Stephen Wicken

I'm endlessly fascinated by a lot of things: conflict and security, mass atrocities, human rights, governance, transparency and accountability, economics, development, and humanitarianism. And history. And politics. And technology. And...

Currently I work on the Investments team at Humanity United, where I'm working as part of the Building Peace team to develop strategic initiatives that shift the international community's focus from crisis response to risk response and build sustainable peace.

Prior to joining HU, I was the senior fellow at The Nexus Fund, working to end mass atrocities across the world. I did a mixture of research, analysis, and program work, from design to management. As a tech dabbler, I was particularly excited about our work to promote and support the use of technology for atrocity prevention.

I've worked on Iraq and the Persian Gulf at the Institute for the Study of War; on Haiti at International Action; and at Yale University's Genocide Studies Program. As a consultant, I've worked in political risk, communications, and even exhibition design -- all with a focus on conflict and its effects.

I've also written a fair bit on Syria, Iraq, historical memory and the Holocaust in the Arab world, and beyond.

I've been lucky to spend time with incredible minds at wonderful institutions. I studied Politics at Cambridge; International Relations at Yale (where I was a Mellon Fellow); and History at Brown. In addition to time in Southeast Asia, North Africa, and eastern Europe, I've had the amazing fortune to find myself in Montreal working with communities of genocide survivors on their collective memory of atrocity, and in France studying transitions from war to peace. Perhaps one day I'll finish that Ph.D., but there's so much to do in the meantime...

I'd love to connect! You can email me at [email protected]