ALUMNI

Pictures: Record UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace.

Due to the multi and interdisciplinary character of Peace Studies, there are many career paths open to graduates. This also depends upon the previous background and education of each student before entering the program. We have been attempting to contact alumni to find out their current areas of work and research as well as their invlovements in projects. Below we have compiled this information in order to describe the types of jobs and careers available to students after completing their Master's degree. We have received a large response, but have not heard from all alumni. If you would like to provide us with updated information regarding your professional status and/or contact information, please send an e-mail to the following address: epd@uji.es

Pictures: Record UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Peace.

• Christopher Fitz (U.S.A.): works at Iraq Speakers Bureau in Education for Peace in Iraq Center.

• Michael Kennedy (U.S.A, Irish): was doing his doctorate in Limerick, Ireland.

• Lasse Melgaard (Denmark): worked with the UN in development.

• Terry Myers (U.S.A.): teaches disadvantaged children in Los Angeles.

• Manuel Ernesto Salamanca (Colombia): Professor in Colombia (he is now doing his doctorate in Deusto in Bilbao).

• Dori Apanewicz (U.S.A.): She completed the Master in 1999 and then completed her course work for the PhD Program in Peace Conflicts and Democracy in 2001. She is currently conducting her thesis research on Feminism as a New Humanism and is working with the Master Program.

• Narcisse Dabire (Burkina Faso): He is teaching in a secondary school while looking for a better job, that is, a job which has to do with peace.

• Jeremy King (Canada): He is currently a UN Civil Affairs Officer serving as the Speech Writer tosenior management in the Office of the Special Representative of theSecreary-General, United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH).

• Marybeth Lenkevich (U.S.A.): She is an attorney and is working for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP as an attorney specializing in federal securities regulation and corporate law (mergers and acquisitions) in McLean, Virginia (DC suburbs). She is currently licensed to practice law in Virginia and Washington, DC. She has received her Juris Doctor from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia in May, 2000. She started to work for Morgan, Lewis right after graduation and taking the Virginia bar exam. She took a few negotiation/mediation courses in law school for which my MA studies were quite helpful.

• Paul Turner (U.S.A.): He went to Malawi from South Africa to look for a position working with the famine relief that is going on at the moment.

• Guillermo Viera (U.S.A.): He is working in the Federal Criminal Court in Los Angeles, CA, and is currently enrolled in a PhD program in educational sociology.

• Michael Brown: He is living in Minneapolis, still, working on my Ph.D. in philosophy and teaching. While there, He works with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international, interfaith peace organization (http://www.forusa.org).

• Teis Piel Christensen (Denmark): presently living in Botswana and just had a daughter with former student Anna Hoybe. He is conducting field studies in East Timor and Botswana to complete his Master's degree at the Department of Geography and the Department of International Development studies, Roskilde University, Denmark. Local Communities Officer in Mitrovica / Kosovo for the United Nations(UNMIK). Registration Supervisor under United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo. (Seconded by United Nations Volunteers). Manager in Denmark's leading jazz club - Copenhagen Jazzhouse. Working in Social Institutions in Denmark as a Social education worker primarily in an institution for young teenagers with various social and mental problems. BA in Development studies and Geography at Roskilde University, Denmark.

• Nicoleta Danga (Romania): Teaching Assistant - Department of World Economics, Head of Projects Division; Project Coordinator, UNMIK-EU (TREPCA Mining complex).

• Anna Hoybye (Denmark): MA in Political Science from University of Aarhus, Denmark. Work: Worked as an intern in the NGO: Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in South Africa in 1998. Senior-Fellow in the international (American/Danish/Dutch/German) educational organisation Humanity in Action. Worked as a United Nations Volunteer in UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor ) as a District Electoral Officer in 2001 Presently: Working as a JPO/Programme Officer in Governance & Public Sector Reform in UNDP's country Office in Botswana. She expects to stay here until 2005.
  

