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Friday Keynote Speakers

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Barbara Wien

Since 1981, Barbara Wien has worked to end human rights abuses, violence, war, and ecological destruction.  She has protected civilians from the death squads in conflict zones and worked to establish 280 programs in the study of peace and conflict resolution on campuses around the world.  Barbara is a public scholar and peace practitioner with extensive knowledge of gender violence, peace-building, nonviolent social movements, and the political economy of war.  She teaches in the School of International Service at American University in Washington DC.   She has edited and written 27 books and articles, led eight non-profits, and taught at six universities. She has been recognized for her leadership and “moral courage” four times by foundations and academic societies, and was named "Peace Educator of the Year" in 2018 by the Peace & Justice Studies Association (PJSA), a network of 500 campuses in Canada and the U.S.   Her American University students voted her “Professor with the Greatest Impact” in 2018 and 2019, and graduate students voted her “My Favorite Professor” in 2015 and 2017. She was featured in Amy Goodman’s book Exceptions to the Rulers (2003), and the Progressive magazine for opposing the U.S. military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as a government official.  Her interviews include The Washington Post, NBC Nightly News, Defense One, National Public Radio, Australian Broadcasting, Nuclear Times, and broadcasts in India, Uganda, Zambia, Palestine-Israel, and Australia.

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Mainlehwon Vonhm

Mainlehwon Ebenezer Vonhm is a Liberian national, and survivor of civil war. He fled his home at the height of the Liberian civil war and lived as a refugee in several West African countries before relocating to the United States in 1997.  He enrolled at Florida State University and as a student in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, he organized a campus seminar to mitigate tensions between Christian and Muslim students, didactically using his own experiences as a victim of terror. In recognition of his efforts, he received the Southern Poverty Law Center's Rosa Parks Tolerance Award. In 2004, he earned a Master of Arts degree in International Peace and Conflict Resolution from American University in Washington, DC. A year later, he returned to Liberia with the World Bank to work on community development projects through participatory peace-building practices. In 2008, he established the Center for Peace Education, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping children affected by war acquire the knowledge and attitudes to peacefully coexist. For his dedication to peace-building, he received a Peacemaker Award from American University’s Peace-building and Development Institute in 2010. In 2011 he earned his M.Phil Degree in Education Research, from the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Mainlehwon is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the College of Education with concentration in peace-building and conflict resolution at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. 

Saturday Presenters

Roundtable 1: Peace Museums: History, Memorialization and Education for Peace

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Dr. Mindy Farmer
May 4 Visitors Center

Dr. Mindy Farmer is the director of the May 4 Visitors Center at ������ where she oversees all aspects of the Center’s educational programming and academic outreach.  During her tenure, the Center has doubled in size to include a new Reflection Gallery where she and her team create new, original exhibitions, including a recent series honoring the four students killed on May 4, 1970. Farmer is the coauthor, with James Tyner, of Cambodia and Kent State: In the Aftermath of Nixon’s Expansion of the Vietnam War and the recipient of the Public Education and Awareness Award from the Ohio History Connection for her work at the Center.  Prior to joining ������, Farmer oversaw the education program at the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. She also taught various history courses at the University of Dayton and her alma mater Ohio State University. 

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Kjersti Fløgstad
Nobel Peace Center, Norway

Kjersti Fløgstad is Executive Director of the Nobel Peace Center (since February 2020). She is former secretary general of UNICEF Norway (2000-211) and has served on several boards, including a four-year stint as chair of the aid organization Care Norway. From 2012, Fløgstad worked as a business consultant and advisor, focusing of sustainability and corporate social responsibility.Fløgstad joined the Nobel Peace Center from DNB, where she worked with corporate social responsibility linked to the bank’s sustainability and diversity programmes.Fløgstad holds a Master of Business Administration from BI, Norwegian Business School.

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Kevin Kelly
Dayton Peace Museum

Kevin is a native Midwesterner but has mostly lived and worked on both US coasts and overseas in education, television/radio/film media, and consulting. He has advanced degrees from Ohio University and The College of Charleston in Communications, Political Science, and Education. He has been with the Dayton Peace Museum since 2015, and its Director since 2018. He has made major upgrades in the museum’s exhibits, collaborations, website, and social media. He has introduced podcasting, a fellowship program with the Austrian Service Abroad, a television series with ThinkTV and PBS Kids for children, a book and NPR podcast on gun violence with The Facing Project. Kevin serves on the Peace in Our Cities global initiative, recognized by the United Nations, for spearheading efforts to decrease violence in cities and  as an advisor on the INMP-the International Network for Museums of Peace. He has been a regular guest of the Austrian Peace Service with their students-in-training program in Vienna. He recently lobbied the Austrian government to turn Adolf Hitler’s birth home into a peace museum.

Roundtable 2: Peace Education Around the World: Strategies for conflict and post conflict education for peace 

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Dr. Sara Clarke-Habibi
Georg Arnhold 2021 Senior Fellow on Education for Sustainable Peace at the Georg Eckert Institute, Germany

Dr. Sara Clarke-Habibi is the Georg Arnhold 2021 Senior Fellow on Education for Sustainable Peace at the Georg Eckert Institute in Germany. She is also a consultant for the United Nations in the Western Balkans on peace-building, education and youth empowerment. Her research and teaching focus on educational intersections with violent conflict, displacement, transitional justice, historical trauma and social healing, post-conflict reconstruction and intergroup reconciliation. She is particularly interested in how these issues affect the development of educational policy, curricula and textbooks; teacher identity, practice and agency; formal and non-formal educational interventions in transitional societies; memory and intergenerational relations in educational settings; and strategies for empowering youth as critical peace actors. In addition to scientific articles, Sara has published four manuals on educating for intercultural dialogue, peace-building and dealing with the past which are used in formal and non-formal settings across the Western Balkans. Sara earned an M.Phil and Ph.D in Education from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and Fellow of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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Ilham Nasser
Director of Empirical Research in Human Development, International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT)

Ilham Nasser is the Director of Empirical Research in Human Development, at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) and part of the initiative on Advancing Education in Muslim Societies (AEMS). She has spent over twenty-five years in research addressing children’s development and their psycho-social wellbeing. She is also a teacher educator and curriculum developer who trained teachers on civic engagement, forgiveness, and diversity in many communities around the world. She holds a PhD in Human Development and Child Study from the University of Maryland–College Park. Dr. Nasser was a faculty in teacher education (promoted to Associate Professor) at George Mason University and is the author of peer-reviewed books, journal articles, and book chapters in education. Her recent research focus is on teaching and learning as well as curriculum development in sociocultural and political contexts and ways these influence children’s development. Dr. Nasser has launched the first curriculum and regional research on forgiveness in the Arab World. She is the past President of the Peace Education Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association (AERA). 

Dr. Sylvestre Nzahabwanayo
University of Rwanda

Dr. Sylvestre Nzahabwanayo is a Lecturer at the University of Rwanda College of Education (UR-CE) and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP) in Rwanda. His research involves the application of political philosophy to education including issues such as citizenship, values, and peace education with a focus on youth in conflict-affected communities. Also, he specialized in social psychology with emphasis on using Q-Methodology. Currently he is coordinating a Covid-19 response project on providing online psychosocial support through arts-based approaches.