Simon-Skjodt Center Staff
Cameron Hudson
Cameron Hudson is director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Previously he served as the Center’s policy director, overseeing initiatives on early warning and the responsibility to protect. From 2009 to 2011, he served as the chief of staff to the President’s Special Envoy for Sudan during the period of South Sudan’s separation from Sudan. From 2005 to 2009, he served as the director for African affairs on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House, where he led the interagency efforts to address the genocide in Darfur, elections-related violence in Kenya, counter-terrorism efforts in Somalia, and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the Great Lakes region. He has also worked for the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the International Organization on Migration in the former Yugoslavia. He has an undergraduate degree in foreign affairs, economics, and French from the University of Virginia and a master’s degree focused on development economics from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Anna Cave
Anna Cave is the director of the Ben Ferencz International Justice Initiative, providing leadership on the strategic development and implementation of the work of the Initiative, which was established by a gift from Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg Tribunal. Anna previously served as the Principal Deputy in the Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) at the Department of State, where she managed the office and oversaw all aspects of GCJ’s policy work to promote transitional justice and accountability measures for atrocity crimes. Prior to GCJ, Anna was the Senior Advisor on atrocity prevention to Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, Sarah Sewall. From 2012 to 2014, Anna served as the Director for Central Africa at the National Security Council at the White House. From 2009 to 2012, Anna served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of State’s Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Ambassador Stephen Rapp where she advised on a variety of issues relating to international humanitarian law and war crimes tribunals, the International Criminal Court, transitional justice and atrocities prevention. Anna received a JD from Columbia Law School, where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and a BA from Duke University. Anna clerked for Judge Lawrence McKenna in the Southern District of New York and is a member of the NY State Bar. She previously practiced in the litigation department of the international law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Andrea Gittleman
Andrea Gittleman is a program manager for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. Previously she was interim director of US policy and senior legislative counsel at Physicians for Human Rights where she designed advocacy and policy strategies on a broad range of international human rights issues, including mass atrocities. Prior to that she served as an Arthur Helton Global Human Rights Fellow with the Burma Lawyers’ Council in Mae Sot, Thailand, where she coordinated an international advocacy campaign for criminal accountability in Burma. She also worked with the New York University Immigrant Rights Clinic as a law student and has had legal internships with Legal Momentum (the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund), the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Rights Project, and Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division. Prior to attending law school she served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania where she managed gender and development programs. She received a JD from the New York University School of Law and a BA in political science and international studies from the University of Chicago.
Laura Green
Laura Green is the communications manager for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide where she works with reporters covering the Center’s projects, including the Early Warning Project. She also assists with public outreach and creating a broader understanding of the Center’s work. Previously she spent 18 years as a news reporter in Washington, DC, Florida, Maryland, and Virginia, covering a wide range of topics including the US Supreme Court, Congress, business, education, and philanthropy. She has a BS in journalism from the University of Maryland.
Janelle Johnson
Janelle Johnson is the policy assistant for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. She previously served as a legislative and research assistant with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee where she advised Committee leadership as part of the African Affairs team. Janelle also served as the inaugural Donald M. Payne Foreign Policy Fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. In that capacity she advised Members in the House and Senate on national security and foreign policy, with particular focus on the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a BA in international affairs from Transylvania University where she studied and conducted research in Jordan as a Boren Scholar. She earned an MPP from the University of Chicago.
Naomi Kikoler
Naomi Kikoler is the deputy director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. For six years she developed and implemented the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect’s work on populations at risk and efforts to advance R2P globally and led the Centre’s advocacy, including targeting the UN Security Council. An adjunct professor at the New School University, she is the author of numerous publications, including the 2013 Nexus Fund series on the emerging powers and mass atrocity prevention and the 2011 report Risk Factors and Legal Norms Associated with Genocide Prevention for the United Nations Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Jacob Blaustein Institute. Prior to joining the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect in 2008, she worked on national security and refugee law and policy for Amnesty International Canada. She has also worked in the Office of the Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement at the Brookings Institution, and she worked as an election monitor in Kenya with the Carter Center. She holds common law and civil law degrees from McGill University, an MSc in forced migration from Oxford University, where her thesis was on the Rwandan genocide, and a BA from the University of Toronto in international relations and peace and conflict studies. She is a board member of the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, a senior fellow at the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, and was called to the Bar of Upper Canada.
