UMass Boston

Understanding and Addressing Deep Divides

Conflict Early Warning Analytics & Policy Project (CEWAP, Greater Boston, MA)

Project Lead: Madhawa Palihapitiya (Senior Fellow)

Background: Established at UMass Boston's McCormack Graduate School, The Conflict Early Warning Analytics Program (CEWAP) serves as New England's own targeted and political violence monitoring system. Moreover, CEWAP is the analytical hub for the TRUST Network, leveraging over 20 years of expertise in early warning across multiple continents. The program integrates local knowledge with expert support to address conflicts effectively. CEWAP's work is focused on building social cohesion in the U.S., supported by a desire to create a strong peacebuilding infrastructure that leverages our local and international experiences.

What We Do: CEWAP predicts and works with community-based and other organizations to help interrupt political violence across major U.S. cities by:

• Training New England and other national networks in early warning practices.
• Monitoring targeted and political violence through the TRUSTNet Mobile App, media monitoring, and desktop research.
• Developing predictive models for preempting political violence.
• Compiling analytical reports and presenting findings.

Through these efforts, CEWAP aims to create a safer environment by addressing potential threats before they escalate into violence.

DOJ Grant: CEWAP recently received a significant grant to enhance its capabilities in addressing hate crimes and extremism. The Department of Justice grant, led by Madhawa Palihapitiya and Karen Ross, is specifically aimed at hate crimes prevention and will support the development of advanced technological tools for monitoring and analyzing hate-related incidents.

Expected Outcomes: The implementation of these new technologies is expected to significantly boost CEWAP's and the TRUST Network's capabilities in several areas:

• Improved Early Warning: The AI-driven platform will help identify potential threats earlier, allowing for more proactive prevention measures.
• Enhanced Data Analysis: The sophisticated analytics tools will provide deeper insights into the nature and patterns of hate crimes and extremist activities.
• More Effective Response: With better data and predictive capabilities, the TRUST Network can allocate resources more efficiently and respond more effectively to emerging threats.
• Broader Coverage: The new app will enable more comprehensive monitoring of hate-related incidents across a wider geographic area.

This grant represents a significant step forward in CEWAP's mission to prevent violence and promote human security. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, CEWAP and the TRUST Network are positioning themselves at the forefront of hate crime prevention and community safety efforts.

Who We Are

• Madhawa "Mads" Palihapitiya: Directs CEWAP and is a conflict resolution expert with over 22 years of experience. He is affiliated with UMass Boston and has made significant contributions to developing community-based early warning systems across the globe.
• Krystal-Gayle O'Neill:  Analyst and PhD candidate with expertise in LGBTQIA+ rights, focuses on the intersection of gender identities, social media, hate speech, and political violence.
• Stephanie White: A master's candidate, Stephanie uses her expertise in journalism and conflict resolution training to research hate ideology, mass media, and right-wing extremism. 
• Karina Zeferino MA: A hate crimes researcher and editor specializing in program evaluation and monitoring.

Past Analysts

• Jack T Sherman: A desk researcher focusing on extremist groups and political violence as part of his Capstone project.
• Kathryn Butterworth: A PhD candidate supporting CEWAP with geospatial analysis and qualitative research.
• Mahdi Hasan PhD: Analyzes political violence and extremist ideologies.
• Kelsey Edmond PhD: Conducts social media analytics related to political violence trends.
• Kristina Angelevska: An International Peace Scholar with a focus on policing issues and conflict assessment.
• Katherine Yarusso: A Master's student working on mathematical models to predict conflicts.
• Alejandra Palacios Jaramillo MA: A Fulbright Scholar assisting with event data analysis and research.

Conflict Transformation Across Borders (Ecuador)

Project Team: Jeff Pugh (Faculty Fellow), Dr. Cecile Mouly (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales Ecuador), Dr. Yves-Renee Jennings (Senior Fellow)

Description: This summer institute in Ecuador brings together professionals and graduate students from countries around the world to study conflict and peace in border zones. Topics include migration/refugee challenges, transnational environmental conflict, border disputes, and more.

When held in person, the program includes classroom discussions, skills workshops, simulations, guest speakers, and field site visits to the Ecuador-Colombia border and the Amazon cloud forest. It also features briefings at the United Nations, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and with the Ecuadorian Army's military brigade at the border.

Key Outcomes: All summer institute participants design a project proposal for either a research or practical peacebuilding project. The program thus serves as an incubator and platform for further research and action. The following outcomes exemplify the program's impact beyond participants' immediate experience:

1. Multiple masters and doctoral thesis projects have originated from participants' summer institute research proposals.
2. A workshop on strategic nonviolent action, piloted during the 2016 summer institute in collaboration with the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), has become a full-fledged Regional Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolent Action in the Americas (accionnoviolenta.org), now in its second year.
3. Program graduates have gone on to jobs with the United Nations, working on the Venezuelan border; refugee agencies in Boston; and government positions in Ecuador.

Achievements: The Conflict Transformation Across Borders summer institute was specifically mentioned as a supporting reason for UMass Boston's selection as the recipient of the NAFSA Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization in 2016, and for the McCormack Graduate School's 2015 ranking among the 30 most innovative public service schools in the U.S. by BestValueSchools.com.

BRIDGES Project (Greater Boston, MA)

Project Lead: Eben Weitzman (Faculty Fellow)

Description: CPDD is working to improve the quality of communication among the Massachusetts Muslim, Arab, and Sikh communities on the one hand, and federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

As part of this effort, we have facilitated multiple town hall meetings since 2012 and most recently in 2024; assisted BRIDGES with process evaluation, strategic planning, and development of alternatives for improvement of their efforts.

Topol Peace Data Initiative (U.S., Northern Ireland, Israel-Palestine)

Project Team: Karen Ross (Executive Director/Faculty Fellow), Paula Rayman (Research Professor, UMass Boston), Marcia Mundt (PhD, Public Policy and Public Affairs), Hannah Brown (Center Fellow), David Sulewski (PhD candidate, Global Governance and Human Security), Charla Burnett (PhD candidate, Global Governance and Human Security), Yuliya Rashchupkina (PhD, UMass Boston)

Description: This initiative explored how grassroots peace building efforts and social justice movements can scale up and broaden the impact of their work.  Following the development of a conceptual model of scaling up, the project team engaged in a series of case studies exploring different facets of this process, including: the role of social media in scaling up; the role of civil society in scaling up the Northern Ireland peace process; the significance of joint Jewish-Palestinian partnership in sustaining and scaling peace building work in Israel; and the role of women and gender justice issues in scaling up in both Northern Ireland and Israel-Palestine. 

Our empirical work resulted in publication of a toolkit, Scaling Up Peacebuilding and Social Change, written with the goal of helping community-based organizations and activists scale up and broaden the impact of their work.