Arthur Romano

Arthur Romano smiling and seated with arms crossed over a chair arm
Titles and Organizations

Associate Professor, George Mason University, Carter School
Director of the Program on Urban Peacebuilding

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-5623
Campus: Arlington
Building: Arlington: Vernon Smith Hall
Room 5096A
Mail Stop: 4D3

Biography

Arthur Romano is an Associate Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and The Elise Boulding Scholar Practitioner for the National Peace Academy. He is the founder of the Program on Urban Peacebuilding at the Carter School and has over 25 years of experience creating innovative and participatory education models with communities affected by conflict and violence. His research interests include peacebuilding in urban settings, nonviolent social movements, grassroots truth-telling processes, restorative justice, and experiential education. His recent book, Racial Justice and Nonviolence Education: Building the Beloved Community, One Block at a Time, examines the role that community-based educators in violence-affected cities play in building capacity to disrupt and transform cycles of violence.

Dr. Romano regularly consults and collaborates with diverse stakeholders, including policymakers, youth, activists, and artists, to co-create knowledge through action research. He has also served as a founding advisor and established long-term partnerships with organizations working on urban peacebuilding and violence prevention, such as the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence (CTCN) and the Truthtelling Project (TTP). CTCN offers high impact community-led educational programs in violence-affected neighborhoods in the state of Connecticut.  TTP supports community members who experience police violence and was recognized as a pioneering national organization for its racial justice and reparations work.

Dr. Romano’s international work focuses on peace education and citizen diplomacy. He has developed conflict resolution workshops for hip hop artists from around the world through the U.S. State Department-funded Next Level Program. He has facilitated nonviolence trainings for former rebel fighters from the Niger Delta as part of the Nigerian Presidential Amnesty Program. In East Asia, he has published on peace education in Hiroshima, Japan and contributed to problem-solving workshops in South Korea with North Korean defectors, national and international organizations interested in people-to-people peacebuilding. Dr. Romano co-leads the Peacelearner website with his colleague Daryn Cambridge which offers free resources on peace education to visitors from over 100 countries.

Media Appearances

In the News

  • From Israel to Mason: Conflict scholars present a peace proposal at the UN
    Published on October 25, 2016
    Full article
  • Police should put away the military gear and build connections with young people
    Published on July 8, 2016
    Full article

Presentations and Performances

  • Proposed APT on Counter Narratives on Power
    Apr 16 2013 | Arlington Truland Building
  • A Conversation about Race, Policing and Conflict Resolution in the US
    Sep 29 2016. | Metropolitan Building
  • Dissertation Proposal Defense: Rochelle Arms - Mediators in the Making: How Mediators Learn in Action
    May 18 2016 | Metropolitan Building

Degrees

  • PhD, Conflict Resolution, University of Bradford
  • MA, Conflict Resolution, University of Bradford
  • BA, Philosophy and Political Science, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill