Staff - Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies

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CPCS Staff

Emma Leslie
Director
emmacambodia@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

As an Australian citizen, Emma has worked on peace, conflict transformation and development throughout the Asia Pacific region since 1993. In 1997 she moved to Cambodia and in the same year helped to found the regional network of Action Asia. Since then she has held the post of Secretariat to the Action Asia network as well as being the course director of the Applied Conflict Transformations Studies MA program. Emma has extensive advisory experience and works as a consultant, practitioner and trainer on conflict transformation and peacebuilding issues in Asia. She has conducted a number of conflict analysis trainings in Eastern Europe, Africa and throughout Asia, holds a Masters degree in International Development and was one of the thousand peace women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005.

Lerio "Baht" Latumbo
Deputy Director
bahtlatumbo@yahoo.com

Baht is a widely experienced trainer/facilitator and consultant in the field of nonviolence, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding. He has served as a course tutor with Responding to Conflict, UK, leads workshops throughout Asia, and was the Deputy Director of AKKAPKA Foundation for more than 5 years -- a social change organization espousing active nonviolence in the Philippines. He served as the Steering Committee Chair of ACTION-Global until October 2007. From 1997 to present, Baht has been a faculty member of CONTACT, a summer institute at the School for International Training in Vermont, USA; he is also an Associate Member of Karuna Center for Peacebuilding, Amherst, Massachussetts.

Soth Plai Ngarm
Research Programme Coordinator/Senior Researcher
plaingarm@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

As a Cambodian peace activist and researcher, Soth Plai Ngarm has worked throughout South East Asia with particular focus on post-conflict issues, nationalism and ethnic identity. He is the co-author of the manual Peace Research Methodology, a member of the Applied Conflict Transformation Studies MA program and is the Cambodian National Coordinator of the South East Asian Conflict Studies Network (SEACSN). Ngarm was also a founding member and director of The Alliance for Conflict Transformation (ACT), a Cambodian NGO working towards combating violence and addressing root causes of conflict. Ngarm holds a Masters degree in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, UK.

Tulasi Ram Nepal
Programme Manager, South Asia
tulsinepal@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

Tulasi Ram Nepal holds an MA in Rural Development (2000) from the University of East Anglia, UK, and an MA in Applied Conflict Transformation Studies (2007) from Pannasastra University, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He has also completed the "Working with Conflict" course (1994) from Responding to Conflict, UK. He acted as one of the resource persons in the four-modular training course "Building Peace and Trust in Nepal," organised by Friends for Peace in partnership with Action Asia, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Tulasi has more than a decade of experience working with development projects in Nepal in various capacities - at local, regional, and national levels. He has worked closely with the Ministry of Local Development and its department during his assignment with Helvetas, a Swiss NGO working in Nepal.

Recently, Tulasi worked with International Alert in Nepal as a Senior Programme Officer. His primary areas of responsibility were Justice & Security, and Promoting Peacebuilding Practices, a local capacity building initiative.

Mark Channsitha
Action Asia Programme Manager, Asia
Channsitha@who-needs-spam.online.com.kh

Prior to working with the CPCS, Channsitha was engaged in the World Vision Peacebuilding project since 2003. She has taught in Working for Peace at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute and at a World Vision Peace Training of educators in Jordan in 2004. She has conducted LCP education of trainers in Cambodia and Sri Lanka with development and Tsunami response staff. In her current role, she works with partner organizations to design necessary interventions for addressing the issues of Cambodia and strengthening the capacity of local peacebuilders. Additionally she is currently pursuing her MA on Applied Conflict Transformation Studies with Pannasastra University in association with RTC and CPCS.

Monica Alfred
ACTS Course Coordinator
m_i_alfred@who-needs-spam.yahoo.com

Monica Alfred is specialised trainer, coach and consultant in peace and conflict transformation studies and psychosocial support programmes. She is one of the first Rotary World Peace Scholars from Sri Lanka; she holds a Masters in Philosophy from the University of Bradford, United Kingdom, where she wrote her thesis on: Community Level Conflict Transformation for Sustainable Peace a Barefoot University for Peace Education in Sri Lanka. She holds a Master of Arts from the same University having written her thesis on Peace and Psychosocial Education for Children Effected by Armed Conflict.

In general she combines education and training in conflict transformation, peace and psychosocial support with her work in teaching, writing and training with her focus on building a peaceful society.

Over the last fifteen years she has been involved in peacebuilding, conflict transformation and psychosocial work in Sri Lanka from local to national levels. She has experience of taking short term consultancy and trainings within Asian region. She is an international trainer for community peace keepers for Non violent peace force.

