National Democratic Institute

Brian Vogt is a senior program officer with NDI’s Asia team focusing on the countries of Indonesia and the Philippines. He came to the Institute directly from the Partnership for a Secure America, an organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. While the program manager there, he coordinated the release and promotion of bipartisan policy statements endorsed by prominent Democrats and Republicans.
In the three years before joining NDI in 2007, Brian also regularly served as an international election observer with The Carter Center. He observed the second round of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s presidential election in 2006, a series of re-votes during the 2005 Ethiopian parliamentary poll and the two rounds of Indonesian presidential elections in 2004.

In 2004 Brian co-founded a political advocacy organization, Win Back Respect that promoted an American foreign policy that engages America’s friends and allies. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Win Back Respect produced television advertisements that aired in every battleground state, featuring military families whose loved ones were serving in Iraq.
For four years prior to grad school, he worked with the international nonprofit organization Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, which invests in social entrepreneurs in developing countries. Brian worked with Ashoka’s Asia program and led the organization’s monitoring and evaluation program. Brian earned his Masters in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University and his BA in Political Science from Yale University.

Amara Konneh

Edward S. Mason Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School

Amara Konneh is an Edward S. Mason Fellow in Public Policy and Management at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Kennedy School of Government. His main areas of research interest are how to leverage systems in the development and execution of public policies. Before coming to the Kennedy school, Amara worked at the Executive Mansion in Monrovia, Liberia as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Technology. As the President's chief strategist on communicating policies, he was one of the key senior staff assisting and advising the President on policy issues. Previously, he worked for the Vanguard Group of Investment Companies as a systems analyst. He began his career in 1991 with the International Rescue Committee when he served as Refugee Education Coordinator in Guinea, West Africa. In this capacity, he helped with the implementation of education response for Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugee students. Amara earned his Master in Management Information Systems from Penn State University and his B.A. from Drexel University.

Elizabeth Levy Paluck

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University

Elizabeth Levy Paluck received her PhD from Yale University in Social Psychology, and is an Assistant Professor at Princeton University and the Woodrow Wilson School. From 2007-2009 she is an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard. Her research focuses on the political psychology of prejudice and conflict reduction, in particular the role of mass media, community dialogue, and education. She is also interested in links between these post-conflict interventions and economic development. The bulk of her fieldwork is conducted using field experiments and qualitative methods in Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Burundi.                                              

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