Guide to Specialists

Patricia Karam
Senior Program Officer, Grants & Fellowships Program

ARCHIVED SPECIALIST PROFILE

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Languages: Arabic, French

Patricia Karam joined USIP’s Grant program in February 2004, before becoming a senior program officer in the Grant and Fellowship program. She is responsible for the creation and management of a portfolio of grants and contracts to promote conflict prevention, conflict management, and peacebuilding in Iraq and Colombia. Karam also leads a working group series at USIP on Lebanon’s Reconstruction. Prior to joining USIP, she served as programs and development officer at the Iraq Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she was responsible for managing and implementing civil society, democracy, and human rights initiatives in Iraq. She also developed capacity-building and advocacy strategies for the foundation.

Karam has also consulted for the Environmental Background Information Center, an environmental nongovernmental organization engaged in social justice activism, and has coordinated programs at New York University’s (NYU) Trauma Studies Program focused on the study, treatment, and prevention of trauma-related suffering in conflict-ridden zones.

Karam holds an M.S.F.S. degree and a certificate in Arab studies from Georgetown University, and currently is a Henry J. McCracken Fellow (on leave) at NYU’s Law and Society Ph.D. program. Her academic work at NYU has revolved around identity politics, indigenous people’s rights, and the relationship between law and national narratives in the Western Sahara.

Publications:

• Prospects for Mediation of the Lebanon Crisis
  USIPeace Briefing, July 2006
• Donor Activities and Civil Society Potential in Iraq
  USIP Special Report 124, July 2004

Available on usip.org:

• On the Issues: Lebanon