Peter Sheridan joined Co-operation Ireland in 2008 as Chief Executive. In addition to his role as CEO, Peter is an Equality Commissioner in Norther Ireland and he is also a Commissioner with Londonderry Port and Harbor. Peter is a former Assistant Chief Constable with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) (formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary). He retired from the police service in 2008 having spent 32 years policing in Northern Ireland. Before retiring he was responsible for the Crime Operations Department, which included serious and organized crime investigations including terrorist investigations. A graduate of Cambridge University, Peter attended the FBI Academy in 1999 and was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list in 2008 for services to the community.

Mr. James P. Flynn serves Global Peace Foundation as its International President. As the executive officer of a large, global network of chapters, he provides leadership and management for Global Peace Foundation’s diverse portfolio of peacebuilding and international development work.

His robust leadership is reflected in the planning and convening of Global Peace Leadership Conferences on four continents and in the preeminent Global Peace Convention, as well as in the organization’s branding, educational content, and operational management.

Mr. Flynn has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than thirty years and served as an educator, international conflict mediator, interfaith facilitator, and grassroots leader of family strengthening and youth violence prevention programs.

He previously served as the president of the American Family Coalition, a grassroots educational organization with chapters in all 50 states advocating the promotion of family-friendly public policies. Mr. Flynn is a co-founder of Street-Smart Inc. a nationally recognized non-profit organization serving at-risk youth in Denver, Colorado, and served on the Supervisory Committee of the Denver Community Development Credit Union.

With more than 10 years experience in tech, media, broadcasting, and educational content adaptation, I believe that improving education, and the education system is one of the steps into developing good education for kids in Africa and thus helping them succeed in life. For the last 2 years I have been privileged to be part of the Ubongo team that extends boundaries leveraging the power of technology and entertainment to reach children and help them learn and love learning thus building brains, and building change.

Sarah Ngetha is a career development professional with over 8 years of experience in career guidance and counseling. She is currently the Senior Employer Relations Associate at Moringa, where she works at the intersection of matching industry to the exceptional tech talent that Moringa trains. Sarah is immensely passionate about working with young people and supporting them to launch successful careers in business or employment, by working with them to identify and grow their skills, strengths, and abilities.

With a background in Education Strategy and Business Developemnt, Deogratius is the Technical Advisor on Youth Employment at Plan International, where he leads the strategy, program development and innovation for workforce development in the country. His work involves linking the youth spirations, workforce development initiatives and organizational programs to the ever-changing labor market Landscape; leveraging engagements with public and private sectors to facilitate youth skills development and entry into employment. Prior to this, Deo has served various roles including the regional program and Partnerships Manager for Affrica and Middle East at Sustainable Hospitality Alliance, Senior Outcomes Manager at Moringa School, Programs and Business Development at Mckinsey & Company among other roles including a high school teacher 11 years ago.

Meredith Storey is the UN Global Compact – Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiatives’ Senior Manager of the i5 project. The Impactful-five project examines characteristics of playful learning experiences in business education, funded by the LEGO Foundation. Before taking this position Meredith was the Education and Data Analytics Manager for the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Networks’ SDG Academy. Prior to working at UN SDSN, Meredith attended the University of Limerick – Kemmy Business School where she obtained an MSc in International Management and Global Business and a PhD in Business Education for Sustainable Development. Meredith holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Marietta College and is a certified U.S. Green Building Council – Green Associate and Classroom Professional.

Dr. Suzanne Dillon is an education policy specialist whose career has focused on improving educational outcomes for all students.  She began her career in educational development, working to design and implement an in-service teacher education programme. She served as a teacher in second-level schools for 13 years before joining the Department of Education and Skills in Ireland as a school inspector in 2002. In 2011, Suzanne became an Assistant Chief Inspector with responsibility for leading the Department’s Evaluation Support and Research Unit. Since 2016, her responsibilities included providing advice on curriculum and assessment policy to the Department and to the wider educational system, supporting significant curriculum reform at primary and post-primary levels.

Daniel Wilson is the Director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). He is a Principal Investigator at Project Zero, a Lecturer at HGSE, and the Educational Chair for Harvard’s “Project Zero Classroom” institute where hundreds of practitioners come together to explore questions at the heart of teaching and learning. His teaching and writing explore the inherent socio-psychological tensions – dilemmas of knowing, trusting, leading, and belonging – in adult collaborative learning across a variety of contexts.  Specifically, he focuses on how groups navigate these tensions through language, routines, roles, and artifacts.    

Shana Kemp is a Managing Partner of Greene Street Communications, LLC where she helps lead the organization’s marketing and strategic communications efforts with a focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility approaches.

