Neuropaz is a conference and collaborative platform that brings together peacebuilders, behavioral scientists, policymakers, and community leaders to connect theory, practice, and programs based on peace science and translational research.
Since 2022, we have engaged more than 1,500 participants in cities such as Bogotá, Medellín, and Cartagena, integrating perspectives from neuroscience, psychology, and the social sciences, along with leading researchers from around the world, to address real challenges in regions affected by armed conflict.The Behavioral Scientist magazine has highlighted this work, and the spirit of the initiative is inspired by the legacy of peace neuroscientist Emile Bruneau.
Emile Bruneau was a pioneering neuroscientist dedicated to putting science to work for peace He significantly influenced the field of conflict resolution. He directed the Peace and Conflict Neuroscience Lab at the University of Pensilvania and was the lead scientist at Beyond Conflict. His work focused on understanding the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying intergroup conflict and all forms of violence and paths to overcoming them.
Together with colleagues, Bruneau developed interventions aimed at reducing socio-psychological barriers and promoting reconciliation between opposing groups through evidence-based intervention contests.
His legacy continues to inspire initiatives such as Neuropaz, which seek to apply scientific knowledge to collaboration between researchers, communities, and decision-makers, fostering peace and overcoming divisions in areas affected by violent conflict.
As part of this legacy, in Colombia we have decided to advance his proposal for translational science to co-create effective interventions that reduce barriers to peacebuilding and prosocial development in the country's territories.
Keynote speakers
Juan Manuel Santos
Juan Manuel Santos was the President of Colombia, from 2010 to 2018, and the sole recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for “his resolute efforts to bring the country’s more than 50-year-long civil war to an end”. Before being President, he was Minister of Foreign Trade, Minister of Finance and Minister of Defense. Santos graduated from the Colombian Naval Academy in Cartagena. He holds a Business and Economics degree from the University of Kansas and did post-graduate studies in the London School of Economics, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and in Harvard University, where he obtained a Master’s in Public Administration at the Kennedy School. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of the Compaz Foundation, which he created to contribute to peacebuilding in Colombia. He is a member of the board of the International Crisis Group, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, and is also a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy and the Planetary Guardians. In November 2024, he was appointed Chair of The Elders, the organization founded by Nelson Mandela, made up of an independent group of global leaders working for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet.
James Robinson
James Robinson is a University Professor at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics. An economist and political scientist, Robinson has conducted influential research on political and economic development and on the relationships among political power, institutions, and prosperity. He is a fellow at the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and taught at a summer school at the University of the Andes in Bogotá between 1994 and 2022. His most recent book, co-authored with Daron Acemoglu, is The Narrow Corridor: States, Society and the Fate of Liberty, which examines the incessant and inevitable struggle between states and society, and gives an account of the deep historical processes that have shaped the modern world.
Betsy Levy Paluck
Betsy Levy Paluck is the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs of psychology and public and international affairs at Princeton University, where she is also the deputy director of the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science & Public Policy. Much of her work has focused on prejudice and intergroup conflict reduction, using large-scale field experiments to test theoretically driven interventions in the Central and Horn of Africa and in the United States. In 2017, she was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship. She is the author of the forthcoming book, Social Gravity.
Speakers
Evan Nesterak
Evan Nesterak is the editor-in-chief of Behavioral Scientist, an award-winning, nonprofit, digital and print magazine focused on exploring the world through the science of human behavior. Evan also serves as an editorial consultant and researcher, working with a number of authors on their book projects. Previously, he helped lead a multiyear project with the U.S. Soccer Federation and researched character development at the University of Pennsylvania. He also helped the Mayor's office in Philadelphia form a behavioral science advisory group.
Andrés Casas
Andrés Casas is a brain and behavioral scientist and the founder of Neuropaz. He is a lecturer at Universidad de Los Andes and the principal investigator for the World Values Survey in Colombia. He is a dual PhD researcher in neuroscience at Javeriana University and an Excellence Research Fellow at the Boris Mints Institute of Tel Aviv University.
