We are excited to announce our first episode featuring student voices! Thu Thu May Oo and Erina Iwasaki are current graduate students of Teachers College, Columbia University. They discuss their perspectives on the current situation in Myanmar and their involvement with the Myanmar Association at Columbia University (MAC). **This episode was record…

During the difficult times we’ve been living, facing the pandemic, racism, and socioeconomic distress, art rises as a breath of fresh air, at times translating what we have difficulty putting into words, at times, magnifying social and racial issues that can no longer remain overlooked, but always a powerful tool to process reality. In this episode…

In the international Covid coverage there’s a tendency for uplifting Global North countries in their efforts of control and solution creation while undermining Global South countries, as places bound to be the scenario of the worst calamities, incapable of responding efficiently to the crisis or where good covid response numbers are something surpr…

Humanitarian efforts were and still are dominated by donors and organizations based in the United States and Europe. However, these efforts are frequently targeted at low and middle-income countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, often without taking into account the perspectives and expertise of affected persons. This system replicates co…

The so-called “discovery” of the world by European navigators in the XV century is the event that defines the beginning of the historical process known as colonialism, a system marked by the exploitation of labor and expropriation of land that is still present in different forms in the international geopolitical arena. In this episode, the first of…

In this episode, we explore the work of the Community of Sant'Egidio, a religious group connected to the catholic church that has been an important stakeholder in peace processes around the world. Andrea Bartoli, an international conflict resolution expert for over three decades and president of the Community of Sant'Egidio Foundation for Peace and…

Hakim Mohandas Amani Williams is a prominent scholar in the area of Peace Education who shares in this interview about the work he has been developing in his home country, Trinidad and Tobago, around violence in schools and how that matter goes far beyond school walls in this and other developing countries. Williams is an Associate Professor of Afr…

By AC4 - Columbia

Eliana Elías, Co-founder and Executive Director of Minga Perú, sat down with us to discuss her experiences working in the Peruvian Amazon and other rural areas to design and implement strategies that combine communications, women's leadership and sustainable community development. She shares insights and stories about her initiatives with NGOs and …

In January 2019, we sat down with University of Hawai`i student Marcus Armstrong-Patterson and Chief Resilience Officer of Honolulu Joshua Stanbro to discuss what the city is doing to adapt to climate change. The City and County of Honolulu Office of Climate Change, Sustainability and Resiliency (Resilience Office) was established by City Charter i…

Anastase Nabahire, the Coordinator of the Justice, Reconciliation, Law and Order Sector Secretariat in Rwanda discusses the role of restorative justice and mediation practices in post-genocide Rwanda. Interviewed by AC4 Co-Executive Director Peter T. Coleman, Nabahire shares his background and learnings on what a trauma-informed justice system is a…

"From the standpoint of a refugee family, unity is critical to their strength-building and success" says humanitarian response experts Neil Boothby and Zahirah McNatt. As part of an initiative to conduct a regional study on the effects of family separation on displaced people, Boothby and McNatt have published a report on Syrian refugees in Jordan.…

Jose Pascal da Rocha, a lecturer on Mediation at Columbia University in the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution MSc Program with over 20 years experience in crisis negotiation in volatile environments, discusses his extensive experience and new books on the topic in this conversation with Beth Fisher-Yoshida. Professor da Rocha tells us about his b…

Accomplished astrophysicist and mathematician Larry Liebovitch discusses his current work on the AC4 Sustainable Peace Project with project lead, Peter T. Coleman. Liebovitch is a Professor of Physics and Psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York and also currently an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at AC4. The professors di…

In this interview by Meredith Smith, Stephen Gray talks about recent work in Myanmar and his extensive experience in the conflict resolution field, sharing stories, insights and career advise for current students and aspiring peacebuilders. Stephen Gray is a practitioner, author, and entrepreneur in the field of international conflict resolution. A…

"I am an American, a Muslim, an academic, a believer. I believe the only way to learn is to teach. As a speaker and writer I hope to work with you and your community." This from Hussein Rashid. Hussein Rashid is a Professor in the Religion Department at Barnard College of Columbia University, and he is the founder of Islamicate, a consultancy based…

In this episode, Peter T. Coleman interviews Dr. Desmond Patton, an innovative social work researcher who focuses on youth violence research. He shares stories about his research on Internet Banging, as well as the potential utility of social media to identify certain hot zones or spots of violence as well as the implications and challenges of work…

