Kathleen Kuehnast Editor

Kathleen Kuehnast is the director of Gender Policy and Strategy at the U.S. Institute of Peace, where she has worked since 2008. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. As a socio-cultural anthropologist, Kuehnast has focused on the different gendered impacts of violence and conflict on both men and women. In addition, her efforts have focused on the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, including the critical role women should play in all aspects of peacebuilding. In this capacity, Kuehnast co-edited the volume, "Women and War: Power and Protection in the 21st Century" (2011). She has been a part of the international vanguard of introducing the concept of engaging men in conflict countries in the championing of women's rights. Prior to USIP, Kuehnast worked 15 years in the international development field, primarily with the World Bank, where her role as a senior social scientist included research and project management on the thematic streams of women and poverty, social capital and community driven development in fragile and post-conflict societies. Kuehnast's regional expertise is Central Asia, where she lived for several years in the post-Soviet country of Kyrgyzstan completing her doctoral dissertation research, which resulted in a number of publications on the impact of post-Soviet transition on Muslim women, including the co-edited volume, "Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition: Nation Building, Economic Survival, and Civic Activism" (2004). Dr. Kuehnast is a recipient of the post-doctorate Mellon Foreign Fellowship at the Library of Congress, and also a former post-doctorate Kennan Institute Fellow at the Wilson Center. Kuehnast is the 2015 recipient of the Perdita Huston Human Rights Award of the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area. Kuehnast holds a doctorate in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Minnesota. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat has been President of Women in International Security (WIIS) since February 2013. She has held senior positions at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) North America; U.S. Institute of Peace; Center for Transatlantic Relations, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC; and the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva. De Jonge Oudraat areas of specialization are: women, peace and security, gender, international organizations, arms control and disarmament, terrorism and countering violent extremism, peacekeeping, use of force, economic sanctions, U.S.-European relations. She has published widely on these issues. Her most recent publication is The Gender and Security Agenda: Strategies for the 21st Century (Routledge, 2020). De Jonge Oudraat received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Paris II (Pantheon). She is a Dutch and US national. Helga Hernes was formerly a senior adviser on women, peace, and security issues at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).