Advisory Circle
The Advisory Circle includes several distinguished and notable persons appointed to advise on policies, projects, strategies to meet the aims of the DEEP. It also assists in the promotion of the network and its activities and the management of DEEP resources and publications as well as identifying sources of funding and grants for DEEP.
Members
Mohan Bhagwandas
Senior Consultant Earthbanc | Corporate Career
Mohan worked as a Senior Business Strategy executive for the Kanbay Group of Companies,
focusing on financial markets, working closely with the company’s key corporate
clients, helping to understand client’s changing business needs and supporting the company’s growth through partnerships and mergers.
Initiatives of Change Career
Initiatives of Change is an international not-for profit organisation working in 60 countries to inspire, equip and connect people to address world needs, starting with themselves. It has Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, and Participatory Status at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. www.iofc.org
Mohan’s roles with Initiatives of Change have been:
• Vice President and Acting President on the International Board
• Peace building and mediation work in Sri Lanka during the civil war
• Mediator between Papua New Guinea government and Bougainville Authority
• First Nations relationship building in Arnhem Land
• Mediation and change management work in Northern Ireland, Quebec, Switzerland, NE India and UK
Integrity Conferences
Mohan worked as the International Coordinator of ‘Trust and Integrity in the Global Economy’ (TIGE) programme run in Switzerland, bringing together young professionals and business leaders to explore foundations of ethical leadership. TIGE Video
He is also trained in Journalism and is the Author of a book called The Jinasena
Story, about an eminent family that reshaped the industrial development of Sri Lanka, published as a limited edition hard back.
Mohan and his wife Daya live in Melbourne, Australia. He loves cricket, diving, gardening, arts and music.
Janet Gerson
Dr. Janet Gerson is Education Director, IIPE (International Institute on Peace Education), and former Co-Director, Peace Education Center, Teachers College, Columbia University, NYC, where she worked with Dr. Betty Reardon and with the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution (MC-ICCCR). As an activist, Gerson attended the1995 UN-NGO Women’s Forum in Beijing; as an NGO representative, she was active in Violence Against Women Working Group, supported the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, made numerous presentations at CSW (Conference on the Status of Women); and participated in WINGHS (Women’s International Network for Gender and Human Security) and FeDem (Feminist Activists Working for Demilitarization). She taught for fifty years including peace education, conflict processes, transformative learning, futures envisioning, and Theater of the Oppressed, creativity, and dance. A political theorist, writer, peace educator and facilitator, her work bridges theoretical, practical, and educational dimensions of peace and conflict. Gandhi's and King’s philosophies and practices are influential in her research focused on the interrelatedness of peace, justice, democracy, tribunals, nonviolence, conscientious citizenship, and social movements. Her book, co-authored with Dale Snauwaert, Reclaimative Post-Conflict Justice: Democratizing Justice in the World Tribunal on Iraq is forthcoming. gerson@i-i-p-e.org
Meenakshi Gopinath
Meenakshi Gopinath is currently Founder and Director of WISCOMP (Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace), an initiative that seeks to promote the leadership of South Asian women in the areas of peace, security and regional cooperation. She is also Chair, Board of Governors, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Principal Emerita of Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi, where she served as Principal for 26 years from 1988-2014. She has been a member of the University Grants Commission (UGC), India. Dr. Gopinath was the first woman to be nominated to the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB) of India. She is a member of multi-track peace initiatives and people-to-people dialogues in South Asia. She has authored among others Pakistan in Transition, and co-authored Conflict Resolution – Trends and Prospects, Transcending Conflict: A Resource book on Conflict Transformation and Dialogic Engagement and has contributed chapters and articles in several books