About OPI

Rob Gould holds advanced degrees in philosophy and in teaching. He grew up in Portland and became active in peace issues in the Vietnam War era. In 1984 and co-founded the Oregon Peace Institute with Congresswoman Elizabeth Furse.

Through the early 1990s, Rob taught at several campuses around Portland. With Mary Zinkin, he co-founded the Conflict Resolution graduate program at Portland State in 1996 and served as director until 2015. Rob teaches courses with an ethical/values focus, such as Forgiveness & Atonement nd Evil & Hate. He is currently at work on a conflict resolution textbook, tentatively titled Navigating Differences and Dilemmas. He is also an avid runner, bicycler, and mountain climber.

José-Antonio Orosco is professor of philosophy at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. He received his B.A. in Philosophy from Reed College (1992) and his Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of California, Riverside (2002). His areas of specialization are in Social and Political Philosophy (focusing on democratic theory, social movements, and peace and nonviolence studies), Philosophy of the Americas (North and Latin), and issues in multiculturalism, immigration, and decolonization. He is also interested in theories of anarchism and utopian/dystopian political thought (particularly in science fiction, such at Star Trek).

He is the author of Toppling the Melting Pot: Immigration and Multiculturalism in American Pragmatism (Indiana University Press, 2016) and Cesar Chavez and the Common Sense of Nonviolence (University of New Mexico Press, 2008).

He is an Associate Editor for Acorn: A Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence.

Leslie Gregory, MSBS, PA-C is the Founder/Director of Right to Health, Inc.

Tom H. Hastings, Ed.D., is Founding Director of Peacevoice, and Coordinator of the undergraduate program in Conflict Resolution at Portland State University. He is a former member of the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA), former co-chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association, former board member of the IPRA Foundation and currently the Oregon Peace Institute, as well as the Academic Advisory Council of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. He has written several books and many articles about nonviolence and other peace and conflict topics. He is a former Plowshares resister, a nonviolence trainer, and a founding member of two Catholic Worker communities.

Molly Wallace (she/her/hers) is Adjunct Assistant Professor in Portland State University’s Conflict Resolution Program and Senior Contributing Editor at the Peace Science Digest. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Brown University and her B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Mount Holyoke College.

Molly serves as Associate Editor of the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence. Her book, Security without Weapons: Rethinking Violence, Nonviolent Action, and Civilian Protection(Routledge 2017), explores nonviolent alternatives for civilian protection in war zones—and particularly the unarmed civilian peacekeeping work of Nonviolent Peaceforce in Sri Lanka. More broadly, her research and teaching interests include nonviolent action; demilitarized security and violence prevention; conflict resolution/transformation; military desertion/defection; peacebuilding and reconciliation; restorative justice; political violence; gender and global politics; and international ethics. She is the author of several journal articles and book chapters, including those published in International Politics, Critical Studies on Security, and Global Society, and she presents regularly at the annual meetings of the International Studies Association.

Before moving back to Oregon (where she grew up), she taught in the International Affairs and Political Science Programs at the University of New Hampshire and Brown University and, prior to that, worked with non-governmental organizations in the fields of conflict resolution and international affairs in Washington, DC. Previously a volunteer mediator with the Community Mediation Center of Rhode Island for several years, she now volunteers as a restorative dialogue facilitator in Multnomah County. Molly also enjoys facilitating group discussions and dialogue, both in her classes and in the community, and has worked with both the James Lawson Institute and Oregon Humanities in that capacity.

Foday J. Darboe holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University and an M.A. in Conflict Resolution from Portland State University. He is an Analyst and a Senior Researcher with Valka-Mir Human Security LLC.

Foday is also the founder of Africa Election Watch, an organization that monitors presidential elections, term limitations, political violence and democratization across Sub-Saharan Africa. Foday has written many articles about democratization, ethnic violence, and political violence.

His research centers on violent ethnic conflicts, multi-track diplomacy, peacebuilding, disarmament, the demobilization and reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants, trans-regional extremist uses of terror, and political violence

Patrick (he/him/his) is the Executive Director of the War Prevention Initiative at the Jubitz Family Foundation. He holds a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University and an M.A. in Human Geography from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany.

He is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Conflict Resolution Program at Portland State University. Following an interdisciplinary approach, his work and research interests encompass war and peace, conflict resolution, peace studies, environmental issues, ethnicity, human rights, nationalism, social justice, Mexico, Latin America, social/peace movements, identity formation, culture and conflict and migration. He studied and worked on those topics while living in Germany, Mexico and the United States.

His writings and research are almost exclusively related to the analysis of war and peace and social injustice and, most often in the form of structural violence and power dynamics with an emphasis on human dignity, solidarity among all peoples, equal participation of all peoples, the role of the governments and the promotion of peace. Patrick seeks to contribute to the growth of the still young peace and conflict studies field.

Patrick is the Vice-President of the International Peace Research Association Foundation and served on the Executive Committee of the Governing Council of the International Peace Research Association (2012-2016). He served on the Coordinating Committee of World Beyond War (2013-2016), he is member of the Advisory Council of the organizations International Cities of Peace and PeaceVoice/PeaceVoiceTV, member of the Board of Directors of the Oregon Peace Institute, member of the Peace and Security Funders Group as well as member of the Peace and Justice Studies Association. He is the founding editor of the Peace Science Digest. In his free time, Patrick enjoys the outdoors and is a committed triathlete. He lives in Hood River, Oregon with his wife and son.