Ben is a Topol Fellow in Nonviolent Resistance and PhD candidate at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He currently serves as the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Social Movements Advisor, the first such position anywhere in the U.S. Government. He is a Term Member in the Council on Foreign Relations and a Truman National Security Fellow.
Ben’s expertise on social movements and resourcing of movements draws on two decades spent in academia and civil society working with movements, NGOs, and donors. Ben has served as a Program Officer with the Open Society Foundations, an electoral observer with The Carter Center, a board member of the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Program, and an advisory committee member of the Leading Change Network. His research has been supported by a Harvard Program on Negotiation Graduate Research Fellowship and as a USIP-Minerva Peace and Security Scholar. His publications include Dollars and Dissent,” “Liberating the ‘Enemy’,” “Nonviolent Resistance,” “Darfurian Voices,” “Surviving Success: Nonviolent Rebellion in Sudan,” “¿Que Bolá Cuba?,” and “The Founding Myth of the United States of America.” Ben holds a M.P.A. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and a B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago. He and his wife, Nadia Marzouki are the parents of twin girls.