Jinna Mutune, Kenyan filmmaker/social activist/social entrepreneur. She is founder of her own production company, Pegg Entertainment, which is based in Nairobi, Kenya with Investors from the U.S & Africa & she has created content that has been acquired by international brands such as Emirates, South African Airlines, Gathr (American Theatre box Office),  & AFS (Canada). The company has also generated work for reputable organisations such as the Siemens Foundation, A.F.D.B Bank, Global Peace Foundation (A branch of Peace corps,) Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology-Tanzania. (Supported by Bill & Melinda Gates) & Alpha Film Series Global Christian Outreach campaign & recently the African Development Bank. & Public Service Announcement for Kenya with Graca Machel.

Shaziya DeYoung is the Learning and Evidence Researcher at the Alliance for Peacebuilding. She has a wide range of expertise in quantitative and qualitative research and analysis methods specializing in evidence synthesis and translation efforts, and data analysis and visualization. Her work is currently centered around researching measurement constructs and their resulting evidence within peacebuilding and development contexts, while also focusing on delivering outputs that are actionable and contribute to capacity building and/or decision making.

George has worked for International Alert since 2013, leading programme development in the region and providing technical support on monitoring and evaluation. He has extensive experience designing and evaluating peacebuilding programming in Kenya and Somalia. His areas of expertise include democratic transitions, security sector reform, civil society engagement, preventing violent extremism, conflict early warning systems and economic development for peace. He also has extensive experience within the higher education and non-profit sectors in the UK.

Prof. Jennifer Batton, M.A., Co-Chair of the GPPAC Peace Education Working Group, has 25 years of experience in the field of conflict management/alternative dispute resolution working for state government, higher education, and a non-profit to help local and global communities build their capacity to prevent, address, and manage conflict. Her experience includes 8 years in state government (serving approximately 3600 primary and secondary public schools and 52 teacher training colleges and universities) as the Director of Education Programs for the Ohio Commission on Dispute Resolution and Conflict Management. She also served seven years as the director of the Global Issues Resource Center at Cuyahoga Community College and led or supported international education work in 23 countries. She provided direct service to more than 71 colleges and universities, 600 primary and secondary schools, and hundreds of civil society and governmental organizations.

Limou is a Specialist in this Institutional Learning Team at Search For Common Ground. She is part of the Strategy Alignment Department. A department which focuses on providing standards in M&E, learning and programming quality across the organisation.

Limou has more than 10 years of experience working in the peacebuilding, development and humanitarian sectors for various NGOS and at headquarters and regional offices of UN agencies. She undertook leadership roles in Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) by developing standardised MEAL frameworks for large scale initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa and in the Middle East and North Africa, including the design of tools and by providing advisory support, such as in conflict analysis research and programme design and learning. She also has a background in neuroscience and mental health research.

Dr. Reni Francis is currently the Principal at MES’s Pillai College of Education and Research, Mumbai and was previously working with Jabriya Indian School, Kuwait. She has been awarded the Doctoral degree in Arts – Education, University of Mumbai and Doctoral degree in Business Economics- University of Mumbai. She has a varied experience of more than 21 years in facilitating learning with school students, teachers and teacher educators in India and Kuwait. She has authored 28 books International (6) and National (22). She was the Member of Board of Studies (Education), University of Mumbai and Member of the Syllabus Revision Committee of Credit Based Choice System, University of Mumbai. She is a recognized Ph.D Guide (Education) and successfully guided 02 students for the award of PhD under University of Mumbai. Well versed in planning, conducting various activities and programmes at the Institution and National level. Proficient in conducting training workshops for teachers as a part of their CPD (State and National level), Students – school and college, Parents and Community. Conducted sessions towards Community outreach programs – Adult Literacy Drive, special language programs for second – language learners. She is on the Editorial board for few research journals. She has 05 approved Patent 02Australian patent and 01 German patent and 02 Indian Design patent.

Deepti is experienced as a Software Tester for 5 years and a Masters in International Peace Studies from Soka University Japan in 2020. Her research is focused on Global Citizenship Education and Sustainable Development Goals.

After graduating she has worked with:
1. Schools in Japan and has taught SDGs education and English.
2. ‘Beyond Skin’ as a Freelance Facilitator for ‘Blueprint’ project on SDGs supported by EU PeaceIV Programme, Belfast
3. Universities and conducted online workshops on the topics related to peace, sustainable development goals, nuclear disarmament, climate education, ethics and moral value, value creation education, soka education, humanistic leadership and societal change, and leadership.

