Conflict Resolution Alumni Panel

Discuss career advice, hear stories, and ask your questions to SIPA alumni working in the Conflict Resolution field.

Panelists:
Madeline Vellturo is a policy analyst with nearly seven years of experience conducting policy-oriented research on conflict dynamics in west and central Africa. Following more than four years with the Stimson Center's Protecting Civilians in Conflict Program, she now serves as the west and central Africa policy analyst with the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Her research has focused on violence against civilians, atrocity prevention and ethno-religious violence, and food security and pastoralism-related conflict. She lived and worked in Ghana, C├┤te d'Ivoire, Kenya, and Uganda, and has conducted field research in Mali, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan. Madeline received a Bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Master's degree from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.

José S. Vericat is a Middle East expert with more than two decades of experience working in conflict zones and active war theaters. He has led negotiations with armed non-state actors and interviewed hundreds of militants, including movement founders, senior political leaders, religious figures, military commanders and foot soldiers. Before joining the European Institute of Peace, he was the Carter Center's Israel-Palestine Country Representative and Field Office Director promoting viable peace between Israelis and Palestinians and inter-Palestinian reconciliation. Previously, he was a Middle East advisor at the International Peace Institute (IPI) influencing policy-making at the UN headquarters, an EU official working on security sector reform in Palestine, and a prize-winning journalist covering the Second Intifada and the Iraq war. His main professional areas and academic interests are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Gaza Strip, political Islam and the religious discourse of Islamist movements. He is a regular contributor to the peer-reviewed Journal of Palestine Studies, where in September 2020 he published the long essay "A Palestinian Statelet in Gaza". He has a PhD in Oriental Studies from Oxford University—where he was the Sheikh Zayed Islamic Studies scholar—and an MA in International Relations from Columbia University. He speaks fluent Spanish and Arabic, and has full professional working proficiency in Hebrew.

Lidia Cano Pecharromán is currently a researcher focusing on the intersection of conflict prevention and climate disaster risk planning, as a PhD student at MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning. She is also a Legal and Policy Advisor at Climate, Law and Policy (CLP), an organization that works on climate change and natural resources management from a social and environmental safeguards perspective, providing advice to governments and international organizations. Lidia has published work on water security issues, the Rights of Nature, environmental governance and conflict prevention in the extractive sector, and the role of civil society in conflict prevention amongst others. She has also collaborated as an attorney and researcher with the UC Berkeley Center for the Law, Energy and Environment, and worked for Radon Law Offices, LSE and the Natural Resources and Governance Institute, as well as UNDESA and the UN operations and crisis center. Lidia was a visiting scholar at NYU and holds a master's in international affairs and African studies from UAM, a master's in international and public affairs from Columbia University, and a Law Degree from UAM, being a member of the Madrid Bar Association. Lidia is a La Caixa fellow and former Fulbright fellow.

Heidi Rosbe has spent over 15 years designing, facilitating and managing programs for crisis- and conflict-affected populations in the United States and internationally, including work for the International Rescue Committee, United Nations Development Programme, the Women's Refugee Commission, Soliya and the Arab American Association of New York. From 2010 to 2018, she served as Deputy Director for Encounter, a nonpartisan educational organization working on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and has taught peacemaking/peacebuilding as a adjunct instructor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs. She is a trained medi­ator and speaks some Arabic, French, and Spanish. Heidi holds an MIA degree, focused on Human Rights, Conflict Resolution and Gender Policy from SIPA.

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Co-hosted with: Human Rights & Humanitarian Policy Concentration

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