I consider myself a conflict resolution practitioner who wants to not just help manage conflicts but understand the global systems that order how we exist and give rise to violence in the first place. This desire first led me become a US Peace Corps volunteer focusing in youth development in Ukraine. From there I got my MA in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University, focusing on arts, conflict and peacekeeping. It was during my time at Georgetown that I got a Boren Fellowship to study languages and do research in Tunisia. I was in Tunis when the Arab Spring occurred and witnessed the amazing experience of a civilian population changing a dictatorial government with a minimum amount of violence (a reality that sadly did not continue as the Arab Spring spread). The Tunisian Military played a major role in why the power transition was so non-violent, this only deepened my desire to understand the structures that could create dictators yet also provide militaries who refused to fire on unarmed civilians.
After my time in Tunisia and at Georgetown I began working for the United States Institute of Peace at the then Center for Gender and Peacebuilding. At USIP I learned the critical importance of gender inclusive peacemaking and the particular dangers to equality posed by extremist actors. I helped design and implement the Women Preventing Extremist Violence. At USIP I came to understand that we organise our world through many lenses and gender is by far the most influential.
Working in the Peace Corps, my experiences in Tunisia and my time at USIP made me realize that the conflicts lie at the intersection of many fields. I embarked on a PhD at the University of Queensland in an effort to understand the emergence of conflict caused by the sovereignty and heterocentric world order. My PhD was completed in 2019.
I continued my academic journey as a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at RMIT where I worked on a project with Dr Charles T. Hunt, investigating the unique role the UN police can play in preventing radicalisation and extremism in contexts where peacekeepers are deployed. I am currently a lecturer in Strategic Studies at Deakin University.
