Samuel Rizk
Samuel Rizk is a PhD candidate at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. Living in Lebanon from 2002 to 2006 he was a founding member and executive director of the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue – a regional NGO based in Beirut, working on issues of conflict resolution, community empowerment and interfaith dialogue. During that time he was instrumental in establishing the Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Human Security and coordinated its work in relation to the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) where he also served on the first GPPAC Executive Committee. Samuel was a sponsor and member of the steering committee of the Conflict Resolution Summer School in Lebanon in cooperation with the UN and the Lebanese American University.
Previous experience includes work with the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies in Cairo (as Editor-in-Chief of the center’s newsletter Civil Society and Democratization in the Arab World) as well as the Middle East Council of Churches in Egypt and Lebanon on issues of justice, peace and human rights. During the academic years 2007-8 and 2008-9 Samuel served as the Graduate Research Assistant to Prof. Marc Gopin, assisting with research, publications and workshops.
Samuel is adjunct faculty at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, teaching Conflict Transformation Theory, Strategic Peacebuilding, and Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding. He is currently a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim Christian Understanding. Samuel is a contributor to Common Ground News and the Cordoba Initiative, and his analysis has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, and on CTV (Canada). He has frequent speaking engagements with churches and other religious organizations in the US and globally, as well as peace institutions and academic settings including, most recently, the US Institute of Peace (2007 and 2008) and Grinnell college (2008).