Zachary Metz

Zachary Metz is a partner and the Director of Peace Building practice at Consensus, a consulting firm specializing in negotiation, conflict resolution and peace building. The firm works with private and public sector clients, NGOs, international organizations and governments.

He has worked in the field of conflict resolution and peace building for fifteen years.  His areas of expertise include training and large-group facilitation, conflict assessment, conflict-sensitive development, restorative justice and program design and evaluation.

Prior to joining Consensus, Metz was the Director of Education & Training for Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution (CICR).  At CICR, he was responsible for envisioning, designing, and implementing the education elements of CICR’s international and domestic programs.  He served as the senior trainer and facilitator for CICR’s interventions in Iraq, Lebanon, East Timor, Burma, Northern Ireland and elsewhere. 

Metz has provided expertise to the United Nations Development Programme, UN Department of Economic & Social Affairs, International Organization for Migration, Search for Common Ground, and a wide range of international political and civil society organizations.

Metz began his career with a focus in domestic conflict resolution, working as a mediator, trainer, and program director with the Northwest Institute for Restorative Justice and the Dispute Resolution Center. He mediated hundreds of disputes in the private sector, in communities and within families, and directed mediation programs for inmates inside a maximum security prison and juvenile detention facility.

He teaches the graduate course Applied International Peace Building at SIPA. He has also taught at Universidad Externado De Colombia, Sabanci University, the United States Military Academy at West Point and Lebanese American University.

He completed his undergraduate degree in political science at Earlham College.  He received a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University.  He earned a PhD in Sociology from the New School for Social Research, with a focus on intractable identity-based conflicts. His particular area of inquiry is an analysis of the unique forms of political and sociological power generated by small, local-led peace building groups in intractable conflict.

Education

• MA in Sociology, New School for Social Research
• MIA, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs
• BA in Political Science, Earlham College