• Catalina Rojas (Colombia): She became a Ph.C Candidate in August 2001, ever since she has been working on her doctoral proposal which is in the role of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the resolution of intrastate conflicts. In addition she is researching zones of peace in Colombia, El Salvador and the Philippines. She has been participating in international academic conferences such as the International Studies Association and the Latin American Studies Association since last year with research papers, some of which have been published in the US and Colombia. Since November of last year she has been doing training on leadership skills and conflict resolution to memebers of the Arlington Community ( a hispanic community in the Washington area). Her plans for this summer (2002) are to finish my doctoral proposal and possibly to start working at an international NGO doing research on internally displaced populations. She also taught a course this semester at the university called " Conflict Transformation in Latin America".

• Dele A. Sonubi (Nigeria): Completed the MA Program Degree from Spain, returned back to Nigeria and started working on a book about the Yoruba Culture and mythology. From late 1999, got a job offering at the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a political NGO from Germany affliated with the Free Democratic Party from German. He has been there as a program officer till date (...2003).

• Harun M. Abello Silva (Colombia): He is working as an International History Teacher at the Externado Colombia University.

• María Lucía Amorocho (Colombia): She is working as a psychologist and also with Fundación Social El Taller and WYCA with displaced people.

• José Raul Celda Montalt (Spain): at the moment he is carrying out the position of external consultant in the office of Cooperation to Development and External Relations of the Valencian Governement.

• Adrián Ciancio (Argentina): He is an Associate Expert in Public Information for the Peace Operation Department of the United Nations.

• Hanne Engelstad (Norway): She is working for the Campus for Peace, an initiative of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (a distance or virtual university based in Barcelona) providing NGOs with Intranet and e-learning technology.

• Gabriela Enríquez Ortíz (Mexico): Since the term she has been working for the Mexican governement as a counsellor and educator on economic and labor development of women with low resources. Specially educating them about their labour rights. This work was for one year then she got involved in an academic institution in Tijuana Baja California, called El Colegio de la Frontera Norte as a coordinator of a human rights program for migrants. This job also endured for one year and was basically related with research about migration and human rights.

• Albena Haralmpieva (Bulgaria): Since 2001, she has been with the American Red Cross Delegation in Bulgaria, as a program assistant and coordinator of projects (on humanitarian/food aid, disaster preparedness/organizational development).

• George Hikah Benson (Uganda): He is currently pursuing a doctorate programme of law at the Univerisitat Jaume I of Castellón (Spain). During holidays he will return to Ghana to work for his own NGO. He is also involved in a number of organisations including the World Peace Prayer Society of which he is the Peace Representative in Accra,Ghana.

• Peter Lund-Thomsen (Denmark): He did MPhil in Environment and Development, University of Cambridge 1999-2000. Completed MSC in International Business Administration and Development Studies, 2001 Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. Postgraduate course coordinator in course on development evaluation. He is now teaching an undergraduate course on business communication.

• Octavian Sofransky (Moldova): He recently joined the Council of Europe as an Administrator in charge of the social impact evaluation of the projects submitted to the CoE Development Bank. He is an active member of the European Center in Moldova, TRANSFUSE network for the Future of Sotheastern Europe.

• Sandra Ardila Jiménez (Colombia): She works for Piensa en Red, as PDA Director of Marketing and Communication (http://www.piensaenred.com/marketing.html).

• Justin Badou (Burkina Faso): After completing his last term, he immediately was involved in an evaluation mission of the Spanish Red Cross in Burkina Faso. The mission consisted in assessing a couple of projects, funded by the Spanish Red Cross and implemented in Burkina, by especially measuring the social impact of these projects on the lives of women beneficiaries (how their daily lives have improved in terms of literacy, finance, solidarity, knowledge, etc). It comes within the framework of grassroots development.

