Centre Staff

Simon Adams is the Executive Director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Dr. Adams studied at the University of Witswatersrand in South Africa and at the University of New South Wales, where he received his Ph.D. He is also a graduate of the Executive Leadership Program at the Harvard Business School. Dr. Adams has lectured at a number of Australian, North American and African universities and was the Foundation Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, Australia. Dr. Adams also served as Pro Vice Chancellor (International Engagement) at Monash University.

A specialist in peace and conflict studies, Dr. Adams has worked extensively with NGO's, governments and community organizations in South Africa, Northern Ireland, East Timor, Rwanda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Dr. Adams is the author of four books and numerous academic articles with a focus on international conflict. He has also written extensively for a number of newspapers and worked as a political commentator on Australian television and radio.

Among his other commitments, Dr. Adams is currently Special Advisor to the Monash-Oxfam Partnership and a member of the board at Catalpa International, an East Timorese not-for-profit information technology and development organization.

Naomi Kikoler is the Director of Policy & Advocacy with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect where she oversees the Centre’s work on populations at risk of mass atrocities. Prior to joining the Centre she was a legal fellow with Amnesty International Canada, where she focused on national security and refugee issues. Naomi has worked as a legal consultant on genocide prevention, clerked in the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and interned with the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution. She has a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Toronto, an L.L.B. and B.C.L. from McGill University, and an M.Sc. in Forced Migration from Oxford University, where she wrote her thesis on the Rwandan Genocide. She is a member of the Bar of Upper Canada.

Savita Pawnday is the Project Manager for the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect where she oversees and manages GCR2P's fundraising and development activities and acts as a lead on all of its projects including the Focal Points initiative, forums with regional organizations, and ministerial level meetings at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. Prior to joining the Global Centre, she was a research associate at the Program on States and Security at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. Savita has worked in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi with Catholic Relief Services, in New York with Trickle Up, a microfinance NGO, and in India at Akanksha. She holds a M.A. from Fordham University in political economy and development, with a specialization in political economy of civil wars and a B.A. in Economics from St. Xavier's College, University of Mumbai.

Ryan Xavier D'Souza is a Research Associate with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Prior to joining the Centre, Ryan interned as a constituency caseworker for a British Member of Parliament and more recently for the Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations. Ryan has a keen interest in Middle Eastern affairs having worked and travelled in various countries across the region. He holds a BA from the University of Edinburgh and is currently completing a MA in International Relations from New York University.

Angel Jaramillo is a Research Associate with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. From 1998-2000 he was a political analyst and speech writer in the Office of Advisors to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mexico. He has also served as Director of Publications for the Diplomatic Academy of Mexico, Instituto Matias Romero and as a fellow of the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) In Munich, Germany. Over the past 15 years Mr. Jaramillo has also worked as a journalist, writing on subjects pertaining to R2P for a vast array of outlets. He holds a BA in International Relations from El Colegio de Mexico and an MA in Political Science from the New School for Social Research. He is currently a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at the New School.

Casey Karr is a Research Associate with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect where she does research on populations at risk of mass atrocities, focusing on the MENA region. She holds a BA from New York University and is currently completing her MA in International Affairs at The New School, concentrating in Governance and Rights. Her research interests include international ethics, the rule of law in international relations, and contemporary just war theory.

Jaclyn Streitfeld-Hall is a Research Associate at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect where she does research for the Centre’s work on populations at risk of mass atrocities. Prior to joining GCR2P she was a Research Assistant at the Cline Center for Democracy and taught International Relations courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and English from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a M.A. in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations from the University of Illinois. She is currently a Doctoral student at the University of Illinois studying International Organizations.

Elana Berger is a Research Associate with the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. She has worked for the International Labour Organization on legal issues related to child labor and has conducted research for the Committee Against Torture. Prior to joining the Global Centre she worked as an attorney at the law firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. She holds a B.A. degree in History and Political Science from the University of Maryland and a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law. She is a member of the New York State Bar.

Sally Chin, Visiting Harvard Research Fellow, has over a decade of experience working in the field of conflict prevention and resolution, with half of that time spent in Africa. She has worked for Search for Common Ground, the Fondation Hirondelle, Refugees International, International Crisis Group, and Oxfam GB. She has extensive field experience as a program manager, policy adviser, analyst and advocate, particularly with regards to the conflicts in the DRC, Sudan, Chad and the Horn of Africa. Sally's research and publications have focused on conflict-related displacement and humanitarian responses, regional and international peacekeeping capacities, small arms and light weapons, protection of civilians, and drivers of conflict. She is on the Board of Directors of Ushahidi, a project which uses crowdsourcing to map crises internationally. Sally is a graduate of Swarthmore College and has an MSc in Comparative Politics, with a focus on conflict and genocide early warning, from the London School of Economics. She is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

James Traub is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, where he has worked since 1998. He has written extensively about international affairs as well as national politics, urban affairs, and education. In recent years, he has reported from among other places, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Sudan, Guinea Bissau, Congo, Sierra Leone, Angola, Georgia, Kosovo and Haiti. His weekly column on foreign policy, "Terms of Engagement," appears on foreignpolicy.com, the website of Foreign Policy Magazine. His most recent book is The Freedom Agenda: Why America Must Spread Democracy (Just Not The Way Bush Did). In 2006 he published The Best Intentions: Kofi Annan and the UN in the Era of American World Power. He teaches a class on American foreign policy as part of New York University's Sheikh Mohammad Scholarship Porgram in Abu Dhabi. He is currently writing a biography of John Quincy Adams, to be published by Basic Books. He is a senior fellow of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a fellow of the Center on International Cooperation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Don Hubert, Senior Research Fellow