Yale peacebuilding fellows reflect on summer fieldwork around the world

Peace is rarely won in a single agreement — it is built and sustained through research, policy work, and the people willing to do the patient work of reconciliation. 

Yale Jackson's Peacebuilding Initiative advances that mission through global comparative research on pathways to peace, with multi-site studies underway in Costa Rica, Jordan, Mauritania, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, alongside partners in New Haven and at the United Nations. Each summer, the initiative also sends Yale undergraduate and graduate students into the field through its peacebuilding fellowships, supporting work on peace-related issues around the world. 

“A centerpiece of the Peacebuilding Initiative is supporting students’ training in both research-based and applied projects across the globe,” said Bonnie Weir, co-director of the initiative. “Through their fieldwork, these exceptional student fellows are enhancing academic-practitioner exchange in a diverse set of cases and issue areas, from peace and development concerns in Ecuador to the political legacy of conflict in the Caucuses."

Four Peacebuilding Initiative student fellows, shared what they learned over the summer of 2026.

Yoselin Colin ’27, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

This summer, I interned with the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a peacebuilding organization dedicated to fostering long-term peace in the Western Balkans through research, survivor-centered storytelling, multimedia, and public education. I truly immersed myself in Bosnia and Herzegovina's history, culture, and communities while exploring the broader Balkans through travels to Croatia and Montenegro. Through visits to institutions including the UNDP, the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Court of BiH, as well as museums such as the War Childhood Museum and Gallery 11/07/95, I gained a deeper understanding of the country's post-conflict landscape and the ways memory, identity, and competing historical narratives continue to shape public life. 

Most meaningfully, I participated in the 7th Srebrenica Youth School, where learning directly from survivors, scholars, and peers from across the Balkans challenged me to think critically about genocide remembrance, historical denial, and the role of dialogue in building lasting peace. 

Visiting the International Commission on Missing Persons, meeting the Mothers of Srebrenica, joining the Peace March, and attending the 31st Srebrenica Genocide Commemoration profoundly reinforced the importance of preserving historical truth and pursuing justice for victims and survivors.

I also contributed to PCRC's 15-Year Impact Report, authored three articles for Balkan Diskurs on football as a tool for social cohesion, the commercialization of war remnants, and transitional justice, and conducted research for my Yale senior thesis on children's memorial sites in Bosnia. Overall, this summer allowed me to recognize that sustainable peace depends not only on legal accountability, but also on education, memory, dialogue, and the willingness to confront difficult histories. Standing in places still marked by the Bosnian War and listening to survivors share their experiences deepened my commitment to advancing human rights. As I return to Yale for my senior year, I will carry these lessons into my academic research and future career with a renewed sense of responsibility to preserve historical truth and help prevent future atrocities.

Maddy Corson ’26, Ecuador

This summer, I had the privilege of serving as the Peace and Development Intern with the United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office in Ecuador, supporting the Peace and Development Advisor on conflict prevention and peacebuilding initiatives. What made this experience especially meaningful was the opportunity to work across different parts of the UN system: I was based in the Resident Coordinator's Office while contributing to efforts connected to both the United Nations Development Programme and the UN's broader political and peacebuilding work. Working primarily in Spanish, I supported efforts to understand and respond to Ecuador's evolving political, economic, and security context. My work included drafting biweekly conflict risk analyses, briefing notes, and remarks for senior leadership; contributing to Ecuador's 2027–2030 UN Cooperation Framework; and supporting coordination among UN entities on issues including gender equality and conflict prevention.

Beyond the technical skills I developed, this experience deepened my understanding of how peacebuilding happens in practice: not only through responses to moments of crisis, but through the ongoing work of strengthening community relationships, social cohesion, and institutional capacity before conflict escalates. I practiced how to translate complex and sensitive realities into actionable insights while remaining grounded in the experiences of the communities these efforts are meant to serve. I am incredibly grateful to my colleagues at the UN Resident Coordinator's Office for welcoming me into their work, trusting me with meaningful responsibilities, and allowing me to learn from their commitment to Ecuador. I look forward to continuing this work remotely from New Haven this fall as I begin my final semester at Yale, and carry these lessons forward in my studies and future career.

Max Ondik ’28, Georgia

As a Peacebuilding Initiative Fellow, this summer I conducted interview-based fieldwork in the Republic of Georgia to understand how the memory of the country's 2008 war with Russia shapes the public's foreign policy preferences. I approached my question by focusing on the contested territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where decades-long ethnic tensions combined with Russian military action in 2008 led to Georgia losing both regions; the conflict killed hundreds and displaced tens of thousands. In a country where the memory of the war still looms large in both politics and daily life, I wanted to understand how Georgian citizens' positions on these "frozen conflicts," as well as government narratives about the threat of renewed war in Georgia in light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, have developed alongside a gradual normalization between Georgia and Russia. Over the course of six weeks, I conducted over 30 interviews spanning internally displaced people (IDPs) from the breakaway regions, politicians, NGO representatives, students, and private citizens. My interviews began in the capital, Tbilisi, and later took me to Gori and Zugdidi, cities bordering the contested territories.

Throughout my work, I was struck by how deeply these local conflicts and the lives they affected had seeped into the national Georgian identity, reaching all corners of the country and its information space. Georgians' daily realities, while at first glance so far removed from the geopolitical circumstances, were in fact partially determining them, in terms of Georgia's elections, policy toward Russia, and Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Yet people's personal experiences could never fully be abstracted into politics, and I was touched by stories of continued friendship between Georgians and Ossetians on opposite sides of the wire fence, and of extraordinary forgiveness following the death of loved ones, revealing possibilities for genuine peacebuilding efforts rooted in people-to-people relations. Overall, I came to understand that for some Georgians, normalization with Russia was a necessary step toward protecting Georgia from renewed conflict and potentially regaining the territories, while for others, government narratives were weaponizing the concepts of peace and stability to justify deference to Russia and growing estrangement from the West. My interviews will inform a forthcoming paper analyzing the politics of peace in Georgian public opinion and future investigation into postwar society within the breakaway territories.

Abbey Shumsky ’28, Northern Ireland

This summer, as an intern at the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), my work examined both the historical and ongoing elements of the peace process in Northern Ireland. This work focused primarily on the intersections between fact-finding components of the peace process (such as legacy inquests) and national security, and it culminated in a research paper that analyzes national security case law in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom. The paper explores the use of ministerial national security vetoes, judicial deference to security assessments, and the compatibility of national security policies with the United Kingdom's ECHR Article 2 commitments. Throughout the course of my research, I met and collaborated with leading academics, prominent human rights NGOs, and experts who have litigated issues central to my paper. The paper will be used to support CAJ's advocacy in Westminster to reform the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act.

My work at CAJ and time in Northern Ireland offered insight into the contemporary challenges to the peace process that persist nearly thirty years after the Good Friday Agreement. Although the events I researched largely took place during the Troubles (1960s to 1990s), the lasting impact of these events illuminates the importance of continued efforts at truth, reconciliation, and peacebuilding.

Cover image: July 14, 2026, Yoselin Colin (second from left) and other PCRC Interns meet with the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Photo courtesy OSCE.