2017-2018 Research Fellow with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Ilam Khan

Ilam Khan is pursuing a Ph.D. at the Center for International Peace and Stability (CIPS) at the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST). He is also currently a Research Fellow in the department of Political Science and Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA.

Liza López

Liza López is a seasoned Venezuelan journalist and media coordinator for Venezuelan newspapers El Universal, El Nacional, and Últimas Noticias. She is also Director and Editor in Chief of Marcapasos, a chronicles magazine that she founded 10 years ago, which focuses on ordinary peoples’ stories that are little explored in the mainstream media.

Eduardo Burger

Eduardo Burger is a long-time screenwriter and dramatic arts teacher. He creates educational projects and develops media content on human rights, mostly through community engagement, visual arts workshops, and other innovative approaches.

Leanne Erdberg

Leanne Erdberg is the director of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) at the U.S. Institute of Peace where she directs USIP’s CVE program that includes work focused on CVE Research, CVE Practice, and CVE Policy. Previously, Leanne held several advisory positions in the U.S. government.

Giorgi Meladze

Giorgi Meladze is Associate Professor at Ilia State University School of Law in Tbilisi, Georgia. He is a former member of the KMARA movement, a civic youth movement against Shevardnadze’s rule in the early 2000s. He has extensive experience in training grassroots groups and human rights activists locally and internationally. Currently he is one of the organizers of the ჯიუტი/GEUT (“Stubborn Resistance”) movement in Georgia.

Felix S. Bethke

Felix S. Bethke is a researcher at the Cologne Centre for Comparative Politics and an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Development and Peace. His current research focuses on how civil resistance influences political developments.

Cécile Mouly

Cécile Mouly is a French scholar based in Ecuador. She is a research professor specialized in peace and conflict studies at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), and a practitioner in the field. She holds a Ph.D. in International Studies from Cambridge University.

Cécile Mouly es una académica francesa basada en Ecuador. Es profesora investigadora especializada en los estudios de paz y conflictos en la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) y tiene experiencia práctica en el campo. Tiene un Ph.D. en Estudios Internacionales de la Universidad de Cambridge.

Juan Masullo

Juan Masullo, Ph.D. (European University Institute), is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Bremen International Graduate School of the Social Sciences. His academic interests include civil wars, collective action, civil resistance and, more broadly, contentious politics. Previously, in 2016-17, Juan was a Research Fellow at Yale University’s Program on Order, Conflict and Violence.

Bhavana Mahajan

Bhavana is a public policy and communications strategist by day and writer by night. She has published opinion pieces on societal transformation, narratives in conflict and the power of media. She lives and works in Kabul, Afghanistan and New Delhi, India.

Amy Schmidt

Amy is a writer, yoga teacher, activist and student. She most recently worked as the executive director of a nonprofit healthcare organization, before moving on to continue her education. She currently resides in Costa Rica, where she is enrolled in an MA program at the University for Peace.

Markus Bayer

Markus Bayer is a Political Scientist and Ph.D. student at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. His writings have been published in Peacebuilding and the Journal of Peace Research.

Ketakandriana Rafitoson

Ketakandriana Rafitoson is a Malagasy lawyer, political scientist and democracy activist. She also holds Masters degrees in Human Rights and Population and Development, and works with a citizen empowerment group called Wake Up Madagascar. She is a fellow of the ICNC Summer Institute and the ICNC Learning Initiatives Network.

Matteo Dressler

Matteo Dressler is a Programme Officer and researcher for the Conflict Transformation Research programme of  the Berghof Foundation. His current research focuses include nonviolent resistance, inclusivity in peace processes and post-conflict armed social violence.

Maia Hallward

Maia Carter Hallward, Ph.D., is a Professor of Middle East Politics in the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development at Kennesaw State University and Executive Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development. She has published four books and over a dozen peer-reviewed articles on peacebuilding and activism.

Peter Ackerman

Dr. Peter Ackerman is the Founding Chair of ICNC, and one of the world’s leading authorities on nonviolent conflict. He holds a Ph.D. from The Fletcher School, Tufts University, where he presently is the Chairman of the Board, and he is co-author of two seminal books on nonviolent resistance, A Force More Powerful and Strategic Nonviolent Conflict.

Hailey Grace Steele

Hailey Grace Steele is a graduate student at the University of Alabama where she is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism. Her research focuses on the effects of individuals’ disposition toward social groups on support for protest, as well as the influence of protest tactics on media frames of dissent. Hailey Grace has worked as an editorial intern for the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict since March 2017.

Lammi Begna

Lammi studied Chemical Engineering at Bahir Dar University, Ethiopia, and is a human rights activist who spent several years in Ethiopian prisons for fighting against injustice to Oromo people. He authored a book called Under a Gun Barrel. After five years of incarceration he was released in 2013. He supported the Oromo uprising of 2016 and played an underground leading role.

