Staff Directory

Xingyi Wang is a first-year Master of International Affairs candidate at SIPA, specializing in conflict resolution. Xingyi earned her BA in English Literature with a minor in International Politics from Tsinghua University in China. She has led field research in Cyprus on cross-ethnic cooperation in post-conflict reconciliation and contributed to humanitarian coordination for Syrian refugees during her time with the UNHCR Country Office in Jordan. She is also deeply interested in leveraging artificial intelligence to improve the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping operations. After graduation, Xingyi aims to build a career in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and humanitarian assistance.

Jean-Marie Guéhenno has come back to Columbia as the inaugural Kent visiting professor in conflict resolution. Guéhenno first came to SIPA in 2010 to serve as the Director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution and the Associate Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies. He left in 2014, when he was appointed President and CEO of the International Crisis Group. He is now a member of the U.N. Secretary General High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation.

Guéhenno previously served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000-2008. In that role, he led the largest expansion of peacekeeping in the history of the UN, overseeing approximately 130,000 staff on eighteen missions. Before joining the United Nations, Guéhenno served as director of policy planning in the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ambassador to the Western European Union, and chairman of the French Institute of Higher Defense Studies.

Guéhenno has published articles in many newspapers and magazines, including "The Impact of Globalisation on Strategy" in the International Institute for Strategic Studies' Survival, "Globalisation and the International System" in the Journal of Democracy, “United Nations and Civil Wars in Daedalus, as well as articles or chapters in Internationale Politik, Prospect, Paradoxes of European Foreign Policy, and Strategic Analysis. He is the author of the End of the Nation-State (1993).

Guéhenno has also taught extensively, including as a professor at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Paris and at the Ecole Nationale d'Administration. Guéhenno is a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution; he chairs the scientific committee of the Institute for higher defense studies in Paris, and is a board member of the Carnegie Corporation, of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and of his alma mater, the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Guéhenno is a graduate of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques, and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration (ENA).

Affiliations

• Distinguished Fellow, Brookings Institution
• Senior Advisor, Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue
• Member of the UN Secretary General High Level Advisory Board on Mediation
• Counsellor, Dragoman Global
• Senior Fellow, Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs

Jack Christoffersen is a second-year Master of Public Administration candidate at SIPA, specializing in International Conflict Resolution. Jack obtained his BS in Chemistry from the United States Military Academy in 2014. Jack has served as an Army infantry officer for ten years and has deployed to Ukraine, Lithuania, Kuwait, and Iraq in various leadership and staff capacities.  He intends to continue active-duty service as an Army Strategist following graduation.

Dov Scheindlin graduated from SIPA with an MIA in 2023 after a distinguished career in classical music.  He is currently the Program Coordinator for the Kent Global Leadership Program on Conflict Resolution.  In this role he manages the annual Kent Summer Training, produces events under the Kent banner, and administers all aspects of the Kent Program's activities.