Scott Cooper

Managing Director

Scott is currently completing a Masters of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University where he focuses on Israeli-Palestinian people-to-people programs. As a researcher, his focus has been on identifying networks of local Arab and Jewish peacebuilders in Palestine and Israel. Over the past several years, Scott has frequently traveled to the region and has deeply embedded himself within these networks.

As a practitioner, he has assisted many organizations with intra-group evaluation and inter-group coordination. He is presently analyzing and experimenting with the intersection of new media, social networks, and peacebuilding in collaboration with Dr. Marc Gopin and hundreds of individual Palestinian and Israeli peacebuilders.

Under Scott’s direction, the CRDC played a crucial role in designing, coordinating, and implementing the ALLMEP Summit on the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace on Wednesday, March 4th 2009 in Washington, DC. The Summit publicly launched a 200 million dollar year Fund for Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding organizations. The concept was inspired by the International Fund for Ireland and the idea is that this public-private, multi-national Fund will, for the first time, deploy the resources and expertise to focus strategically on dramatically growing peacebuilding on the ground even as top-level negotiations continue. Just two weeks after the Summit, the International Fund for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Authorization Act of 2009 (H.R. 1605) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Scott received a B.A in Political Science and a minor in Human Communication from Arizona State University where he focused on the intersection of political science, popular culture, and mass communication. Before coming to CRDC, Scott spent six months at the United States Institute of Peace working on a project entitled “Evaluating Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution Programs in Conflict Zones” under the supervision of Dr. Mohammed Abu-Nimer.

Prior to his move into the fields of peacebuilding and development, Scott worked in business and personal finance for J.P. Morgan Chase.