and journals on Gandhi, the politics of Pakistan, Conflict Resolution, Gender and Peace Building et al. Her interests include issues of human rights and gender, conflict transformation and Buddhist and Gandhian philosophy and the performing Arts. She also headed the Task Force of the SAKSHAM Report of the University Grants Commission that initiated several policy reforms on Gender Equity on Higher Education Institutes in India In recognition of her contribution to the field of women’s education and empowerment, she has received several awards including the Padma Shri Award, Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi Award, the Rajiv Gandhi Award for Excellence in Education and the Mahila Shiromani Award and the Delhi Citizen Forum Award and Qimpro Platinum Standard Award for Education and Celebrating Womanhood South Asian Recognition Award for Social Harmony and International Lifetime Achievement Award – 2009 for outstanding work in the field of justice, Equity, Peace and Progress and the L.M. Singhvi fellowship Award at the David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies (DDMI), University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Award of the Honorary Doctorate Degree of Letters (Honoris Causa) for significant contribution to the education of women and the commitment to fostering global peace through Conflict Resolution, La Trobe University, Australia, Distinguished Alumna Award, by Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi for meritorious contribution in the field of Education and Nirbhaya Puraskar 2017, by OYSS Women for exemplary courage and accomplishment in the field of Education. She was Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Social Sciences, Monash University (2015) Dr. Gopinath serves on the Governing Boards of research institutes, NGOs, educational institutions and corporate bodies. She also is a member of the Nonviolent Peaceforce - International, on the Council of UPEACE– a UN Mandated University, Asian University for Women, Shri Ram Foundation, Track Two initiatives in the South Asian region, Editor in Chief, Peace Prints- A South Asian Journal of Peacebuilding, New Delhi, and others.
Anna Hamling
Anna Hamling, PhD, is a Full Professor in the Department of Culture and Media Studies at the University of New Brunswick in Canada. She is the author of four monographs in four different languages (Polish, English, Spanish and Russian) on the comparative studies of LN Tolstoy’s and Miguel de Unamuno’s religious essays, three edited volume on the topic of nonviolence, numerous chapters on the theories of nonviolence and over sixty diverse articles and encyclopaedia entries covering various topics on Spanish and Latin American art. Her most recent edited volume Women and Nonviolence published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing has been released in May 2021.
Makere Stewart Harawira
Dr. Makere Stewart-Harawira is a Professor of Indigenous, Environmental and Global Studies in the Department of Educational Policy, at the University of Alberta at the University of Alberta, Canada. She is of New Zealand Maori and Scots ancestry and is an enrolled member of the Waitaha Taiwhenua ki Waitaki tribe in Aotearoa New Zealand, a tribe with a long history of peace teachings. Makere is particularly interested in global transformation, climate change, multispecies justice and our co-habitation of planet earth. Indigenous ontologies are integral to this pursuit. As global society struggles to transition to new modes of co-existence, the critical contributions of Indigenous communities and traditional knowledge as well as collaborative, transdisciplinary work are integral to this process. A critical issue in the journey towards pursuit new modes of co-existence and governance is multispecies justice and the prevention and resolution of conflict. Makere Stewart-Harawira’s published works include Resilient Systems, Resilient Communities, 2018; Returning the sacred: Indigenous ontologies in perilous times in Williams, Roberts & McIntosh, Radical Human Ecology: Intercultural and Indigenous Approaches, 2012; The New Imperial Order. Indigenous Responses to Globalization, 2005. Dr. Stewart-Harawira serves as an Expert Member on a number of Commissions for the International Union for the Conservation, including the Commission on Environmental, Economic and Social Policy, joint Specialist Group on Indigenous Peoples, Customary & Environmental Laws and Human Rights, and the Commission on Ecosystem Management and as a Board Member for the Keepers of the Water NGO, Canada.