Felipe De Brigard
Felipe De Brigard is a professor in the departments of philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience at Duke University. He is the principal investigator of the Imagination and Modal Cognition Laboratory within the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences. Before Duke, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the Cognitive Neuroscience of Memory Lab and the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an M.A. from Tufts University. His latest book is Memory and Remembering.
Andrés Moya
Andrés is an associate professor of economics at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He is also the director of Semillas de Apego, a community-based psychosocial program for caregivers of young children in communities affected by conflict and forced displacement, and commissioner for the 2024-2025 Lancet Commission on Health, Conflict, and Forced Displacement. His research focuses on understanding the consequences of conflict and forced displacement and how they thrust people into poverty through economic, psychological, and behavioral channels. He designs interventions to mitigate these consequences and foster movements out of poverty. He earned his Ph.D. in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Davis.
Greg Power
Greg Power is the founder and board chair of Global Partners Governance Practice (GPG). Previously a special adviser to U.K. Ministers Robin Cook and Peter Hain, he established GPG in 2005 and has since worked with politicians and ministers in more than sixty countries helping to strengthen political systems across Asia, the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central and Eastern Europe. He was awarded an OBE for services to the promotion of parliamentary democracy and political reform in the January 2023 New Year’s Honours. His book, Inside the Political Mind: The Human Side of Politics and How It Shapes Development, was published in 2024.
Oksana Myshlovska
Oksana Myshlovska is a senior researcher and lecturer at the University of Bern. Her research is at the intersection of history, conflict and peace studies, memory studies, and social psychology. She focuses on memory and history politics, the role of socio-psychological factors, and the processes of conflict escalation and resolution in the Russia-Ukraine context. Previously, she held research and teaching positions at the University of St. Gallen, the Graduate Institute, and the Global Studies Institute in Geneva. She also worked at the World Economic Forum and the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance.
Josh Martin
Josh Martin is the director of the Peace Per Dollar initiative at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Effective Global Action, a new team dedicated to finding and promoting cost-effective solutions to violent conflict. He holds concurrent roles at UNICEF and Google in applied social science research and is a co-founder at the behavioral strategy advisory firm Venn Advisors. Previously, he established and led the international governance team at ideas42 as managing director, served as executive director of Beyond Conflict, and he has provided strategic advice and training to numerous UN entities in the peace and security pillar on leveraging behavioral science through his work with the Executive Office of the Secretary General and the Office of Counter Terrorism.
Nessa Kenny
Nessa Kenny is associate program director for the Peace & Recovery Program at Innovations for Poverty Action, where she leads two research grantmaking portfolios, one broadly on conflict, violence, and displacement, and one focused on displaced livelihoods. She works with civil society organizations, governments, and academics to ensure evidence informs policy and practice. Prior to joining IPA, Nessa worked with program implementers and UN agencies in research, program management, consulting, and fund development roles. She holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University, a Master of International Security from Sciences Po.
Mareike Schomerus
Mareike Schomerus is a vice president at Busara. Working on the intersection of social, political and behavioral science, she has published widely on violent conflict and international engagement, evidence-based policy and the mental models that shape it, and behavioral mechanisms in post-conflict recovery, for which she has developed a body of work on the “mental landscape.” She is the author of Lives Amid Violence: Transforming Development in the Wake of Conflict, The Lord’s Resistance Army: Violence and Peacemaking in Africa, and, most recently, Research Design in Politics and International Relations (with Anouk S. Rigterink). Formerly, she was the director of programme politics and governance and research director of the Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium at ODI in London. She earned her Ph.D. from London School of Economics and Political Science.
Britt Titus
Britt Titus leads the behavioral science team at the International Rescue Committee’s Airbel Impact Lab, where her team applies behavioral insights to practical issues affecting humanitarian outcomes, including women's health, education in emergencies, nutrition, and mental health. She has over a decade of experience in the humanitarian sector, working in dozens of countries and previously worked at the United Nations World Food Program, the Behavioral Insights Team, and Nudge Lebanon. She has a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Oxford.
Helena Puig Larrauri
Helena Puig Larrauri is the co-founder and strategy lead at Build Up, where she focuses on integrating participatory methodologies into peace processes and analyzing digital conflict drivers. She is a peacebuilding and mediation professional with over a decade of experience advising and supporting UN agencies, multilateral organizations, and NGOs working in conflict contexts and polarized environments. Helena is an Ashoka Fellow and holds a Master's in Public Policy (Economics) from Princeton University.
