Faculty

Name
Position
  • Akanmu Adebayo

    Akanmu Adebayo Professor of History

    Dr. Akanmu G. Adebayo Position:
    Professor of History

    Phone: (470) 578-6646
    Email: aadebayo@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 4112


    Dr. Akanmu G. Adebayo is KSU ombuds and professor of history at Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia. He was also formerly director of the Center for Conflict Management and executive director of the Institute for Global Initiatives at KSU. He received his education at the University of Ife (renamed Obafemi Awolowo University) and earned his PhD degree in history. He is author, co-author, and co-editor of many books, and his articles have been published in many scholarly journals. He is series editor for Conflict and Security in the "Developing World" for Lexington Books.

     Faculty Website

  • Anisah Bagasra

    Anisah Bagasra Assistant Professor of Psychological Science

    Dr. Anisah Bagasra Position:
    Assistant Professor of Psychological Science

    Phone: (470) 578-5254
    Email: abagasra@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 2017


    Dr. Anisah Bagasra is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Science who specializes in interdisciplinary research in the Muslim American and African American faith communities. Research interests include the impact of Islamophobia on Muslims, Islamic religious competency for professionals, non-violent social action in the Islamic tradition, spiritual motivations and extreme altruism, and social and psychological challenges caused by acculturation. Further information can be found on my faculty webpage.

    Keywords: Community Based Participatory Research, Mixed Methods Design, Pakistan, Muslim Americans to my brief bio.

  • Jesse Benjamin

    Jesse Benjamin Professor of Sociology and International Conflict Management

    Position:
    Professor of Sociology and International Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-2067
    Email: jbenjam2@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 3003B


     

  • Tavishi Bhasin

    Tavishi Bhasin Associate Professor of Political Science

    Dr Tavishi Bhasin Position:
    Associate Professor of Political Science

    Phone: (470) 578-2272
    Email: tbhasin@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 5034


    Dr. Tavishi Bhasin is a Professor in the School of Government and International Affairs. She studies the politics of identity (gender, ethnicity, religion and language), political participation including nonviolent and violent dissent, state repression, social movements and democratic institutions. She also conducts research in the area of teaching and learning. She has published articles on dissent (violent and nonviolent) and state repression/human rights violations in democratic and authoritarian contexts. Her publications include those examining dissent and repression in a global context in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and the British Journal of Political Science. She uses both qualitative and quantitative methods in her work.

  • Charity Butcher

    Charity Butcher Director of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development.

    Dr. Charity ButcherPosition:
    Director of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development.

    Phone: (470) 578-2929
    Email: cbutche2@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 103


    Dr. Charity Butcher is currently the Director of the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development. Her research explores a variety of international issues, including the ways that ethnicity and religion impact international relations, international human rights, civil war and terrorism, and diversionary war. She also conducts research on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and is the current Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Political Science Education. She teaches graduate courses in international relations, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and development.

  • Volker Franke

    Volker Franke Professor of Conflict Management

    Dr. Volker Franke Position:
    Professor of Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-2931
    Email: vfranke@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 204


    Dr. Volker Franke is Professor of Conflict Management and Executive Director of TRENDS Global, an Atlanta-area based nonprofit dedicated to research and engagement in diverse societies. Dr. Franke has worked with the Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute at the U.S Army War College, the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC), one of Germany’s premier peace and conflict research and capacity building institutes, and the National Security Studies Program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He is the author of Preparing for Peace: Military Identity, Value-Orientations, and Professional Military Education (Praeger 1999) and more than 40 journal articles, book chapters, case studies and research reports on issues related to peace and security studies, conflict management, civil-military relations, development policy and social identity. 

