Bio

I am a third-year Henry R. Luce PhD Candidate at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI) where I work on crisis mapping, early warning and humanitarian technology applications. A copy of my CV is available here.

My dissertation research analyzes the impact of the information revolution on repressive rule and social resistance. I am particularly interested in how repressive regimes and resistance groups use information communication technologies to further their own strategic and tactical goals. To this end, I provide research guidance to DigiActive, a non-profit initiative dedicated to digital activism, and serve on the Board of Advisers for Digital Democracy.

Supported by Humanity United, my 2-year research fellowship at Harvard University explores the current use and changing role of information communication technology in conflict early warning, crisis mapping, human rights monitoring and humanitarian response. The research has thus far involved over 200 consultations with scholars and practitioners in the fields of conflict and genocide prevention, international security, human rights, strategic nonviolent action, civilian protection, humanitarian relief, public health, disaster management, communication technology, information management systems, software development, complex systems and the applied sciences. In this respect, the research seeks to identify innovative and alternative approaches to the documentation and prevention of mass atrocities, such as Ushahidi, for which I serve on the Board of Advisers.

I have taught seminars and courses on disaster and conflict early warning & response systems for UN professionals and undergraduate students. I have also co-taught a graduate seminar on Complexity Science and International Affairs and an undergraduate seminar on Digital Democracy.

I am an alumnus of the Santa Fe Institute’s (SFI) Complex Systems Summer School and graduated with an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs (SIPA). I was a Fellow at the Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR) and a Research Associate at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) and the Conflict Analysis Resource Center (CERAC) in Colombia. I hold a BA (Hons) in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) with a certificate in Information Technology and Business Management from the University of York. During this time, I was also a visiting student at UC Berkeley and a resident of the historical International House.

As a professional consultant, I have worked on numerous conflict early warning and crisis mapping projects with multiple offices and agencies of the United Nations (UN) including OCHA, UNDP, UNEP, UNECE and WFP. I was solicited to co-evaluate the UN’s capacity for early warning, which formed part of the external contribution to the Secretary-General’s Report on the Prevention of Armed Violence. I was most recently a  consultant for UNDP’s Threat and Risk Mapping Analysis (TRMA) project in the Sudan.

As a consultant with Virtual Research Associates (VRA), I played an instrumental role in establishing West Africa’s (ECOWAS/WANEP) regional conflict early warning system (ECOWARN) and operationalized the Conflict Early Warning and Response Network (CEWARN) in the Horn of Africa (IGAD). Independently, I developed the operational framework for Central Africa’s (ECCAS) regional conflict early warning mechanism. I also consulted for the OSCE’s Conflict Prevention Center (CPC) on multiple occasions to operationalize the conflict early warning system for the Environmental Security Initiative (EnvSec), a joint project with UNEP, UNDP and NATO. As a consultant to the OECD, I made substantial contributions to a comprehensive report on the status and future of operational conflict early warning systems. I was closely involved in developing the initial socio-political component of HEWSweb and was also part of a two-person expert team that led the European Commission’s (EC) international project on Mapping Fragility. I have given presentations on designing and implementing early warning systems in India, Thailand, China and Guatemala, and  advised the development of community-based conflict early warning systems in Timor-Leste and Lebanon. My work on early warning has also included projects with the International Crisis Group (ICG), International Alert (IA), Swisspeace (FAST) and the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES). In terms of disaster early warning and response, I carried out an on-site feasibility study for a flood early warning and response system for the city of Mumbai. The project sought to integrate Web 2.0 applications, dynamic mapping, visualization and networked communication technology.

I was born in Abidjan, grew up in Nairobi and attended high school in Vienna. Before my interest in information communication technology and early warning, I focused on the Middle East and North Africa, studied Arabic in Morocco and carried out research in Tunisia and the Western Sahara. My senior thesis was on Muammar al-Qaddafi’s use and interpretation of Islam to justify his domestic and foreign policies. During my MA, I focused on conflict prevention and climate change. My master’s thesis was on the impact of environmental change on pastoral conflict in the Horn of Africa.

For more information and my CV including publications, please see my website at The Fletcher School.