Our People

Mike Pejcic, Treasurer

Mike Pejcic who joined CDA’s Board in late 2019, serves as Chief Financial Officer for World Wildlife Fund. Prior to joining WWF in 2018, Mike was Chief Financial Officer for International Youth Foundation. He also served as CFO for an international peacebuilding organization in Geneva, Switzerland, for nearly 10 years. His earlier experience included overseeing global finance operations for Mercy Corps and Habitat for Humanity International, as well as work in Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Burundi and South Africa. Early in his career, Pejcic focused on helping refugees fleeing conflict, learning and applying methodologies similar to those developed by CDA. Working in conflict areas taught him the importance of listening, context, and that peace cannot be imported or imposed from outside. The most durable solutions are those that come from within a society and are locally owned. Mike received a BBA from Andrews University in Michigan and an MBA from University of Westminster in London.​

Jeannette Carneiro McLaughlin, Board Member

Jeannette Carneiro McLaughlin is a partner in the corporate department of Arent Fox, a full-service law firm based in Boston. She serves in the role of outside general counsel to numerous global companies, managing strategic advice on corporate planning, corporate governance, and negotiations. She represents companies in a broad range of industries, including software, digital media and entertainment, mobile, consumer internet, clean tech, medical device, and healthcare services related to work in the US, Latin America, Asia, Europe and globally. Jeannette previously practiced law in London, where she specialized in international business law. She grew up in Kenya and holds BS and JD degrees from Northeastern University.

Pushpa Iyer, Ph.D, Board Member

Dr. Pushpa Iyer is an activist, practitioner, scholar, and teacher, in conflict resolution, peacebuilding, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her work to bring peace between Gujarat’s (India) divided Hindu and Muslim communities laid the foundation for her social justice work. Her research in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and the United States, has focused on identity-based conflicts, non-state armed groups, and peacebuilding. Dr. Iyer’s current research centers on developing approaches to decolonizing the mind through a historical and contextual understanding of how colonized minds impact knowledge acquisition and dissemination. As Senior Technical Advisor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Catholic Relief Services, she designs and develops programs that facilitate attitudinal and behavioral changes for a more equitable and inclusive organizational/societal culture. Dr. Iyer published her coffee table book, “Gandhi’s Gujarat: Vibrant Diversity through the Center for Conflict Studies.” She is currently writing a book titled “Challenging the Binary: Decolonizing Antiracism Approaches with Compassionate Courage” (Routledge, 2023.) Dr. Iyer is a Visiting Scholar at her alma mater, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, George Mason University, where she received her Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. She also holds an MBA in International Management from the University of East London, U.K. After graduating from George Mason University, Dr. Iyer was an Associate Professor of Conflict Resolution at the Middlebury Institute and served as the Institute’s first Chief Diversity Officer. Dr. Iyer is the founder and director of the Center for Conflict Studies, which has successfully run many initiatives, including a Summer Peacebuilding Program, a Certificate in Conflict Resolution, and a research-cum-practice initiative for racial equity – Allies at MIIS. A current initiative of the Center is Compassionate Courage, an intervention approach for resolving identity-based conflicts. Dr. Iyer serves on the Board of various non-profits, has organized eight conferences and symposiums, is a frequent speaker and trainer on various social justice issues and writes on topics that stir her conscience.

Jessica Wattman, Board Member

Jessica Wattman is Director, Social Innovation at New Markets Advisors, an innovation consulting firm based in Boston. She works predominantly in the public and nonprofit sectors, where she has deployed the “jobs to be done” and other innovation methodologies to create a wide range of trail-blazing programs in conflict and other unstable environments. Her background includes time in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, and other hotspots. She has worked for organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, Save the Children, Oxfam, the Department of Defense, the US Agency for International Development, and Mercy Corps. Jessica has extensive experience in conducting primary research and using those findings to create new approaches to facilitate communities’ adoption of new ideas. She has a PhD from MIT, her MPP from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and her BA from Columbia University. She currently lives in Puerto Rico with her husband and three children.