  • Uddipana Goswami

    Uddipana Goswami Assistant Professor of Conflict Management

    uddipana goswamiPosition:
    Assistant Professor of Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-5104
    Email: ugoswami@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 202


    Uddipana Goswami is a writer and feminist peace researcher with a PhD in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her academic works include Gendering Peace in Violent Peripheries: Marginality, Masculinity, and Feminist Agency (Routledge 2023) and Conflict and Reconciliation: The Politics of Ethnicity in Assam (Routledge 2014). Uddipana is also author of a collection of short stories set against the violent conflicts of Northeast India, No Ghosts in This City (Zubaan, 2014) and two poetry collections that dwell on the intersections of personal and political violence. Her Fulbright postdoctoral research (2016-2018) at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, was on gender and ethnonationalist conflicts. As an interdisciplinary academic, she has published widely in the fields of conflict, peace, ethnicity, social identity, media, gender, South Asia, Northeast India, and writing & literary studies. 

    A former journalist and editor, Uddipana worked for over a decade with several multinational and hyperlocal media groups, from National Geographic Channel to Seven Sisters Post. She brought a scholar-practitioner's approach to her classrooms at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (India), Guwahati College (India), University of Pennsylvania (USA), Curtis Institute of Music (USA), and the Johns Hopkins University (USA).  

  • Maia Hallward

    Maia Hallward Professor of Middle East Politics and International Conflict Management and Director of the INCM Program

    Dr. Maia Hallward Position:
    Professor of Middle East Politics and International Conflict Management and Director of the INCM Program

    Phone: (470) 578-6127
    Email: mhallwar@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 116


    Dr. Maia Hallward is a professor of Middle East Politics and International Conflict Management. She is Editor of the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development and Associate Editor of Journal of Political Science Education. She conducts research on topics including nonviolent resistance, human rights, women’s leadership in the Arab world, and the role of identity (religious, cultural, ethnic) in conflict and peace. She has lived and worked in Jordan and Israel/Palestine and conducted field work in Morocco, Oman, and Turkey. 

    Keywords: peacebuilding, civil resistance, Israel/Palestine, civil society movements, human rights, gender

  • Govind Hariharan

    Govind Hariharan Professor of Economics

    Dr. Govind HariharanPosition:
    Professor of Economics

    Phone: (470) 578-6580
    Email: gharihar@kennesaw.edu
    Location: BB 407


    Dr. Govind Hariharan is a Professor of Economics at Kennesaw State University (KSU) and is the board chair and faculty advisor at KSU SMIF LLC. He previously served as the Executive Director of the India China America Institute and as Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance at Kennesaw State University. In his research, Dr. Hariharan applies concepts from economics integrated with other fields such as Information Systems, Psychology and Physics in looking for novel ways to address global and local challenges. His primary area of research is in Health, Wealth, and Technology issues especially of Older Adults. He has taught or lectured in executive programs around the world including major U.S., Chinese, Indian and Singaporean Universities, on industry analysis. 

  • Timothy Hedeen

    Timothy Hedeen Professor of Conflict Management

    Dr. Timothy Hedeen Position:
    Professor of Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-6127
    Email: tkhedeen@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 111


    Dr. Timothy Hedeen has served as researcher, evaluator, mediator, ombuds, facilitator or trainer for court systems, educational institutions, federal agencies, and many private, civil, or non-governmental organizations. His experience spans mediation and restorative justice in community and educational settings, policymaking and regulation of court dispute resolution services, consultation, and assessment services to international organizations.

  • Kristina Hook

    Kristina Hook Assistant Professor of Conflict Management

    Dr. Kristina Hook Position:
    Assistant Professor of Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-7960
    Email: khook2@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 205


    Dr. Kristina Hook as an anthropologist, I specialize in comparative genocide studies and experiences of armed conflict fueled by contested identities and historical narratives. I have research and professional experience in twenty-five countries, with a primary focus on Ukraine, Ukrainian-Russian relations, and the Eastern European context.  My current book project is based on multiyear ethnographic fieldwork and clinical sensitive-topic interviewing across Ukraine.  It explores Joseph Stalin's historical genocide against Ukraine (the Holodomor) and how modern leaders interpreted this history to predict both Russia's modern genocidal war and Ukraine's nationwide resistance. As a Ukraine-Russia specialist, I also publish Ukraine-focused work on war-related environmental risks, local experiences of conflict, historical narratives during hybrid warfare, and emerging technologies. An ongoing research collaboration includes working with computer scientist colleagues at the University of Notre Dame to harness artificial intelligence tools for atrocity forecasting and response in the Ukraine-Russia context and elsewhere. 

