Lise Morjé Howard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. In 2011-2012 she will be on leave from teaching while serving as a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Dr. Howard was previously the founding director of the Master of Arts Program in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and her A.B. in Soviet Studies magna cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University. She has held pre- and post-doctoral fellowships at Stanford University (Center for International Security and Cooperation), Harvard University (Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs), and the University of Maryland (Center for International Development and Conflict Management).

Dr. Howard's research and teaching interests span the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and conflict resolution. Her work focuses on civil wars, peacekeeping, U.S. foreign policy, and area studies of the Balkans and sub-Saharan Africa. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics. Her book, UN Peacekeeping in Civil Wars, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2008, and it won the 2010 Book Award from the Academic Council on the UN System (ACUNS). She is currently working on several projects about U.S. foreign policy in ethnic conflict, the use of force in UN peacekeeping operations, and norms of civil war termination.

Dr. Howard has received awards for her work on peacekeeping from the Soroptimist International, the Barnard College Alumnae Association, and the James D. Kline Fund. She has received support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Institute for the Study of World Politics, the National Security Education Program, and the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Dr. Howard is fluent in French and Russian, and speaks some Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Spanish, and German. Prior to beginning graduate school, she served as Acting Director of UN Affairs for the New York City Commission for the United Nations.