Subject matter experts from within WCAPS membership authored a series of discussion papers that consider the history of global systemic racism in peace and security. Read and download the papers on the climate change, nuclear weapons, and mass violence and atrocities pages. The full bios of the authors can be found below.
Emily Sample is a Programs Director at the Fund for Peace, and a PhD candidate at the George Mason University Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Previously, she has worked as Associate Director of Education at Holocaust Museum Houston and for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Ugandan National Committee on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, as well as the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. She earned her BA from the College of William and Mary and her MA in human rights and genocide studies from Kingston University London. Her research interests include sexual- and gender-based violence, climate change adaptation, and mass atrocity prevention.
Regina M. Paulose obtained her JD from Seattle University School of Law and her LLM in international crime and justice from the University of Torino/UNICRI. She has been a practicing attorney since 2004. She presents and publishes on topics related to international criminal law, transnational crimes, and responses to mass atrocities. Paulose has participated in different people’s tribunals and is the editor of the 2019 volume People’s Tribunals, Human Rights, and the Law: Searching for Justice (Routledge). She serves on the Executive Committee of the World Peace through Law Section of the Washington State Bar Association and was the 2019–2020 Co-Chair of the International Refugee Law Committee of the American Bar Association.
Sylvia Mishra is a New Tech Nuclear Officer at the European Leadership Network and a doctoral researcher at the Department of Defence, King’s College London. Her research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, South Asian security, grand strategy, and emerging and disruptive technologies. She serves as cochair of Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Policy Working Group and the Indian Women in International Relations Forum at Global Policy Insights. Mishra is an N-Square Innovators Network Fellow and a Mid-Career Cadre Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She serves on the Advisory Board for the Stimson Center’s UNSCR 1540 Assistance Support Initiative, is a Board Member of Atomic Reporters, and is a Steering Committee Member of OrgsInSolidarity. She was featured in the CSIS-Diversity in National Security 2021 US National Security & Foreign Affairs Leadership List.
Formerly, Mishra was an India-US Fellow at New America, Accelerator Initiative Fellow at the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, Scoville Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Visiting Fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Carnegie New Leader, and has worked in New Delhi at the Observer Research Foundation on India-US defense and security ties. Mishra holds a BA in political science from Hindu College, University of Delhi, an MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MA in nonproliferation and terrorism studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
Wardah Amir is a contractor with the US Department of State as a national security adviser. She serves as cochair of Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation’s (WCAPS) Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Policy Working Group and on the WCAPS Organizations in Solidarity steering team. Amir cohosts the WCAPS podcast A Seat at the Table with other women of color in the peace and security field. She is a 2019-2020 National Nuclear Security Administration graduate fellow. Amir became interested in non-proliferation and disarmament after an internship with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. She also interned with several think tanks, including Chatham House, the Hudson Institute, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Amir holds a BS in chemical engineering from Texas A&M University and an MA in security policy studies from the George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs, where she specialized in issues related to weapons of mass destruction.
Pratima T. Narayan is Deputy Director with the Global Initiative for Justice, Truth, and Reconciliation at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience where she oversees several programs in transitional justice and atrocity prevention in East Africa, as well as in Bangladesh with Rohingya communities. Prior to this, Narayan served as the Chief of Investigations for the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. In 2018, she was one of 18 investigators selected globally to participate in a US Department of State investigation into atrocities allegedly committed against Rohingya communities in Myanmar.
Narayan has held various other positions with the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA), the United Nations Development Programme and with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. In addition to working as an attorney with corporate law firms in New York, Narayan has successfully counseled internally displaced persons and asylum-seekers in Greek migrant camps, as well as in South Africa and Japan. A Bronx native, she began her career representing families in eviction prevention cases with the Legal Aid Society in 2002.
Narayan received a Juris Doctor from Boston University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS) and the United Nations Association of the United States of America (NNJ). From September 2020 to December 2021, Narayan served as cochair of the WCAPS Human Rights Working Group. She also served on the leadership team for the Intersectionality and National Security Sub-Working Group of WCAPS which produced the publication, A New Normal: Redefining National Security Beyond 2020. Narayan coordinates the Christine Loudes Mentorship Program for ATLAS women in public international law. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the American Society of International Law, and the Justice Rapid Response Expert Roster. Most recently, she was selected as a 2021 International Career Advancement Program Fellow and named to the Diversity in National Security Network and the Center for Strategic and International Studies 2021 US National Security & Foreign Affairs Leadership List.
Ronnate D. Asirwatham is a human rights advocate who focuses on collaborative interventions that center rights and justice for people of color and marginalized ethnic groups. Her practice and academic specialty have been on resolving ethnic conflicts and achieving racial equity through human rights. She works with faith and interfaith organizations at the nexus of US domestic and foreign policy, advocating for just and humane policies that support immigration, civilian security, and to end mass atrocities. She also serves as the current cochair for the Human Rights Working Group, WCAPS, and is on the Advisory Board of Charity and Security Network.
Asirwatham has lived and worked in Sri Lanka, Burma, and South Sudan. She has also worked on human rights issues in Tibet and China. She worked with the UN New York in 2009 and at the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva in 2001.
She received the Hellman-Hammett award in 2010 for her commitment to free expression and courage when facing political persecution. She received her MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, Massachusetts, and her LLM in international human rights and humanitarian law from the University of Essex, UK.
She is a genocide survivor.
Abiola Afolayan is an international lawyer and a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. Her policy focus is on the humanitarian-development-peace-security nexus, human rights, the rule of law, and the empowerment of women and girls.
She is the author of the book A Seat at the Table for Women, Girls and Movements: A Manifesto on Peace and Security (March 2021), framed around UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
Her portfolio includes work with the Nobel Peace Prize-winning UN World Food Programme, and on Capitol Hill with field missions to the Syria/Jordan border, northeastern Nigeria, the disputed Western Sahara region of Africa, Algeria, Turkey, and Taiwan, where she saw firsthand how women were taking on leadership roles and enormous risks in telling their stories of triumph and dignity even in the eye of the storm in the context of violent extremism and all manner of atrocities that threatened their livelihoods.
Afolayan was also guest lecturer at Temple University School of Law International Law Program in Rome, where she has discussed UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
She is former foreign affairs adviser for a senior member of the US Congress who is the first woman ranking member on the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations. Upon the request of the member, Afolayan worked on legislative measures and initiatives on women, peace, and security, including a Capitol Hill Congressional Briefing Series that earned the member of Congress the Charles T. Manatt Democracy Award.
She has been an active member of the American Bar Association (ABA) with appointments and service in various capacities: Young Lawyers Division Scholar, Chairwoman of the Young Lawyers Division International Committee, Council Member of the Rule of Law Initiative for Africa, ABA Presidential Appointee to the Center for Children and the Law and Taskforce for Unaccompanied Minors, and with the Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources-Congressional Relations Committee.
Within the ABA, she coauthored various measures, including resolutions that passed in the Young Lawyers Division General Assembly on the due process rights of unaccompanied minors and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Afolayan is active in various organizations: Women of Color Advancing Peace Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS), as a National Endowment for Democracy Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Africa Policy Accelerator and Partnership for a Secure America cohort member and advisory committee member for the Women and Girls Africa Summit (WAGS) Friends of Africa. She can be reached at abiolaafolayan [at] gmail.com.