    Keywords: genocides and mass atrocities, memory politics, authoritarianism, identity (both its construction and erasure), oral storytelling, qualitative data, ethnography; Eastern Europe and Eurasia; Soviet Union.

  • Darina Lepadatu

    Darina Lepadatu Professor of Sociology and International Conflict Management

    Dr. Darina Lepadatu Position:
    Professor of Sociology and International Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-6953
    Email: dlepadat@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 4064


    Dr. Darina Lepadatu is Professor of Sociology and International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. Dr. Lepadatu teaches the following graduate courses: Qualitative Methods, Advanced Qualitative Methods, Dissertation Proposal Colloquium, Research Design, Current Conflicts and Conflict Management for Managers. 

    Areas of expertise: Intercultural and Organizational Conflict, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Transnational Migration & Refugees, Conflict Management.

    Regional area of expertise: Central and Eastern Europe; European Union; Post-communist Societies

  • Brandon Lundy

    Brandon Lundy Chair & Professor of Anthropology, Department of Geography and Anthropology

    Dr. Brandon D. Lundy Position:
    Chair & Professor of Anthropology, Department of Geography and Anthropology

    Phone: (470) 578-2893
    Email: blundy@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 4050


     Dr. Brandon D. Lundy is a Professor of Anthropology and served as a founding administrator and Associate Director in the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development. Dr. Lundy also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Economic Anthropology.  Dr. Lundy's work focuses on climate change, sustainable livelihoods, ethnoeconomics, transnational labor migration, indigenous conflict management, and entrepreneurship. He is the editor or co-editor of five books and has published in many journals including Cross-Cultural Research, Human Organization, African Studies, Development in Practice, Economic Anthropology, African Arts, African Identities, and Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment. Dr. Lundy has served as a country specialist (Guinea-Bissau) for Fulbright and the State Department and regularly presents nationally and internationally. He currently supervises Ph.D. students on a Diplomacy Lab project on artisanal mining in Mauritania and is beginning new research on the contested values of artisanal alcohol in West Africa.

  • Marcus Marktanner

    Marcus Marktanner Professor of Economics and International Conflict Management

    Dr. Marcus Marktanner Position:
    Professor of Economics and International Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-7750
    Email: mmarktan@kennesaw.edu
    Location: BB 408


     Dr. Marcus Marktanner is a professor of economics and international conflict management. He is interested in economic development as a driver of conflict and contributor to peace. His research is data-driven and involves impact studies and policy simulations. His teaching interest is in conflict economics and advanced quantitative methods.

    Keywords: Economic methodology, conflict economics, econometrics, development economics, impact studies, policy simulations.

  • Christopher Pallas

    Christopher Pallas Associate Professor of Conflict Management and Political Science

    Dr. Christopher L. PallasPosition:
    Associate Professor of Conflict Management and Political Science

    Phone: (470) 578-6227
    Email: cpallas@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 203


    Dr. Christopher L. Pallas, PhD has a dual appointment in the School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding and Development and the School of Government and International Affairs. His research examines the relationship between international institutions, international NGOs, and local stakeholders in international development. He currently has two main areas of focus. One is the impact of international advocacy campaigns on the representation of low- and middle- income country stakeholders in development policymaking and implementation. The other is the impact of foreign aid reduction and donor withdrawal on local civil society sustainability, especially in countries transitioning from low-income to middle-income country status. A list of his publications can be found here.