Tania Miletic
ACTS Faculty
taniamiletic@who-needs-spam.yahoo.com

Tania Miletic, a peace practitioner and researcher from Australia, is a senior consultant and researcher with the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Cambodia. In particular she designed the Centre signature course on peace research and co-authored the book Peace Research Methodology. Her own research interest is mainly on issues of inter-ethnic peacebuilding and nationalism. Tania began working in Cambodia in 2003, as a Technical Advisor with the Alliance for Conflict Transformation on inter-ethnic and inter-faith peacebuilding programs. Since 2006 she has also served as an advisor and faculty member on the Applied Conflict Transformation Studies (ACTS) Masters course. Tania has a background in psychology and worked for several years on community-based peacebuilding and transcultural mental health initiatives locally and across the Asia Pacific region. Tania holds a Postgrad Dip in Psychology from the University of Melbourne; an MA in Public Administration (Int. Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution) from ICU, Tokyo and is a PhD candidate with the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Queensland.

Kathryn Poethig
ACTS Faculty
kpoethig@who-needs-spam.csumb.edu

Dr. Poethig has lived and worked in Southeast Asia for over twenty years. She is currently Associate Professor of Global Studies at California State University, Monterey Bay. Her area expertise includes global gender issues, particularly feminism and militarism, religious social ethics, and religion, violence, and peacemaking. Dr. Poethig supervised education for Southeast Asian refugees in the US and Asia for 15 years. Her work focuses on progressive religious citizenship in Southeast Asia, particularly in areas of complex conflict and peacemaking. She has written on the Dhammayietra, the annual peace walk in Cambodia as transnational example of engaged Buddhism. More recently, she has focused on Filipino feminist theologians' frameworks for 'just peace' for both Communist and Muslim insurgencies in light of the US war on terrorism.

Dr. Poethig holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from the Graduate Theological Union; a Master of Divinity from the Union Theological Seminary; and a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Chona Echavez
ACTS Faculty
echavez.chona@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

Chona R. Echavez has a Ph.D in Demography at the Australian National University and MS in Development Communication from the University of the Philippines, Los Banos. She is a Senior Research Associate of the Research Institute for Mindanao Culture (RIMCU) and an Associate Professor of the Development Communication and Socio-Anthropology Departments of Xavier University, Cagayan de Oro City. She served as a Board of Director of the Philippine Population Association (PPA) and currently Board of Director of Women's Forum 10. Together with communities and institutions, she facilitates in designing, managing and implementing M & E and Impact Evaluation studies. She conducted a number of studies in conflict affected areas. She served as team leader in assessing the capacities and needs for conflict transformation among peace front liners in the conflict-affected areas, the impact of armed conflict among women and youth, and in the moving out of poverty studies in conflict and non-conflict affected areas in the Philippines. Together with the people in communities and organizations, she designs gender and culture sensitive research and evaluation tools for conflict-affected communities, household and individuals. She served as consultant/ToT/Module Specialist in the Media Training for Peace and Reconciliation in Solomon Islands and facilitates workshops for participants of East and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island Countries. At present, she is an Asia Fellow and is a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Vong Bopha
Finance and Admin Manager
v.bopha@who-needs-spam.online.com.kh

Bopha previously worked as the financial administrator of the Bible Society in Cambodia with Asia-wide functions for seven years. She has worked for the ACTS programme since January 2005 and is active in interfaith peacebuilding projects in a voluntary capacity in her spare time. She has a BA degree in finance and administration and is now doing an MA in Financial Management at the Royal University of Law and Economics, Cambodia. Born into an interfaith family and wishing to understand other religions, Bopha attended an interfaith course with World Vision, Cambodia and Youth Resource Development Programme (YRDP). She also attended the Peace Research Methodologies Course, through CPCS and ACT in 2008.

Mark Satvansay
Admin Assistant
vansay@who-needs-spam.online.com.kh

Vansay started working as a translator with ACT in 2005 and is now working as the translator and admin assistant for the CPCS. He has a degree from Build Bright University, Cambodia in English Literature. Satvansay is also currently studying towards his MBA at Build Bright University.

Oum Sotheavy
Librarian/Receptionist
u.sotheavy@who-needs-spam.online.com.kh

Sotheavy worked at ACT from 2003 - 2007. She is currently the librarian, receptionist and administrative assistant to CPCS. She recently finished her Diploma in English at Pannasastra University of Cambodia and is studying for her Bachelors degree in Social Sciences and International Relations at Pannasastra University.

Jonathan White
Project Assistant
white.jonathan.m@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

Jonathan was an intern at CPCS and Action Asia during the summer of 2008 and is now project assistant for the Centre. He holds a BA in Global Studies from California State University, Monterey Bay.

Delia María Dávila Illescas
Intern
dmdillescas@who-needs-spam.gmail.com

Delia is a Guatemalan architect who graduated from the University of San Carlos de Guatemala. She is a member of the Center for Peace and Action for Conflict Transformation, PAZci, Guatemala. Delia participated in the ACTION America Dialogue Meeting in Guatemala 2008. She has a postgraduate degree in Urban Development and Real Estate Valuation.