Carla Koppell is a vice dean for the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Managing Director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. She has worked in over 30 conflict zones throughout the world. Ms. Koppell led the United States Institute of Peace's Center for Applied Conflict Transformation, served as the Chief Strategy Officer for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and as USAID's inaugural senior coordinator for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. She also led the Conflict Prevention Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the non-governmental Institute for Inclusive Security.

Ms. Koppell has published two books, Untapped Power, and Preventing the Next Wave of Conflict: Understanding Non-Traditional Threats to Global Stability. She has contributed numerous articles and reports and has spoken widely on foreign policy issues at the United Nations, NATO, before U.S. congressional and Canadian parliamentary committees, and for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Ms. Koppell received her M.A. in public policy from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and her B.S. from Cornell University.