Jackie Scutari
Jackie Scutari is a program manager for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, where she oversees a number of education and outreach initiatives. She manages the Museum’s exhibits on contemporary genocide and genocide prevention as well as the Center’s website and digital strategy. She also works on programming for professional and public audiences and coordinates the internship program. Previously she was the program administrator for Georgetown University’s Fellowship Program. She has a BA in psychology from Georgetown University and an MS in conflict analysis and resolution from George Mason University.
Amber Sears
Amber Sears is the executive assistant to the director for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide where she provides administrative support to the director and Center as a whole. Previously she served as the executive assistant to the vice president of administration and operations for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She has a BA in sociology from Pennsylvania State University with a minor in law and liberal arts.
Daniel Solomon
Daniel Solomon is a research assistant for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, where he conducts research about contemporary mass atrocities and tools and strategies for their prevention. Previously he was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, a global technology and strategy consulting firm, where he conducted research and analysis for US defense and commercial clients. He also worked for the West Africa and war crimes offices of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Intelligence and as the national student director of STAND, a national network of student advocates for the prevention of violent conflict and mass atrocities. He has a BA in international security studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Sara Weisman
Sara Weisman is the senior manager for planning and development for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide where she develops, implements, and evaluates strategic priorities and initiatives and leads in the development of new fundraising strategies and activities for key Museum audiences. Formerly she served as the Center’s outreach coordinator and as its program assistant, providing support to the Genocide Prevention Task Force. Before joining the Museum in 2008, she worked as an executive assistant for the Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs at the US Department of State. She has a BA in international affairs with concentrations in development and economics and an MBA from George Washington University.
Lawrence Woocher
Lawrence Woocher is the research director for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. He previously served as senior atrocity prevention fellow with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), where he supported the agency’s participation on the Atrocities Prevention Board, authored the Field Guide: Helping Prevent Mass Atrocities (PDF; external link), developed a new training module on atrocity prevention, and co-led the development of a new State Department–USAID Atrocity Assessment Framework. Prior to his USAID fellowship, he was research director for the Political Instability Task Force at Science Applications International Corporation, where he led efforts to enhance forecasting of regime change, civil war, mass killing, and other kinds of political violence worldwide. From 2006 to 2011, he was a senior program officer at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), where he served as a member of the executive committee and lead expert on early warning for the Genocide Prevention Task Force, which was co-sponsored by the Museum and co-chaired by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Before joining USIP, he was a research fellow at Columbia University’s Center for International Conflict Resolution and, concurrently, a consultant on early warning to the Office of the Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide. He is a lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and a graduate of Brown and Harvard Universities.
Mollie Zapata
Mollie Zapata is a research associate for the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, where she is responsible for conducting quantitative and qualitative research on a wide range of issues related to genocide prevention, with a primary focus on the Center’s Early Warning Project. Previously Mollie had been doing natural language processing analytics at Monitor 360, an international affairs consulting firm, for various government and foundation clients. Her areas of interest are North and West Africa, conflict prediction, border security, security sector reform, transnational criminal and terrorist networks, and corruption. Prior to graduate school Mollie worked at the Enough Project on the Satellite Sentinel Project, using satellite imagery to report on mass atrocities and border violations in and between Sudan and South Sudan. Her other work experience includes the US Institute for Peace North Africa Program, the World Peace Foundation, the Institute for Inclusive Security, and National Geographic Television. Mollie holds an MA from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a BA in international affairs from Boston University.