After an year’s full time job as a mother since February 2022 , she has finally resumed work as an SDGs advocate and Business English Instructor as Berkeleys Language School and Zenken Corporation Japan.

N. Mythili is currently working as Associate Professor at Mahindra University, Hyderabad since a year. AS a founding faculty of Indira-Mahindra School of Education, she started the Ph.D. programme in the school. Before, joining Mahindra University in 2021, she worked as Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, Delhi (NIEPA) from 2013 to 2021. Here, she led large scale programmes on School leadership development in several states of India to train school heads, undertook research and set up School Leadership Academies in several states.
She has been leading in the research and discourse on School Leadership, and gender and school leadership in Indian context through her research monographs and peer-reviewed articles published at international and national levels. Her recent works include ‘Women in School Leadership’ published by Sage and ‘Pedagogical Leadership: A handbook for leading learning in Schools’. The handbook on Pedagogical Leadership developed by her has reached all schools affiliated to Central Board of Secondary Education, New Delhi.

Earlier, she worked at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Azim Premji Foundation, Bengaluru, and Centre for Multi-Disciplinary Development Research, Dharwad, Karnataka. She completed her Ph.D. from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bengaluru, Karnataka.

Dr. Tony Devine works with Ministries of Education, educational systems, schools, universities as well as private and civil society stakeholders to reimagine what it means to educate in preparing students to be future ready and be successful in all aspects of their lives. He oversees the development of the Transformation of Education, Moral and Innovative Leadership, Character and Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Technology and Digital Literacy programs in counties around the world. These programs and advocacy efforts develop character and values that guide skills such as creativity, problem solving, communications, collaboration in the application of new knowledge for the greater benefit of humanity. He is a contributor to the Advisory Group of OECD’s Future of Education & Skills 2030 Project. He is the President of Global Peace Foundation Ireland where oversees International Peacesharing Programs and Forums that exposes practitioners, educators, peacebuilders, government representatives and faith leaders to values-based peacebuilding and reconciliation. 

Father of Kristina Kaylee Morisette, who is one of the 12 lost in the Borderline Bar&Grill shooting at Thousand Oaks, CA, on 11/07/18.

He knew that had Kristina survived the shooting, not only would she be deeply impacted, she would be doing everything possible to tend to, care for, and support this traumatized and grieving community of friends. And knowing that Kristina was a part of him, Michael attempted to support those she would have cared for. He began right away to feel the reciprocal effect of peer support, feeling stronger himself as he encouraged others.

Michael felt the eyes of the community on the victim family members, gauging their response to the tragedy. He knew that he had the opportunity to help point people towards any hope and healing he could possibly display in his own journey through this life changing event.

Through the care, support, and guidance from the many amazing organizations his impacted community encountered, Michael was introduced to a ‘parallel universe’ of people and agencies purposed to offer help and hope to hurting populations.

After the hard news of suicides in the wake of other tragedies, he began volunteering with the non-profit Give an Hour in advocating for mental health and emotional wellness, and began to work part time, and then full time in community outreach in the environment which has a heart to care for victims of mass violence and disaster… a heart to care which he saw in his daughter.

Amy C. O’Neill, MS, LPC, is a licensed professional counselor, part of the Survivors of Tragedy Outreach Program for Tuesday’s Children, the steering committee for the National Mass Violence and Victimization Resource Center, a member of the VOCA-NCJA and OVC TTAC Office of Justice Program Consultant Networks, and a Survivor of the Boston Marathon Bombing. She serves on the Crisis Emotional Care Team for Vibrant Emotional Health, the Disaster Distress Helpline peer support task force, and the Disaster Mental Health Team for the American Red Cross. Ms. O’Neill has presented at the ISSTD Congress for Complex Trauma, the National NOVA conference, the United Nations Global Congress for Victims of Terrorism at UNHQ NYC, contributed to the United Nations Parliamentarians Model Legislative Provisions, the KCIT Resilience Conference, Tuesday’s Children Lessons in Recovery and Resilience, and The Inaugural Speakers Who Dare in NYC. Ms. O’Neill maintains a private counseling practice, is an Adjunct Instructor for the graduate Counseling Psychology Program at Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, PA, and is a Doctor of Health Sciences Student at Bay Path University. Ms. O’Neill hosts The Trauma Impact Podcast on Mental Health News Radio Network, focusing on trauma and recovery from mass violence. It has been downloaded around the world.