• Nikki Briones (The Philippines): Has been teaching at De La Salle University since she finished the Master. In the past two years she has continued her research and has paticipated twice in the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute. Then she also got a Southeast Asia Conflict Studies Grant to conduct research on conflict resolution in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. Finally, she was at the ASEAN Peoples Assembly, and presented a paper and co-headed a project on creating an ASEAN Women's Rights Scorecard.
  

• María Lidón Escrig Sos (Spain): She is professor at the University of Nursing and works for Amnesty International and Doctors without Borders (Médicos sin Fronteras).

• Lela Goginava (Georgia): Works in Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the division of the Council of Europe and Human Rights Protection and also represents the foreign ministry to the different committees of the CoE.

• Marjan Jukic (Serbia): He is a Regional Program Coordinator for Peacebuilding and Global Solidarity with Catholic Relief Services/Europe. Basically, he is doing coordination work and strategic guidance as well as all kinds of technical, peacebuilding support to his country's programs. He is moving into full operational management of CRS peacebuilding programs in Europe.

• Erik E. Cleves Kristensen (Denmark): Module 2 of international development studies at Rokilde university. Did a 100 page report on the peace process in Guatemala. Was in Guatemala in the fall 2001 to visit the UN in Guatemala. From January 2001: Assisted in a project on regional integration in Latin America, theoretically based on theories of institutional development and regional integration. Oct 2001 -March 2002: trainee at the European Commissions EuropeAid Cooperation Office, implementing long term development programs in third world countries.He is currently writing his thesis on sector programmes in development, working on a project on innovation technology in the EU, and now is working in Ghana.

• Luisa Fernanda López Carrascal (Colombia): She works as a philosophy professor at the Universidad José Santos Ossa in Chile.

• David Mushkudiani (Georgia): Assistant to the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, UN Country Teamin Georgia.

• Tetty Uli Naiborhu (Indonesia): She has been involved with a research staff in the Center for Security and Peace Studies, Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The center is currently active in conducting conflict resolution trainings for policeofficers in some provinces of Indonesia and promoting peacebuilding initiatives among Youth in the Maluku province in Indonesia.

• Jorge Alberto Olivera Vanini (Perú): He is working in the field of Human Rights and is currently working as a volunteer for the Civil Action Asociation, Derecho de Vida. He is also working for Ética Pública, that is dedicated to denouncing corruption and proposing changes in public politics.

• Sidi Omar (Western Sahara): He is working with the Foreign Service of the Saharawi Republic. Currently he is working as Representative of Frente POLISARIO to Denmark.

• Vanda D. Santos (Portugal): She was coordinator of the evaluation of the mission in Burkina Faso of Red Cross in 2001. She took the PhD Program in "Peace, Conflicts and Democracy" submitting her doctoral thesis in April 2003. The thesis is entitled "The process of cultural half-caste in Capeverdean Culture as a contribution to a Culture of Peace" and the areas of academic interests are: cultural half-caste, hybridize and creoles in post-colonial studies. From September until December 2003, she was guest researcher in Lisbon Immigration Observatory -it is part of the High Commissioner for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities, presidency of the Cabinet Meeting - in order to undertake the study on "The Portuguese State official speech on the emigration from the 60s to the 80s versus the official speech from the 90s to nowadays". From January 2004, she works in a NGO in Lisbon with projects in Mozambique and Lisbon where she follows the projects in process and runs new ones.
  

• Henrik Scharling Pilgaard (Denmark): He is currently working as an intern in the European Commission (DG Development) in Brussels.

• Cheryl Schoenberg (U.S.A.): She has been working in Peace Education and Community Development in South Africa with "Southern Hemisphere" and Peace Education with children in Australia.

• Layali Bassah (Palestine): works in the NGO Palestinian Youth Union.

• Nicola Jane Wimble (South Africa): she is currently working for Comic Relief, a UK charity organization and she hopes to be working on the 2005 Global Poverty Campaign.

• Cynthia Winther (Denmark): She is in her last year of Master Program at Copenhagen Business School, and currently doing research on the developmental effects of foreign invested enterprises and domestic invested enterprises within the Philippine garment industry's upgrading capabilities.

