Greetings from the Chair

Dear Peace and Conflict Studies Community,

Thank you for a wonderful 2024-2025 academic year! I am deeply grateful for the students, staff, and faculty who bring such energy and dedication to our community.

Our department operations continue to flourish thanks to Israa Al-Helli’s exceptional work as Administrative Assistant—recently honored with the Judy Lord Award—and the creative input of Dr. L Fahn-Lai, our Communications Consultant. Professor Michael Wilson-Becerril continues to inspire students, earning a Teaching Spotlight for his pedagogy. Professor Lee Smithey returned from sabbatical with renewed vigor, while Dr. Sahr Conway-Lanz continues his excellent work as Curator of the Peace Collection. Professor Barbara Milewski shared her expertise in a BBC Holocaust Memorial Day documentary, and I was honored to receive this year’s Intercultural Center Staff/Faculty Award.

This academic year has been particularly rich with programming. Our fall Palestine/Israel Speaker Series featured distinguished scholars including Dr. Dov Waxman, Dr. Miriam Udel, Reem Kassis, and Dr. Karam Dana, while our spring “Gender, Sexuality, and Social Change in the Middle East” series brought insights from Dr. Lara Deeb, Dr. Fida Adely, and Dr. Tarek El-Ariss. We also celebrated former PCS department member Professor George Lakey with a screening of Citizen George, a documentary about his life and work. April was a big month for film screenings, including Nayla Punjabi ’26’s documentary Indonesia’s Silent Emergency, and the four-part series “How to Defeat an Empire: Lessons from Vietnam,” alongside book talks with scholars like Dr. Alex Fattal and Dr. Chikako Ozawa-de Silva.

Peace and Conflict Studies remains one of the most popular prospective majors among the Class of 2028. Our students continue to excel beyond the classroom, with Billy Wu ’26 named as one of the Lang Center’s 2024-2025 Engaged Humanities Studio Fellows for his documentary project exploring Chinatown elders’ experiences. Our recent alumni are also leaving their mark, exemplified by Luke Neureiter ’22 joining the U.S. Digital Corps. We loved hosting our annual alumni leadership panel in the fall, which brought six of our alums back to campus: Hanan Ahmed ’19, Omri Gal ’20, Zackary Lash ’19, Natasha Markov-Riss ’20, Angel Padilla ’18, and Nancy Yuan ’20.

This year’s departmental awards celebrated the accomplishments of Bella Deanhardt ’25 (Outstanding Senior Award), Nayla Punjabi ’26 (Outstanding Junior Award), Katie Kerman ’26 (Elise Boulding Award), and Billy Wu ’26 (Bayard Rustin Award). Furthermore, we are deeply proud of Aqua Withers Carello ’25 and Zamir Ticknor ’25 for graduating with High Honors.

As we look toward the fall, our department is delighted to host the National Peace and Justice Studies Association conference in October. We are expecting around 400 participants from across the country and registration is now open and free for Swarthmore students, staff, and faculty.

Have a lovely summer, and I look forward to welcoming you back in September!

Warmest wishes,
Sa’ed Atshan