Dr. Kenneth Kressel studies the nature and management of social conflict, with a particular focus on the use of third party mediation as a method for resolving highly polarized conflicts. Dr. Kressel has researched how professional mediators decide what to do when resolving disputes, looking at strategies and practices that lead to mediator success…

"The new name of the game is leaks. This has a lot of different effects; one is on our sense of privacy," says Jenik Radon, Professor at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He sees the Panama Papers - an unprecedented leak of 11.5 million files from the database of the world' fourth largest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca - as…

In this special episode for November 2016, Ali Dineen joined Meredith Smith and Drew Pham, both organizers and colleagues at AC4, for a musical set of folk songs and discussion about the importance of music as a tool for bridging divides and addressing social justice. Ali Dineen is a musician and visual artist who lives in NYC and has been making i…

This month's episode features the talk that followed a set of short documentary film screenings focused on Education and Empowerment in the Syrian Refugee Crisis, the first of AC4's 2nd annual Perspectives on Peace series. The films for this screening included two videos from Capture the Moment: Mobiles for Education competition, sponsored by Their…

Tule Lake, as shown in the images, is both part of the surrounding landscape in northern California and the site of an original prison camp, says Cathlin Goulding. Cathlin, a cultural researcher currently pursuing her doctorate at Teachers College, shares about this incarceration site that used to be the size of a small city with about 20,000 Japan…

In this episode, we learn more about the youth leaders and partners on the ground for the Urban Violence Prevention project, which is taking place in Medellín, Colombia and led by AC4's Dr. Beth Fisher-Yoshida. Joán Camilo Lopez, AC4 Project Coordinator, speaks with members of the Arte-C8 Youth Network, the artists in hip-hop group AK-47, and the s…

The following interview is from Conversations on the Leading Edge, a collaboration between the Earth Institute's Advanced Consortium on Conflict, Cooperation, and Complexity and WKCR's Late City Edition. In this conversation, Dr. Peter Coleman interviews his colleagues Nick Redding & Christianna Gozzi about the formation of AC4 and the development …

For this month's collaboration with The Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4), Professor Peter Coleman sits down with Professor Marc Levy. The two discuss Professor Levy's work in Haiti, leading up to and following the devastating 2010 earthquake. Professor Levy is Deputy Director of the Center for International Earth S…

In this month's collaboration with The Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4), conversation between Professor Peter Coleman and Shahar Sadeh, a visiting Israeli scholar, in collaboration with the Advanced Consortium on Conflict, Cooperation, and Complexity at the Earth Institute. Sadeh spoke of her work with nature parks…

AC4, in collaboration with Scensei, the design analytics and decision support boutique, has spent the past six months engaged in an investigation exploring self-determination as a democratic process in the Basque Country. In particular, this project involved an independent study on Sustainable Human Development, conducting research in collaboration…

Going further into the story behind Uniform Justice, Chukwuma Obasi continues the conversation from July episode, with AC4's Meredith Smith and colleague Kim Nguyen. Chukwuma Obasi, creator of performance-documentary work, actor, playwright, and social justice activist, tells more about the planning and production of Uniform Justice, a program with…

Dr. Jason Healey is an expert on current events and policies that effect the cyber realm and the role of cooperation and conflict in cyber space. Dr. Healey is a Professor and Senior Research Scholar at SIPA and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he was the founding director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative. Here he discusses and give…

Jin In, women's advocate, speaker and founder of 4Girls GLocal Leadership - 4GGL joins us on conversations form the leading edge for International Women's DayEastern-born, western-bred, Jin In today is a committed global citizen igniting a new power source – the next generation of empowered female leaders who will transform the world.Girls GLocal L…

Chukwuma Obasi leads Uniform Justice, a performance-documentary project working to improve community police relations, and in this episode he shares his story about this work of art, conflict resolution and social justice with AC4's Meredith Smith. Uniform Justice is run with Intersections International, an organization based in NYC, and has curren…

In this episode, we feature powerful remarks given by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Ms. Leymah Gbowee, at this year's Sustaining Peace Conference at Columbia University. For this show, we include the first part of Gbowee's keynote address on the theme of Women, Peace and Security. Full video of the keynote as well as the following panel discussion wi…

