Professor Marc Gopin is the Director of the Center for World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution (CRDC), the James H. Laue Professor at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia, USA. Gopin has pioneered projects at CRDC in Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Palestine and Israel.
Gopin has trained thousands of people worldwide in peacebuilding strategies for complex conflicts. He conducts research on values dilemmas as they apply to international problems of clash of cultures, globalization and development, and social justice. The direction of his new research and teaching investigates the relationship between global trends in nonviolence and new approaches to global conflict resolution.
Gopin’s fifth book, Bridges Across an Impossible Divide: the Inner Lives of Arab and Jewish Peacemakers (Oxford, 2012), explores the role of self-examination in the resolution of human conflict as portrayed in the lives and testimonies of indigenous peacemakers. Gopin is also the author of To Make The Earth Whole: The Art of Citizen Diplomacy in an Age of Religious Militancy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009), Healing the Heart of Conflict, which was published in 2004 by Rodale Press. Holy War, Holy Peace: How Religion Can Bring Peace to the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2002) was a study on what was missing from the Oslo Process, and what will be necessary culturally for a successful Arab/Israeli peace process, and Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence and Peacemaking (Oxford University Press, 2000), which pioneered the theoretical and practical frameworks for engaging religion in the context of conflict prevention, management and resolution, in addition to numerous chapters in the leading edited volumes of the field of conflict resolution.
Gopin has engaged in back channel diplomacy with religious, political and military figures on both sides of conflicts. He has appeared on numerous media outlets, including CNN, CNN International, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Arabiyah, The Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, Voice of America, and the national public radios of Sweden and Northern Ireland. He has been published in numerous publications, including the International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, and his work has been featured in news stories of the Times of London, the Times of India, Associated Press, and Newhouse News Service.
Dr. Gopin received a Ph.D. in ethics from Brandeis University in 1993.