    Subject Keywords: nongovernmental organizations, civil society, international development, international institutions, World Bank, advocacy,

    Methods Keywords: policy analysis, process tracing, case studies, interviews

  • Daniel Paracka

    Daniel Paracka Director of Academic Initiatives and Professor of Education

    Dr. Dan Paracka Position:
    Director of Academic Initiatives and Professor of Education

    Phone: (470) 578-6732
    Email: dparacka@kennesaw.edu
    Location: LB 424


    Dr. Dan Paracka is a Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and serves as Coordinator of Religious Studies and the Peace Corps Prep Advisor at Kennesaw State University (KSU). He is currently the PI for a grant from the Stevens Initiative to conduct Virtual Exchange on the topic of Women’s Leadership with Hassan II University of Casablanca in Morocco. With more than 35 years of international education experience, Dr. Paracka’s scholarship focuses on intercultural competence and global learning.  For more than 15 years, Dan led KSU’s education abroad office, coordinated KSU’s signature annual country study program, and served as editor-in-chief of KSU’s Journal of Global Initiatives.

  • Heather Pincock

    Heather Pincock Associate Professor of Conflict Management and Interim Peace Studies Coordinator

    Dr. Heather Pincock Position:
    Associate Professor of Conflict Management and Interim Peace Studies Coordinator

    Phone: (470) 578-6227
    Email: hpincock@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 111


    Dr. Heather Pincock, Associate Professor of Conflict Management. Her research is broadly concerned with theories of democracy and citizenship, and her work examines how both citizens and the state seek to manage everyday conflicts in ways that conform to, reinforce, and challenge democratic values of autonomy, equality, and community.

    Keywords: Political Science, Democratic Theory, Public Deliberation, Participatory Democracy, Citizenship

  • Amanda Reinke

    Amanda Reinke Associate Director for Professional Programs and Director of the MSCM Program and Associate Professor of Conflict Management

    Dr. Amanda J. ReinkePosition:
    Associate Director for Professional Programs and Director of the MSCM Program and Associate Professor of Conflict Management

    Phone: (470) 578-6127
    Email: areinke@kennesaw.edu
    Location: House 3201 - 113


    Dr. Amanda J. Reinke is a scholar-practitioner who uses primarily qualitative methods to analyze the structural, everyday, slow, and bureaucratic violence of disaster recovery processes and alternative dispute resolution contexts in the Southeastern United States.

    Keywords: qualitative methods; ethnography; bureaucracy; structural violence

  • Seneca Vaught

    Seneca Vaught Coordinator of African and African Diaspora Studies and Associate Professor of History

    Dr. Seneca VaughtPosition:
    Coordinator of African and African Diaspora Studies and Associate Professor of History

    Phone: (470) 578-2431
    Email: svaught3@kennesaw.edu
    Location: LB 424


    Dr. Seneca Vaught’s teaching and research specializations focus on global intersections of race, culture, and policy. He has co-directed numerous study abroad programs to Europe, West Africa, and South America where he mentors students working on applied historical projects, ranging from “grassroots mini-documentary projects” to “game-based play maps.” He leverages these techniques and his expertise in race policy as a method of democratizing the policymaking process and is a champion of problem-based learning. His research and teaching agenda focuses on how to apply historical methods and use historical content in policy, social entrepreneurship, and cultural diplomacy. His most recent book examines the life and legacy of Susana Baca, an Afro-Peruvian artist and diplomat, and studies historical and cultural connections between African-descended populations in Peru and throughout the African Diaspora.

  • Silke Zoller

    Silke Zoller Assistant Professor of History

    Dr. Silke Zoller Position:
    Assistant Professor of History

    Phone: (470) 578-2531
    Email: szoller@kennesaw.edu
    Location: SO 4094


    Dr. Silke Zoller is an Assistant Professor of History, Department of History and Philosophy. she studies international collaboration against terrorism and political violence in the second half of the twentieth century. Her research focuses on how the United States and European countries responded to instances of non-state violence in the past. She analyzes the history of diplomatic relations, international institutions, debates about the legitimacy of violence, and civil aviation. In particular, Silke is interested in how different understandings of terrorism shaped different responses to terrorism over time.

    Keywords: terrorism, counterterrorism, political violence, decolonization, the Cold War, international organizations, the United Nations, hijacking, aviation security, and international law.

©