Our Team

Jean-Marie Guéhenno is Director of the Kent Global Leadership Program on Conflict Resolution, Director of the International Conflict Resolution (ICR) Specialization, and Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of Practice at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Guéhenno first came to SIPA in 2010 to serve as the Director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution and the Associate Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies. He left in 2014, when he was appointed President and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He is now a member of the U.N. Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Guéhenno previously served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000-2008. In that role, he led the largest expansion of peacekeeping in the history of the UN, overseeing approximately 130,000 staff on eighteen missions.

Before joining the United Nations, Guéhenno served as director of policy planning in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ambassador to the Western European Union, and chairman of the French Institute of Higher Defense Studies. He is also a trustee of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Guéhenno has taught extensively in the U.S. and Europe. His most recent book, Le premier XXIe siècle: De la globalisation á l’émiettement du monde, was published in September 2021 by Flammarion Press.

Olivia Grinberg received her BA in Political Science, with a primary focus on International Relations, from Columbia College, Columbia University. She is currently the Coordinator for the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Program Coordinator for the Kent Global Leadership Program on Conflict Resolution.

Alexandra Dignan is a first-year Master in International Affairs candidate at SIPA, specializing in International Conflict Resolution. Alexandra graduated from the University of Cambridge in 2015, first working with civil society organisations in the UK and Lebanon and then in humanitarian response to emergencies in Syria, South Sudan, and Afghanistan, most recently as Emergency Coordinator with the Danish Refugee Council in Afghanistan. After SIPA, Alexandra intends to pursue a career in international conflict mediation.

Ghassan Salamé is Professor of International Relations Emeritus at SciencesPo Paris and the founding dean of its Paris School for International Affairs/Psia.

He taught at the American University of Beirut and at Saint-Joseph University, Beirut, before moving to Sciences Po, Paris where he spent most of his academic career (1986-2015). He is the author and/or editor of a dozen books including Democracy Without Democrats, Appels d’empire and The Foundations of the Arab State as well as many dozens of articles in scholarly journals. He also was a visiting professor at many universities, notably at Columbia, New York.

GS also served in politics and diplomacy. He served as Minister of Culture in the Lebanese Government (2000-2003). He was the political advisor to the UN Mission in Baghdad before being appointed as the UNSG Kofi Annan’s Senior Advisor (2003-2007). He also served as member of the Annan Rakhine State Commission (2016-2017) in Myanmar. His most recent assignment was as the United Nations Secretary-General Special Representative in Libya (2017-2020).

He serves on the board of a number of international NGOs.