Meredith Smith interviews Michael Hanchett Hanson, a professor of creativity at Columbia, along with Melissa Cesarano, a doctorate student of cognitive studies, focused on socio-emotional learning. Dr. Hanson spent the last 15 years teaching and researching on the development of creativity at Teachers College, and in arts classrooms with learners o…

Dr. Janna Levin, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Columbia, discusses the topic of nuclear energy and containment, and its connections to peace and conflict, with AC4's Meredith Smith and Kim Nguyen. Dr. Levin specializes in black holes and chaos theory, including the cosmology of extra dimensions and gravitational waves in the shape of spacet…

In this conversation, Professor Beth Fisher-Yoshida discusses Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), a communications approach to sustaining peace and resolving conflict within communities. She talks with Venera Kusari, 2015 CMM Fellow and alumni of Columbia's Masters in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution program, and host, Meredith Smith. The c…

In this conversation, Meredith Smith talks with Dr. Peter Coleman about Dynamical Systems Theory (DST), a mathematical approach to sustaining peace and resolving conflict. He tells about the historical origins of DST as well as current initiatives. Dr. Peter Coleman is a Professor of Psychology and Education at Columbia, the director of the Morton …

In this conversation, Meredith Smith talks with Debi Spindelman, the practice manager for Columbia | SIPA's Masters of Public Administration in Development Practice (MDP) program, and Kevin Johnson, an alumnus of the MDP program who is currently working in Sierra Leone as the Vice President of Professional Services at an organization called I.B.I.S…

The three co-founders of a community-based organization named Fundación Puerta Abierta, based in Medellín, Colombia join AC4’s Kyong Mazarro to discuss their work to foster, encourage, develop and support youth and their communities toward transcending violence and creating social change.Release date: July 2015…

André Corrêa d’Almeida discusses his work in sustainability and international development with AC4 Director, Joshua Fisher. They explore elements of trust building and the role of conflict resolution skills in sustainable development. André Corrêa d’Almeida is Professor and Program Manager of the Masters program in Development Practice at Columbia …

Interview with Dr. Louis Kriesberg, distinguished conflict scholar, on his new book Realizing Peace: A Constructive Conflict ApproachRelease date: April 2015By AC4 - Columbia

Meredith Smith, AC4’s Research Coordinator, interviews Dr. Jill Strauss about arts and conflict resolution and about her upcoming workshop “Storytelling in Contexts of Conflict” which will be at the 2015 Sustaining Peace Conference on March 26th.Release date: March 2015By AC4 - Columbia

AC4's Josh Fisher interviews Columbia's Glenn Denning, director of both the MPA in Development Practice Program and the Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development at the Earth Institute, on the topics of agriculture and conflict. Photo of the Millennium Village Project in Malawi, from Earth Institute Blog: http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012…

Beth Fisher-Yoshida interviews Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.Release date: February 2015By AC4 - Columbia

Peter Coleman interviews Larry Liebovitch, AC4 Adjunct Senior Research Scientist Professor of Physics and Psychology at Queens College of the City University of New York.Release date: December 2014By AC4 - Columbia

Peter Coleman interviews José Pascal da Rocha, a professor of conflict resolution at Columbia discussing his experiences in the field and explaining how paper-based role-playing games have helped him solve huge and seemingly intractable real-world problems. Release date: November 2014By AC4 - Columbia

Beth Fisher-Yoshida interviews Alex Fischer, Associate Director of the Haiti Research and Policy Program at Columbia University’s Earth Institute and Senior Research Associate with CIESIN at Earth Institute.Release date: August 2014By AC4 - Columbia

Peter Coleman interviews John Barkat, Assistant Secretary-General and head of the Ombuds (or conflict mediation) program at the United nations.Release date: July 2014By AC4 - Columbia

In this conversation with Peter T. Coleman, Dr. Blattman explains how employment opportunities and plain old cash incentives can help high-risk men in Liberia avoid seeking out work as mercenary soldiers. To learn more about Dr. Blattman's work, check out his profile in AC4-Link: http://ac4link.ei.columbia.edu/profiles/detail/178Release Date: May 2…

Researcher and conflict educator Naira Musallam discusses conflict dynamics in Israel, Palestine, Iraq, and Syria, and explains how chaos theory can help mediators better understand conflict zones.'Release date: June 2014By AC4 - Columbia

Peter Coleman discusses the 2013 Kenyan elections with Jacqueline Klopp.Release date: April 2014By AC4 - Columbia