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Staff

Ana Patel, Executive Director

Prior to joining OBCP, Ms. Patel was Deputy Director of the International Policymakers Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice. Ms. Patel has over 15 years of experience in the fields of peacebuilding, development, and human rights across the globe with such organizations as the International Center for Transitional Justice, the United Nations Development Programme and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs. Her areas of experience includes fieldwork, advocacy, fundraising, policy research, media and public outreach, program design and management, implementation and evaluation and teaching and training in multicultural contexts. Ms. Patel was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, and speaks fluent spanish.

 Ms. Patel is also an Adjunct Lecturer and Fellow at the Center for International Conflict Resolution at The School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Her co-edited volume, Disarming the Past: Transitional lustice and Ex-combatants was published in January 2010 by the Social Science Research Council.


Nettie Pardue, Program Officer

Nettie Pardue has worked in adventure-based, experiential education programs for over 14 years for organizations including Outward Bound, United World College and Adventure Associates and the Outward Bound Center for Peacebuilding. She is experienced as a facilitator, mediator, instructor, guide, trainer and coach. Most recently, Ms. Pardue worked as a lead facilitator on the first Palestinian/Israeli Young Social Entrepreneurs program, a leadership development project jointly developed and implemented by the Outward Bound Center for Peace Building and Search for Common Ground. In addition to the field of experiential education, Ms. Pardue is a mediator, trainer and Program Manager at SEEDS Community Resolution Center in the San Francisco Bay area where she instructs and coaches.
Ms. Pardue has a masters degree in Applied Behavioral Science from Bastyr University/Leadership Institute of Seattle where she focused on leadership development. She has given presentations at the International Association of Facilitators, the Association for Experiential Education and to the Alternative Dispute Resolution of Northern California Council.

 

Julie Burns, Consultant

Julie Burns is the Outward Bound Center for Peacebuilding special consultant to Outward Bound Rwanda, and in that role serves in both grant monitoring and advisory capacities. She comes to the Outward Bound Center for Peacebuilding and to OB Rwanda through a long path of professional engagement with experiential and outdoor education programs and with Africa. After completing her B.A. in Economics, she served for several years as a Peace Corps volunteer (1988-1991) in North Kivu, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo), where she lived among Rwandan refugees from pre-1994 episodes of violence in Rwanda. After evacuation from Zaire in 1991, Ms. Burns started her Outward Bound career with the North Carolina Outward Bound School in the USA, first as an apprentice, then as instructor, course director, and course manager for international courses in Costa Rica. In 1999, she began as Director of Wilderness Programs at Cornell University Outdoor Education, where she continued to also lead international expeditions to Mexico and Ecuador. She left this position to begin full time graduate studies, first attaining a Masters in Public Administration from Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs, and then beginning her Ph.D. in Education at Cornell University. Her masters research was on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa, and her doctoral dissertation focuses on the processes of reconciliation in women’s groups in Rwanda. She travels to Rwanda and DRC frequently for her research and for consultancies with both the Outward Bound Center for Peacebuilding and with IMPACT development training group.

 

The Global Staff Network of Outward Bound

The operational work of Outward Bound peacebuilding programs is implemented by a highly experienced cadre of Outward Bound staff members and instructors around the globe. More information about the international network of Outward Bound schools and instructors may be found at Outward Bound International.