Crispin Hemson

Email: icon@dut.ac.za
Crispin Hemson, ICON Director, has a background as an adult educator and was formerly Head of the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.  His current research interests are in addressing gender-based violence and in developing pedagogies that promote nonviolence. Apart from his teaching in the General Education programme of DUT, he has led the Durban Innovative Leadership Programme, which develops DUT students and community activists as leaders. As an environmental activist, he heads the Friends of Pigeon Valley, which supports a nature reserve in Glenwood, Durban.

Sylvia Kaye

Email: sylviak@dut.ac.za
Sylvia Kaye co-facilitates the postgraduate Peacebuilding Programme. Her PhD was a study of women entrepreneurs in Botswana and enterprise sustainability.  Her current research interests are on the importance of equity in all aspects of human society, particularly with respect to the role of women in peacebuilding initiatives. She is a member of the Association for Baha’i Studies, an association dedicated to the study of peaceful solutions to societal problems.

Geoff Harris

Email: geoffreyh@dut.ac.za
An Australian by birth and an economist by training, Geoff Harris co-facilitates the postgraduate Peacebuilding Programme. He has researched issues of military expenditure in developing countries and recovery from armed conflict for around 30 years. His current research interests include restorative justice, demilitarisation and the effects of economic inequality on inter-personal violence. He is chair of the Board of Phoenix Zululand, which operates restorative justice programmes in the Zululand prisons. Recent publications include Building infrastructures for peace in sub-Saharan Africa (Springer Nature, 2019), jointly edited with Mediel Hove.

Simóne Plüg

Email: simonep@dut.ac.za
Simóne Plüg is a lecturer at ICON. She has a background in critical psychology and holds a PhD in cultural studies from Rhodes University. Her research interests include gender, identity, and consumer culture, violence, trauma and neglect, and transformative pedagogies. More broadly, her research focuses on critically understanding current social issues, challenging well-established hegemonic norms, and opening spaces for the negotiation of less oppressive identities and social practices, in order to promote more cohesive and constructive ways of collective being. Simóne is an avid baker, nature lover, and wool craft enthusiast.

Ms. Prim-Rose Makhosazane Shabane (Dudu)

Email: primroses@dut.ac.za
Dudu is a lecturer at the Durban University of Technology, International Centre of Nonviolence (ICON). She is a doctoral candidate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal specialising in Curriculum studies. The title of her Doctoral Thesis is: Negotiating Identity: The experiences of black self-identified lesbian youth in and township and rural contexts of KwaZulu-Natal. Dudu holds a Bachelor’s, Honours and Masters degrees from the same university.

Dudu has served in the Community Development Association (CDA), a student driven organisation, in many portfolios as an undergraduate student. She is currently a member of the Foundation structure, which is an alumni structure for CDA as a post graduate. Dudu has worked for four years as an Access Lead English Teacher (a Micro-scholarship English Program funded by the Department of States in America in the years 2017-2018 and 2020-2021. Working with youth and being close to them every day, Dudu has received recognition for being an inspiration and a constant motivator in her circles. Her main goal is to empower youth through education.

Jean Chrysostome K. Kiyala

Email: jeank@dut.ac.za
Chrys is a Senior Lecturer at the International Centre of Nonviolence, in the Faculty of Management Sciences, Durban University of Technology, South Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Peace Studies. His publications include one monograph, one co-edited book, six peer-reviewed journal articles and 12 book chapters. His has specialized in child soldiers, post-conflict justice and reconciliation; he does research in the fields of child soldiers, conventional peacebuilding and peace ecology.

Alain Tschudin

Email: alaint@dut4lifeac.onmicrosoft.com
Alain Tschudin, is Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the International Centre of Nonviolence (ICON) at the Durban University of Technology, South Africa. Prior to this he served as lead consultant to the United Nations Special Adviser on Africa on the nexus approach and fast-tracking the SDGs and has extensive humanitarian experience, having worked with UNICEF and Save the Children in emergency coordination and child protection in Africa and the Middle-East. He was Visiting Professor in the WITS School of Governance (2019-2022) and formerly Executive Director of a pan-African governance NGO (2015-2020). He has published widely and has taught, conducted research, and facilitated workshops and seminars at several international universities in Africa, Europe and North America. He is a registered psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa and has over 25 years of professional experience. Alain holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Natal and a Ph.D. in Moral Philosophy and Theology from the University of Cambridge, where he also held a Swiss Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Cognition. He was recently elected as the global President of the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), the organisation founded by Dr Maria Montessori in 1929 to promote her legacy. He has extensive research interests and diverse community engagement projects. In his spare time, Alain runs ultra-marathons to stay sane.