Yasemin Gülsüm Acar
Yasemin Gülsüm Acar is a lecturer in social psychology at the University of St Andrews. She earned her PhD at Claremont Graduate University in 2015, where she focused on social identity and its politicisation through collective action. Her research examines the outcomes of activism for individuals and communities, with particular attention to intergroup conflict, reconciliation, and activism in authoritarian contexts. She has published in multiple languages (English, Turkish, and Kurdish) on themes including the Gezi Park protests, perceptions of the Turkish–Kurdish conflict, and the consequences of dissent in repressive political climates.
Dave Levin
Dave Levin is a co-founder of Hala Systems, which built an AI-driven early warning system for airstrikes in Syria that saved thousands of lives. Hala also uses proprietary AI to collect unique evidence of war crimes in Ukraine, contributing to the rescue of nearly 200 abducted children thus far. Previously, Dave founded Refugee Open Ware, which spearheaded innovative 3D printing of prosthetics for dismembered Syrian and Yemeni children, together with Doctors Without Borders. He was a Strategy Fellow and Engagement Manager at McKinsey in the Social Sector Office, and a Fulbright Scholar in India. Dave holds an MBA from Wharton and an M.Phil. in the philosophy of human rights from Cambridge University.
Salma Mousa
Salma Mousa is an assistant professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she also serves as an advisory faculty director of the Bedari Kindness Institute and the Islamic Studies program. She is also the Peacebuilding lead for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCDO)'s initiative on Reducing Conflict and Improving Performance in the Economy. Her research examines strategies for building social cohesion, often through field experiments conducted in partnership with civil society organizations and local governments in the Middle East. Before joining UCLA, she was an assistant professor of political science at Yale University and a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Immigration Policy Lab and the Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She received her PhD in Political Science from Stanford University.
Catherine Thompson
Cath Thompson is the managing director at the Peace and Security Funders Group (PSFG), a global network of foundations and philanthropists that support a range of peace and security issues from conflict and violence prevention; to nuclear and digital security; to climate security and locally-led peacebuilding; to addressing political violence and polarization, and more. She has worked for and served on the board of nonprofit organizations in the US and UK that support peacebuilding, security policy, and charitable sector capacity-building, and she is currently on the board of the Scoville Peace Fellowship.
Håvard Mokleiv Nygård
Håvard Mokleiv Nygård is director of knowledge and evaluation of the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). Until a few years ago, he was research director at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where his research focused on armed conflict and political violence, peace building, and patterns of democratic development. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Oslo.
Leslie Wingender
Leslie Wingender is a senior portfolio director of peacebuilding at Humanity United. Before that, she was a senior advisor at Mercy Corps and had worked with humanitarian and development NGOs across the Americas, the Middle East, and West Africa. She holds a Master's in Conflict Resolution from Georgetown University.
Zezhen Wu
Zezhen (Michael) Wu works at the intersection of social and developmental psychology, data science, and generative AI product design and evaluation. At The Agency Fund, he supports NGOs in translating psychological insights into the design of social programs and AI tools. He is a core author of the AI Evaluation for the Social Sector Playbook and leads the development of ChatSE—a generative AI tool for socio-emotional teacher coaching. Prior to joining The Agency Fund, he worked at Youth Impact, Meta, the World Bank, and NYU Global TIES for Children. Zezhen holds a PhD in Psychology and Social Intervention from New York University, with a specialty area in Data Science for Social Impact.
Support Team
Heather Graci
Heather Graci is an editor at the Behavioral Scientist and an editorial researcher who has worked with authors Angela Duckworth and Dan Heath. Previously, she was a research coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania’s Behavior Change for Good Initiative. She graduated in 2019 from Carnegie Mellon University with degrees in Behavioral Economics and Psychology.
Ana Casas
Behavioral designer and communication strategist with experience integrating design, narrative, and behavioral science to create social impact interventions. Her work sits at the intersection of strategic communication, decision-making, and complex information environments, collaborating with interdisciplinary teams and leading evidence-based creative processes.