Rob Pycior is a school social worker from the suburbs of New York City. His father, Joseph J Pycior Jr, was killed in the September 11th 2001 attacks while working at the Naval Command Center in the Pentagon. Rob was 8 years old at the time and has spent the last 20+ years as both a recipient and now provider of services for grieving children, especially those impacted by violent extremism and conflict. His own experience in the tumultuous aftermath of September 11th put him on a path of service to others and a desire to have a positive impact on younger generations impacted by conflict and traumatic loss. He is involved with several non-profits and enjoys spending time with his wife and 1 year old daughter. Rob’s involvement with Tuesday’s Children began over a decade ago and has evolved from program participant to the current day as facilitator and speaker through both Project Common Bond as well as the Survivors of Tragedy Outreach Program. He recognizes firsthand the positive impact that community, connection, and open dialog can have.

Peter Sheridan joined Co-operation Ireland in 2008 as Chief Executive. In addition to his role as CEO, Peter is an Equality Commissioner in Norther Ireland and he is also a Commissioner with Londonderry Port and Harbor. Peter is a former Assistant Chief Constable with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) (formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary). He retired from the police service in 2008 having spent 32 years policing in Northern Ireland. Before retiring he was responsible for the Crime Operations Department, which included serious and organized crime investigations including terrorist investigations. A graduate of Cambridge University, Peter attended the FBI Academy in 1999 and was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Birthday Honors list in 2008 for services to the community.

Dr. Geeta Thakur is a well-respected academician and education consultant who currently serves as the Dean and Professor at Manav Rachna University. She also holds the position of Director at the Manav Rachna Centre for Peace and Sustainability. Dr. Thakur’s expertise in instructional design has been instrumental in improving education delivery and examination management systems across various organizations and government levels.

Dr. Thakur has played a vital role in the growth of the e-learning industry, serving as a solution architect for a leading company and as a senior consultant for Cambridge Global Partners (Education & Management Consultants) in the UK. As a renowned resource person, she conducts developmental workshops for UGC programs, sharing her expertise in developing innovative instructional material, utilizing digital tools, and enhancing life skills.

In addition to her academic and consulting roles, Dr. Thakur has authored two books, published over 50 research papers, and developed e-content for various educational projects. She is also a Heartfulness-certified meditation trainer, emphasizing the importance of mindfulness in education.
Dr. Thakur’s accomplishments extend to her involvement in various advisory boards, including the Saradar Patel University in Balaghat MP, Sheel Niketan Group of Schools in Bhopal, and Himalayan Education Society in Jammu. She initiated RAINDROP, a project aimed at bringing resilient quality education systems

Mr. Joseph Brighton Malekela is a UN trained Youth Champion of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) who works with Global Peace Foundation Tanzania as Project Coordinator. Currently he is pursuing Masters of Strategic and Peace Studies at University of Dar es Salaam, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Joseph is a Secretary of the joint Committee for National commemorations of International Day of Peace in Tanzania. He was recognized by the Tanzania Human Rights Defenders Coalition as a Distinguished Human Rights Defender in January 2020; while the United Nations Volunteers Tanzania named him a best volunteer of the year 2021 through his works at Global Peace Foundation Tanzania. He is an Alumni of Gamal Nasser Fellowship for International Leadership (Egypt) and Alumni of Young African Leaders Initiate – YALI East Africa (Kenya). Joseph has a leadership experience with youth organizations and networks such as Youth of United Nations Association of Tanzania, Tanzania Students Networking Programme – TSNP and Dar es Salaam University Students Organization – DARUSO.

As a young leader and social change maker, Joseph has been dedicating his time, knowledge, and skills to creating awareness of the 2030 Global Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) especially goal number 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) by influencing youth participation and engagement in decision making, peace-building, conflict resolutions and prevention of violence.

Rev. Dr. Gary Mason is a Methodist minister and directs a conflict transformation organisation based in Belfast called “Rethinking Conflict.” Prior to this he spent 27 years as a Methodist clergy person in parish ministry in Belfast and has played an integral role in the Northern Irish peace process. He played a key role in establishing the $30 million Skainos project which is a world class urban centre developed in a post conflict society as a model of co existence and shared space, it is acknowledged as the largest faith-based redevelopment project in Western Europe. He holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Ulster, completed his theological studies at Queens University, and a Bachelor’s in Business Studies from the University of Ulster. Gary also holds an honorary doctorate from Florida Southern College for his role in peace building in Ireland.

Gary is a Senior Research Fellow at the Kennedy Institute for Conflict Intervention at Maynooth University in Ireland. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Candler School of theology at Emory University in Atlanta lecturing on reconciliation, peace building, the history of the N. Ireland conflict, racism, Christian Nationalism, sectarianism and conflict transformation. Gary is an affiliated expert and partner to the Negotiation Strategies Institute, a Harvard University programme on negotiation for Israelis and Palestinians.