Johan Vincent Galtung is a Norwegian sociologist who is the principal founder of the discipline of peace and conflict studies. He was the main founder of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in 1959 and served as its first director until 1970. He also established the Journal of Peace Research in 1964.
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyzes violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending conflicts, with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition. A variation on this, peace studies (irenology), is an interdisciplinary effort aiming at the prevention, de-escalation, and solution of conflicts by peaceful means, thereby seeking "victory" for all parties involved in the conflict.
John Paul Lederach is an American Professor of International Peacebuilding at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, and concurrently Distinguished Scholar at Eastern Mennonite University. He has written widely on conflict resolution and mediation. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado. In 1994 he became the founding director for the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University where he was a professor. He currently works for the foundation Humanity United.
Ali Al'amin Mazrui, was a Kenyan-born American academic, professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies, and North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He produced the television documentary series The Africans: A Triple Heritage.
Kenneth W. Stein is a professor known for studying the Arab–Israeli conflict, in both historical and social-economic context. He spent many years working with the Carter Center from the 1980s, before cutting ties in 2006; and decades teaching at Emory University starting in 1977. His life has been filled with teaching and interdisciplinary study of the Middle East with the publication of many books on the subject of Israel, the Middle East and the foundations of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Walid Khalidi is an Oxford University-educated Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an independent research and publishing center focusing on the Palestine problem and the Arab–Israeli conflict, and was its General Secretary until 2016.
Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov (1946–2013) was an Israeli international relations and conflict resolution scholar.
Mohammed Abu-Nimer is an American expert on conflict resolution and dialogue for peace. He is a full professor at the American University School of International Service in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in Washington, DC, the largest school of international relations in the United States.
Francis A. Beer is an American professor emeritus of political science, University of Colorado at Boulder. His research focuses on war and peace. Honors and awards include listings in Who's Who in the World and Who's Who in America, as well as other directories. He was president of the International Studies Association/West and co-edited, with Ted Gurr at the University of Colorado, a series of Sage books on "Violence, Conflict, Cooperation." In addition to two Fulbright awards to France and the Netherlands he has received other awards from the Earhart Foundation, the Institute for World Order, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. At the University of Colorado, he represented the faculty as chair of the Boulder Faculty Assembly.
Kristian Berg Harpviken is a Norwegian sociologist and researcher, and since 2009 director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Harpviken is foremost known for his competence on Afghanistan, where he has travelled extensively and conducted multiple field works since he first engaged with the country in 1989.
Daniel Bar-Tal is an Israeli academic, author and Branco Weiss Professor of Research in Child Development and Education at School of Education, Tel Aviv University.
Scott Gates is an American political scientist and economist based in Norway. He was director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)'s Centre for the Study of Civil War (CSCW), which was a Norwegian Center of Excellence funded by the Research Council of Norway for a twelve-year period 2002-2013. He is currently a Research Professor at PRIO, a Guest Researcher at ESOP in the Department of Economics at the University in Oslo and also holds a professorship in the Department of Political science at the University of Oslo. He used to work at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and Michigan State University (MSU).
James D. Morrow is the A.F.K. Organski Collegiate Professor of World Politics at the University of Michigan and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, best known for his pioneering work in noncooperative game theory and selectorate theory.
Henrik Urdal is a Norwegian political scientist and the current director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Before his appointment as director in 2017 he was a research professor and research director at the institute. He was editor-in-chief of the Journal of Peace Research, the premier journal in the field, from 2010 to 2017.
Joseph G. Bock is an American academic and politician, who is currently a professor with Kennesaw State University's Department of Political Science and International Affairs. A member of the Democratic Party, Bock served in the Missouri House of Representatives from 1986 to 1992 and was his party's nominee against Jackie Walorski in 2014.
Robert Scott Appleby is an American historian, focusing in global religion and its relationship to peace and conflict, integral human development, and comparative modern religion. He is a Professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, and currently the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs.
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch is a Norwegian political scientist and a professor at the University of Essex, holding the title of Regius Professor. His main fields of research are on the topics of conflict, democratistation and non-violent mobilisation.
Emilia Justyna Powell is a Polish-American political scientist. She is Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and is known for her expertise on international dispute resolution, the Islamic legal tradition, Islamic international law, and Islamic constitutionalism.
Christian Davenport is the Mary Ann and Charles R. Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding and political scientist at the University of Michigan. affiliated with the Ford School of Public Policy as well as the University of Michigan Law School. He is also a Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Davenport was employed at the University of Notre Dame in political science and sociology as well as the Kroc Institute, the University of Maryland in political science, University of Colorado Boulder in political science and the University of Houston in political science. He received his PhD in 1992 from Binghamton University.
Peter Wallensteen, born 29 July 1945 in Stockholm, is a peace and conflict researcher in Sweden, now Senior Professor in Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University. He was the first holder of the Dag Hammarskjöld Chair in Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University, 1985-2012. He was the Richard G. Starmann Sr. Research Professor of Peace Studies, at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame, 2006-2018. From 1972 to 1999 he directed the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at Uppsala University.