Anthony Williams Hunt
Anthony Williams-Hunt is a notable and highly respected Semai (a Malaysian Aboriginal people) leader who has devoted most of his life to campaigning, advocating, and defending the rights of his people to their lands and livelihoods. He has been involved with Orang Asli advocacy for more than three decades. Popularly known as Bah Tony (his Semai name) by the Orang Asli (Malaysian Aborigines) communities throughout the country, he is the first Orang Asli graduate from University of Malaya, Malaysia’s premier tertiary institution, with a Bachelor’s degree in Economics awarded in 1979. Bah Tony is also the first male Orang Asli admitted into the legal fraternity. After 26 years working as a bank executive, he resigned from his position to practice law. In 1999, he began his law studies on a part-time basis. In an interview with the media, Bah Tony revealed that he wanted to be a lawyer to seek justice for his people through the courts and other legal avenues. As a lawyer and social justice activist, Bah Tony has been involved in several Orang Asli land claim cases as a legal representative as well as in supporting roles. He served as the President of the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association from 1987 to 1991 and is currently the Deputy Chairperson of the Malaysian Bar Council’s Committee for Orang Asli Rights.
Paul Komesaroff
Paul Komesaroff MB, BS, BSc (Hons), PhD, FRACP, AM is a physician, medical researcher and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, where he is Professor of Medicine. He is also Executive Director of the international NGO Global Reconciliation and a former President of Adult Medicine in the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). His work spans a wide range of disciplines, encompassing clinical practice, laboratory, clinical and social science research and ethics. The latter addresses the impact of new technologies on health and society, consent in research, the experience of illness, end of life issues, psychological effects of trauma, and cross-cultural teaching and learning. His international work covers reconciliation and healing after conflict and social crisis, the nature and impact of foreign aid, and capacity building in global health. In addition to the roles mentioned above, Professor Komesaroff is a present or past member or chair of numerous committees in professional societies, institutions and government in Australia and internationally. He is a board member of various NGOs and is a Past President of the Australasian Bioethics Association. He is the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry and Ethics Editor of the Internal Medicine Journal. He is the author of more than 450 articles in science, ethics and philosophy, and author or editor of sixteen books, including Riding a crocodile: a physician’s tale (2014), Experiments in love and death (2014 and 2008), Continent aflame (2020), Pathways to reconciliation (2008), Objectivity, science and society (2nd ed. 2009), and Troubled bodies (1996).
Yekti Maunati
Prof. Dr. Yekti Maunati, MA is a Research Professor at the Research Center for Area Studies - the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2W-LIPI). Over the past several years, Yekti has been conducting studies on border issues, Indonesian diaspora, and the lives of indigenous people/minorities living in the Southeast Asian countries. One of her recent article is “The emerging diasporic connections in Southeast Asia and the constitution of ethnic network”, Suvannabhumi: Multi-disciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 2019. Yekti obtained her PhD in 2001 from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, La Trobe University, Melbourne and obtained her master’s in 1993 from the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, Monash University, Melbourne. Her bachelor was from the Department of Sociology, UGM, Yogyakarta. She has done several fellowships, including JSPS, Japan; Meyer Fellowship, the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, the National University of Singapore; Visiting researcher, ADBI (Asian Development Bank Institute) Japan; Visiting Researcher, La Trobe University, Australia; Visiting Scholar, EHS-UNU, TWIN-SEA Program, UN Campus, Bonn, Germany. She has also participated in some international organization: 2006-2012 Board of Trustee, SEASREP (Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program); 2003-2018 Executive Board Member - International Federation of Social Science Organizations (IFSSO) Email: yektimaunati59@gmail.com.
Tania Meneses
Doctora en Cultura y Educación. Universidad de Artes y Ciencias Sociales ARCIS – Chile. Magister en Educación de la Universidad Santo Tomas de Aquino (2010) y Socióloga de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia (1998). Docente Investigadora en el campo de la cultura y la educación latinoamericana, educadora biocéntrica, promotora de la inteligencia colectiva en la educación digital y activista por los derechos.
Actualmente está vinculada como Docente en la Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia UNAD – Colombia, en donde ejerce en el programa de Sociología, como investigadora y docente de la Escuela de Ciencias Sociales, Artes y Humanidades. Cuenta con diversas publicaciones en sus áreas de interés, en particular cibercultura, estudios de género e investigación social.
See her publication here
See her investigation here