Professor George A. Lopez, an influential scholar, teacher, and international policy-shaper at Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies since its founding in 1986, has accepted the position of Vice President and Director of the Academy for International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in Washington, D.C.
The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress and devoted to the nonviolent prevention and mitigation of deadly conflict. The Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C., president emeritus of Notre Dame, was a long-time member of USIP’s Board of Directors, as well as co-chair, with former U.S. Secretary of State George Schulz, of the funding campaign for the new USIP headquarters on Constitution Avenue.
“This is a great opportunity for Professor Lopez and indeed for the field of peace studies, as he will bring his considerable expertise, as well as his vast experience in teaching and mentoring, to a new and influential audience in the nation's capital,” said Scott Appleby, director of the Kroc Institute.
“Lopez has been the anchor of Kroc's educational and policy research programs throughout the life of the Institute, and he has served with distinction as the first Hesburgh Chair of Peace Studies,” Appleby said. “His cultivation of a network of colleagues and friends of the Kroc Institute in universities and policy centers around the world; his tireless advocacy for our field; his enthusiastic, infectious leadership of our successful Summer Institute for Faculty; his remarkable mentoring of Kroc Institute students at every degree level—all of this from one person, who will be impossible to replace.”
Although his new position begins on September 18, Lopez will continue to teach two gateway courses in peace studies for master’s and Ph.D. students at Notre Dame during the fall semester.
“We look at Professor Lopez’s new appointment as an opportunity to deepen the Kroc Institute’s collaboration with USIP and Washington more generally,” Appleby said.
Contact: George A. Lopez, (574) 631-6972, lopez.1@nd.edu