Lara Olson, Co-Director

Lara is a researcher on aid-conflict interactions with 15 years experience working with operational relief, development and peacebuilding NGOs in the field and with research and training on peacebuilding and conflict sensitivity.   Her goals are bring together academic research and insights from field practice to improve the effectiveness of international assistance in countries affected by conflict.   In 2007, together with co-director Dr. Hrach Gregorian, Lara initiated the PDSP program which involves practitioner-oriented research, graduate teaching, professional trainings and a multi-year research project on coordination in peacebuilding.  At the University of Calgary, Lara teaches graduate level courses and advises students on human security, peacebuilding, development, and NGOs.   

For most of the 1990s, Lara worked with international research projects based in Cambridge, Massachusetts examining aid-conflict interactions and effective conflict management.  She directed the first three years of the ongoing Reflecting on Peace Practice project, and led research projects with the Consensus Building Institute, the Conflict Management Group and the Harvard Project on Negotiation on sources of and responses to ethnic conflict.  Fluent in Russian, she worked in Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia as a journalist and with relief and conflict management projects. Lara obtained a Masters degree in International Politics from the London School of Economics, and a B.A. (Honours) in Political Science from the University of British Colombia. She has three children and lives in Calgary.

 Courses:  NGOs, Aid and Contemporary Conflicts
(Senior Undergraduate Seminar in International Relations)

Contact information:

Centre for Military and Strategic Studies (CMSS)
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive, NW,
Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N 1N4
Tel: (1-403) 220-8557
Fax: (1-403) 282-0594
lolson@ucalgary.ca

Recent Publications:

"Fighting for Humanitarian Space: NGOs in Afghanistan", Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, Fall 2006, Vol. 9, Issue 1. http://www.jmss.org/2006/2006fall/articles/olson_ngo-afghanistan.pdf

Confronting War: Critical Lessons for Peace Practitioners. Mary B. Anderson and Lara Olson. Reflecting on Peace Practice Project, Collaborative for Development Action, Cambridge, MA: 2003. http://www.cdainc.com/publications/rpp/confronting_war_critical_lessons_for_peace_practitioners.php