Joan Camilo Lopez

Joan Camilo Lopez is program manager at the Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict and Complexity at Columbia University, adjunct lecturer at Columbia University and the City University of New York, CUNY. His work is situated in the threshold where sociopolitical processes led by youth community leaders meet with the production of spaces of peace in areas where violent conflicts are rampant. He focuses on understanding the ways youth leaders make sense of violent conflicts, and on how they construct practices and technologies to respond peacefully to the dynamics of such conflicts. He is also interested on how the concrete practices and technologies designed by community youth leaders can inform and further develop academic approaches to peacebuilding, conflict resolution, and leadership; and on how the work of youth leaders can benefit from applying some of the practices and theories that are produced in academia. In short, his work lies where theory and praxis melt.