• Alicia Banyuls (Spain): She is the coordinator of the association Spain with ACNUR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), in Castellón office.

• Cynthia Patricia Camacho Mariscal (Bolivia): in May 2004 she finished a Master in International Coparative Law in the university of George Washington in Washington, DC and now she has a scholarship in the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission of Human Rights.

• Susan Frick (U.S.A.): returned to her native Boston after completing the MA to coordinate MIT's Program on Human Rights and Justice, which includes a student internship program, visiting fellows program, seminar series and annual conference: http://web.mit.edu/phrj
  

• María Teresa Guillén Corvera (Costa Rica): Works with the Paniamor Foundation, which is an NGO that works for human rights for children. She is coordinating the Project "Incorporation of a Code of Conduct in the tourism sector in Costa Rica as a dimension of sustainable tourism" to protect children for Commercial sexual exploitation.

• Synne Solstad (Norway): Presently works in Oslo for the Norwegian Peace Alliance.

• Christie Skoor (USA): She is currently working as the Business Manager at the Dorothy Day House. The DDH is a non-profit permenant residency for formerly homeless women in Seattle that focuses on empowerment and growth and work to bring out the women's skills and abilities. It is a resident-managed facility which means the women are the leaders of the various committees that run the program, they make their own policies and review them, screen new applicants, and are in charge of the care and cleanliness of the building. As business manager she in charge of the financial aspect of the program. She got married Sept 1, 2003.

• Peace in Action: various students of the program, Lena Freimueller (Austria), Kim Coviello (USA.), Jeffrey Vincent (USA), Sheila Alonzo (The Phillipines) and Ahmadul Haque (Bangladesh) have created and established this NGO whose headquarters is in Vienna (Austria). It's a network formed to unite people dedicated to fostering a culture of sustainable peace, development and intercultural exchange around the world. The primary objective of Peace in Action is to bridge the gap between academics and fieldwork in the areas of peacebuilding, development and conflict transformation.

• Julie Mooney (Canada): she recently accepted a position at Dawson College, in Montreal, and will be working as Coordinator of Professional Development and Research.

• Eric Stoner is a New York-based freelance journalist and an adjunct professor at St. Peter’s College. His articles have appeared in The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Nation, The Huffington Post, In These Times, Pittsburgh Post-Gazetteand in newspapers across the country. He edits and writes for Waging Nonviolence, a blog that covers nonviolent actions and campaigns around the world. http://ericstoner.net/ and http://wagingnonviolence.org/about/

Mohammed AboRamadan (Palestina): he lives and works in Sweden, where he become the Representative of the General Union of Arab Students in Europe Sweden-Branch, an institution with full recognition from the UE.

Octavian Sofransky (Moldova), Head of the Programming Unit, Directorate of Strategic Planning, COUNCIL OF EUROPE: How important was the Master to you? I would not be lying saying that it was the happiest time in my life: being waken up by the rising sun of Benicassim, inspired by exciting readings in Philosophy, Sociology, Psichology etc, confronting brilliant minds of professors and students from around the world and then partying all night in Castellon, the town of neverending joy... Thanks! The Master in Peace and Development Studies at UJI taught me how to think - modern world requires a continous performative reflection and situation in comparison with new ideas, technologies, peoples and cultures etc... It provides a set of values which are universal and ways to act to be able to leave in peace with yourself and others. I count on maintaning a strong link with Peace Research and peace researchers for many years.

• Francisco Espinoza (Nicaragua, Political Scientist): presently, dedicates himself to research doctorate thesis: "América Latina: Algunas reflexiones sobre la izquierda y los pueblos indígenas" in the Program Doctorate in International and Intercultural Studies (Deusto University, Bilbao, Spain). Columinist of Universo Político Brasil: http://www.universopolitico.com/colunistas.php
  

Last update: November 10th, 2009.