Staff Directory

The Peacebuilding Development and Security Program

Member of the Alliance for Peacebuilding

#7954
Proud member of the
Combined Federal Campaign

The Institute of World Affairs
2711 Jefferson Davis Hwy
Suite 333
Arlington, VA 22202
(703) 414-3577
(703) 414-3576 fax
email IWA

Washington, D.C.

Dr. Hrach Gregorian, President
hgregorian@iwa.org

Dr. Hrach Gregorian has served as President of the Institute of World Affairs for almost 15 years. Gregorian was a founding director of International Dispute Resolution Associates (IDR). Before founding IDR, he served as director of the Education and Training Program at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). During his seven-year tenure at USIP, Gregorian also directed the Institute’s Grant Program. In 1999, Gregorian co-founded the Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), an international network of applied conflict prevention and resolution organizations. He serves on the boards of the Strategic Trade Advisory Group, Ltd. (advisor); The Cypress Fund (advisory board); and Psychology Without Borders (International Advisory Board).

From 1980 until 1985 Gregorian was on the faculty of Simmons College in Boston. He was acting chairman of the political science department immediately prior to his departure for government service. In 1985-88, he held several positions at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Gregorian is an adjunct faculty member in the School of International Service at the American University in Washington, D.C., an Associate Professor in the Conflict Management Programs Division at Royal Roads University in Victoria, Canada, and co-director of the Peacebuilding, Development and Security (PDS) program at the University of Calgary.

Gregorian’s field experience in conflict management and peace-building has taken him to over twenty countries. He regularly provides professional skills training seminars and workshops for UN agency and mission staff, U.S. and Latin American military personnel, senior civilian officials, and academic and corporate leaders in the U.S. and throughout the world. Gregorian’s work has been published in scholarly and popular journals. He has made numerous presentations before professional societies, academic institutions and government agencies. He has appeared on CNN, National Public Radio, USIA Worldnet, Voice of America, the CBC, BBC and local radio and television stations in the United States and abroad.

Ms Judith Kipper, Director, Middle East Programs
jkipper@iwa.org

Judith Kipper, an internationally recognized Middle East specialist, is director of Middle East Programs at the Institute of World Affairs. She established and directed the Council on Foreign Relations Middle East Forum (1985-2007) and she was also the director of the Middle East Studies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Kipper consults to the private sector on Middle East issues. She was an international affairs consultant to ABC News (1985-2007). Previously, she was a guest scholar at The Brookings Institution and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. She travels frequently to the Middle East , particularly to the Gulf states including Saudi Arabia. She also meets regularly with government and business leaders, and others in the region..

Kipper is the co-editor of The Middle East in Global Perspective (Westview Press, 1991); and supervised The West Bank Data Project: A Survey of Israel's Policies, and The Arab-Israeli Military Balance and the Art of Operations. She contributes to publications such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post and comments on television and radio in the United States, Europe, Japan, China and the Middle East. She speaks frequently to university, business, economic, and banking groups on Middle Eastern and international affairs. She has briefed The Brookings Institution Board of Trustees, Council on Foreign Relations Corporate Program, Chase Manhattan Bank Board, Institutional Investor Council, Lockheed Corporation, Mobil Oil Corporation, Shell Oil Company, ExxonMobil, Bear Stearns, World Trade Institute and many other institutions in the United States and internationally.

During the Gulf crisis, Kipper testified as an expert witness before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Appropriations Committee. She was with Peter Jennings of ABC News in Baghdad, Iraq for an extensive interview with President Saddam Hussein (November, 1990). She arrived with Ted Koppel of ABC News in Kuwait just after its liberation. She also went to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza during the Gulf Crisis. Kipper was in Moscow for an ABC News interview with President Gorbachev in July, 1991 which she negotiated and again right after the August coup for the ABC News Town Meeting with Gorbachev and Yeltsin.

Kipper has broad based experience in international relations. She was the international affairs advisor to the publisher and editor at the French newsweekly L'Express in Paris. With a special interest in emerging countries. she drove from Paris to India for six months and then spent a year in Israel and Egypt before returning to the United States. She served on the board of Middle East Watch, a human rights organization; is a member of the advisory board of Search for Common Ground in the Middle East and serves on the board of the Institute of World Affairs.

Gary Ryan, Ph.D., Director, Education Programs

Gary Ryan is currently principal partner for Gettysburg Integrated Solutions, LLC, in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. His firm provides consulting support to corporate, federal, non-governmental agencies, Department of Defense and various institutions of higher education. Dr. Ryan has extensive government program management experience in the area of intelligence support to combat operations, systems integration, financial planning, programmatics and Congressional liaison. In addition to over thirty nine years of military service, in the U.S. Navy, Dr. Ryan has over twenty years of experience in higher education as a University Administrator and educator. His last tour of duty in the Navy was in Washington DC, where he served as Deputy Associate Director of Naval Intelligence. His academic preparation is in the areas of pedagogy, computer information systems, and system’s analysis. Cited by one of his alma mater’s, the University of Rhode Island, as an innovator in the area of computer assisted instruction he also has a scholarship named after him at the University of Texas at Arlington where he was a faculty member. His major areas of research involve innovative utilization and creative application of systems to support remote processing capabilities to enhance operational performance, training, contingency operations, pedagogy and curriculum development. Dr. Ryan is the co-author of two textbooks and nearly fifty refereed articles on system implementation, pedagogy, curriculum development, computer applications in education and distributed learning. He holds a BGS in History and Literature from Rollins College, a MA in Computer Science and Educational Research from the University Rhode Island and a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a cognate in Systems Analysis from the University of Texas at Austin.

James Mitchell, Chief Informational Officer

James has spent the last two decades working to address community based conflicts, focussing primarily on the systemic conflicts experienced by groups marginalized within Canadian society. James obtained his first two degrees, an honours BA in Psychology and an honours BA in Sociology, from York University in 1987 and in 2004 he was awarded a Masters Degree in Conflict Analysis and Management from Royal Roads University. James specialized in Social, Political and Ethnic conflicts and returned to community based conflicts as the Executive Director of the South Island Dispute Resolution Centre Society and a faculty team member at Royal Roads University.

James has been involved in issues of mental retardation and physical disability, homelessness in a large urban setting, juvenile and youth criminal behaviours, the legal and political system in Ontario and British Columbia as well as issues of Affordable Housing. James was also instrumental in designing, setting up and running two youth based recreational programs in the Victoria region. Along with his work with the Institute of World Affairs, James is also the CIO for the de novo group and the Executive Director of the Housing Affordability Partnership in Victoria, BC.

Dr. Marit Kitaw, (on a leave-of-absence)
mkitaw@iwa.org

Marit Kitaw is specialized in sub-Saharan African countries, with a focus on Ethiopia. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Nice/Sophia-Antipolis, France in May 2000. She has written extensively on the causes of the marginalization of sub-Saharan African countries in world trade and on its impact on economic growth. Marit was born and raised in Ethiopia where she completed her high school education. She then pursued her higher studies in France where she specialized in International and Development Economics. She has previously worked on a number of economic development issues in international organizations including the United Nations Development Program, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, and the International Olympic Committee.