Berkley Center

Charles “Chip” Hauss serves government liaison for the Alliance for Peacebuilding and as adjunct professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. He was the director of policy and research at Search for Common Ground USA. Before joining the faculty at George Mason in 1993, he taught at Colby College in Waterville, Maine from 1975 to 1992. From 1995 to 1998, he was visiting professor at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Chip is the author of seven books. Comparative Politics (1993) is one of the most widely used textbooks in the field. International Conflict Resolution (2001) is an introduction to both theory and practice. Beyond Confrontation (1996) explores the need for cooperative conflict resolution. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Pauletta Otis is a former professor of security studies at the Marine Corps University Command and Staff College. She has both theoretical and operational experience and expertise in sub-national violence. Otis has conducted research on issues concerning cultural factors that impact military strategy and operations, religious factors in violence, and irregular warfare/insurgency analysis. She previously served as senior research fellow for Religion in International Affairs at Pew Forum and was a tenured professor in political science and international studies at Colorado State University-Pueblo. She has also taught in the Joint Military Intelligence College and National Defense University's National Security Education Program. She has served as a member of the Defense Intelligence Advisory Board, Defense Science Policy Board Summer Study on Homeland Security, and in a senior advisory capacity for the U.S. military chaplains. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Denver, as well as an M.A. from the University of Southern Colorado.

Eric Patterson serves as president of the Religious Freedom Institute and is a research fellow with the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. He previously served as dean of the School of Government at Regent University, and before that, as associate director at the Berkley Center. He is an expert in two overlapping areas: the ethics of war and peace, and global religious trends and religious freedom policy. These two areas routinely intersect, such as in building post-conflict systems that represent diverse ethnoreligious factions, understanding the religious factors in conflict, and measuring U.S. democracy promotion efforts. His government experience includes time at the U.S. State Department, service as a White House Fellow, and over 20 years as an Air National Guard commander. He is the author or editor of 20 books, including Politics in a Religious World: Toward a Religious Informed U.S. Foreign Policy (2011).

Eric Wester is assistant to the presiding bishop and director of Federal Chaplaincies of the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America. His ministry supports 230 chaplains and chaplain candidates in the military, Veterans Administration, and federal prisons. He retired from the US Army Chaplains Corps as a colonel. Chaplain Wester completed 32 years in the Army chaplaincy, ending as the senior military fellow at National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC. For four years at NDU he taught ethics, religion, and security. He currently serves as adjunct instructor at the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary and senior instructor for the Leader Development Education for Sustained Peace program at the Naval Postgraduate School. He holds degrees from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and the Army War College.