Gabriel Dayley

Gabriel Dayley is the Executive Director of the Shambhala Meditation Center of Washington, DC and Chief Editor of The Arrow: A Journal of Wakeful Society, Culture & Politics. He completed his MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University. Gabe works at ICNC in support of Global Field Initiatives.

Johnson Ching-Yin Yeung

Johnson Ching-Yin Yeung was an organizer of the 2014 Hong Kong Umbrella Movement. Working on mass demonstrations calling for electoral reform and political rights, he was the spokesman of Civil Human Rights Front. He is a recipient of the 2017 ICNC Curriculum Fellowship Award.

Evgeniya Chirikova

Since the summer of 2006, Evgeniya Chirikova has been a central actor in a grassroots movement to save Khimki forest in Russia. Evgeniya has been recognized internationally for her activism, including as recipient of ICNC’s James Lawson Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Practice of Nonviolent Conflict in 2013.

David Riveros Garcia

David is the Executive Director of reAcción, a grassroots NGO in Paraguay that promotes transparency, citizen engagement, and anti-corruption. He founded reAcción at age 17 after leading a 3 week-long peaceful demonstration against corruption in the education system.

Hardy Merriman

Hardy Merriman is President of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), and led ICNC as President & CEO from 2015 until 2021. He has worked in the field of civil resistance for over 20 years, presenting at workshops for activists and organizers; speaking widely to scholars, journalists, and members of international organizations; and developing educational resources.

Amber French

Amber French is Senior Editorial Advisor at ICNC, Managing Editor of the Minds of the Movement blog (est. June 2017) and Project Co-Lead of REACT (Research-in-Action) focusing on the power of activist writing. Currently based in Paris, France, she continues to develop thought leadership on civil resistance in French.

Tom Hastings

Tom H. Hastings, long-time ICNC collaborator, is Coördinator of Conflict Resolution BA/BS degree programs and certificates at Portland State University (USA), PeaceVoice Senior Editor and on occasion an expert witness for the defense of civil resisters in court. He has written several books and many articles about nonviolence and other peace and conflict topics. He is a two-time Plowshares resister and a founding member of two Catholic Worker communities.

Jack DuVall

Jack DuVall is Senior Counselor and Founding Director of ICNC. From 2002 through 2014, he served as President of ICNC. Prior to that, from 1997 through 2001, he collaborated with Peter Ackerman and Steve York in developing the documentary television series “A Force More Powerful,” of which he was executive producer.

Kirsten Han

Kirsten Han is a Singaporean freelance journalist and activist, covering politics, human rights and social justice. She is the co-founder of We Believe in Second Chances, a campaign for the abolition of capital punishment in Singapore.

Joel Preston Smith

Joel Preston Smith is director of field operations and communications for Frontline Wellness United, a nonprofit medical aid society that provides medical care, wellness services and training for social justice activists and nonviolent civil resistance movements. He served in the pipeline resistance camps as evacuation manager and emergency shelter director for the Cannonball District of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.

Ramesh Sharma

Ramesh Sharma is National Coordinator of Ekta Parishad, a mass movement for land rights of marginalized populations in India. He has collaborated with and assisted other nonviolent movements in more than a dozen other countries. Ramesh has also delivered lectures at Cambridge University, the London School of Economics, and Oxford University as well as the British Parliamentary Committee.

Consuelo Amat

Consuelo Amat is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University and a USIP Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar. Consuelo studies state repression, civil society development, and nonviolent and armed resistance. Her past professional experience includes working at the Brookings Institution and at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict.

Steve Chase

Steve Chase is a long-time activist, educator, and writer and previously worked as Manager of Academic Initiatives for ICNC. He is currently the Assistant Director of Solidarity 2020 and Beyond, a solidarity network and community of practice for grassroots movement organizers in the Global South using advocacy, peacebuilding, and nonviolent resistance to win sustainability, rights, freedom, and justice.

A. Scott DuPree

A. Scott DuPree has worked for 30 years in helping build and strengthen social and environmental initiatives in Southern Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Southeast Asia and the United States. He is a professor in the Masters of Development Program “Global Classroom” at Regis University where he teaches participatory planning and grassroots and indigenous activism. Scott holds a Ph.D. in international affairs focused on the dynamic role of civil society.

Ches Thurber

Ches Thurber is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Northern Illinois University. His book, Between Mao and Gandhi: The Social Roots of Civil Resistance, will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. He received his PhD from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Chris Allan

Chris Allan, Ajabu Advisors LLC, has experience with public donors, foundations, and local and international NGOs working in social change, including designing, planning, implementing, and evaluating programs around the globe. He holds a Master’s Degree in Social Change and Development from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and a Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University in African Studies and Biology.

Mohamed Nabil Bennaidja

Mohamed Nabil Bennaidja is a second-year candidate of a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University (USA), concentrating on conflict resolution and international negotiation with a regional focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Subindra Bogati

Subindra Bogati is the Founder and Chief Executive of the Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative, with more than 15 years’ experience working with various national and international organizations on peacebuilding, governance and development issues. Lately, his research, teaching, and policy-oriented work focus on peacebuilding and political violence.