Lisa Schirch

Dr. Lisa Schirch is Senior Research Fellow for the Toda Peace Institute where she directs the Institute’s “Social Media, Technology and Peacebuilding” programme. Dr. Schirch is Richard G. Starmann Sr. Chair and Professor of the Practice at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies in the Keough School of Global Affairs where she directs the PeaceTech and Polarization Lab. Her full bio can be found here.

In her role with the Toda Peace Institute, she produces research reports and publications, convenes workshops and conferences, and commissions policy briefs and case studies on the impact of social media on conflict dynamics and how to use technology to support social cohesion. She participates as a Founding Member of the Council on Technology and Social Cohesion and was the lead organiser for the 2023 conference on Designing Technology and Social Cohesion in San Francisco.

Schirch is the author of eleven books including most recently Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy (2021), The Ecology of Violent Extremism, and several action guides including Synergizing Nonviolent Action and Peacebuilding, Handbook on Human Security: A Civil-Military-Police Curriculum, and Local Ownership in Security.

As a practitioner in the field of peacebuilding for the last 30 years, Schirch has facilitated and participated in the design of national peace processes in over 20 countries, including in Fiji and Afghanistan. Her work includes supporting democracy activists in Latin America, supporting women’s peace efforts across Africa, and supporting community leaders in Asia, working on Indigenous land claims in Canada, and facilitating dialogue on racial justice in the US.

Education:

Ph.D., M.S. Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University.