Cully Lundgren

Cully Lundgren is a Major Gifts Officer with Oxfam America. He has spent much of his career working with international development organizations focused on alleviating poverty and saving lives, including time with Mercy Corps and Save the Children.

Rob Ricigliano

Rob Ricigliano is the Systems and Complexity coach at The Omidyar Group, where he supports and guides teams within organizations and initiatives in efforts to better understand and effectively engage with dynamic systems. The Systems Practice at The Omidyar Group is built on Rob’s pioneering work using systems and complexity tools in peacebuilding and social change.

Millicent Otieno

Millie Otieno is one of the Founders of the Local Capacities for Peace International (an INGO based in Kenya) and a CDA partner for 25 years. She works nationally and internationally across Africa, Asia, Europe and in the USA on matters related to the impact of humanitarian action on beneficiaries, interfaith dialogues, breaking systemic violence, dignity, identity, trauma and peacebuilding, development and nonviolent conflict transformation in the context of war and armed conflicts, community security and restorative justice. She currently engaged as a Graduate Assistant in the Women Peace-building Leadership Program at the Centre for Justice and Peace Eastern Mennonite University, represents Mediators Beyond Border’s in East Africa as the Regional Consultant, she is also a member of the Conflict Analysis Group under the Directorate of Peace-building and Conflict Management in Kenya, Chair of the Linking Levels’ Working Group in the Swiss Peace (KOFF) Conflict Sensitive Consortium, and a member of the Kenya Do No Harm and Conflict Sensitive Consortium.

Graeme Simpson

Graeme Simpson is the Director of Interpeace USA and Senior Adviser to the Director-General of Interpeace, a global peace-building organization headquartered in Geneva and working in 20 conflict and immediate post-conflict zones around the world. In September 2016, he was appointed by the UN Secretary General as the Lead Author on the UN Security Council-mandated “Progress Study” on Youth, Peace and Security, under UN SCR 2250 and served in this role until June 2018.

Seth Owusu-Mante

Seth Owusu-Mante is a PhD student in International Affairs at The Fletcher School of Tufts University and a Junior Research Fellow at the Climate Policy Lab. His research interests include clean energy infrastructure investments, climate finance, clean energy policy, sustainable energy access, and international organizations governing climate change. Prior to coming to Fletcher, Seth worked with International Perspective for Policy & Governance in Ghana where he led and managed policy advocacy programs on SDG 7 (Affordable & Clean Energy) and SDG 13 (Climate Change). He received his M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School of Tufts University and his B.A. in Political Science from the University of Ghana.

Sabina Carlson Robillard

Sabina Carlson Robillard passed away on November 16, 2022. She was a beloved CDA Associate and a constant part of our community for 10 years.

Sabina specialized in the relationship between disaster affected communities and humanitarian organizations, and had previously collaborated with CDA on a variety of initiatives, including projects with the International Federation of the Red Cross and the International Rescue Committee. Her efforts include a Do No Harm Case Study focused on Cité Soleil in Haiti that was supported by a grant from DFID.

Sabina was one of the Tufts students responding with Ushahidi to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti where, in many ways, she discovered her life’s calling; she became a passionate advocate for affected people and local leadership in humanitarian disasters. She later helped found the Humanitarian Women’s Network and, with her husband, Louino Robillard, founded a number of community-driven organizations in Haiti.

In 2014, Sabina was called up to join the International Organization for Migration during the 2014 Ebola crisis in Guinea and wrote about the contribution of community engagement to the response on CDA’s blog.

Most recently, Sabina was involved in Risk III: From Evidence to Action, a partnership between CDA and InterAction to identify, understand, and address risk management “traps” that limit organizations’ abilities to meet humanitarian needs and adapt to complex contexts.

Sabina was also the lead researcher on a study for USAID by Tufts University’s Feinstein Center on the localization and decolonization of the humanitarian sector. In October 2022, USAID issued a new policy on their commitment to locally led humanitarian action.

Sabina will have a lasting impact on the people and systems she touched. We miss her deeply.