Meet the Speaker: Dr. Maria J. Stephan

Dr. Maria J. Stephan is the Co-lead & Chief Organizer at the Horizons Project, an organizing initiative focused on bringing people together across differences to dismantle tyranny and build an inclusive democracy in the United States anchored in human dignity, freedom, and justice. Maria is an award-winning author and organizer whose scholarship, public service, and work in civil society has focused on the role of nonviolent action and social movements in advancing human rights, democracy, and sustainable peace in the US and globally. 

Stephan is the co-author (with Erica Chenoweth) of Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, which was awarded the 2012 Woodrow Wilson Foundation Prize by the American Political Science Association for the best book published in political science, and the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Their second book together, The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail? was published by ICNC Press in 2021. Stephan is the co-author of Bolstering Democracy: Lessons Learned and the Path Forward (Atlantic Council, 2018); the co-editor of Is Authoritarianism Staging a Comeback? (Atlantic Council, 2015); and the editor of Civilian Jihad: Nonviolent Struggle, Democratization and Governance in the Middle East (Palgrave, 2009). Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Foreign Affairs, Just Security, Foreign Policy, and Waging Nonviolence, among other outlets. 

Before joining the Horizons team, Stephan founded and directed the Program on Nonviolent Action at the U.S. Institute of Peace, overseeing applied research, a global training program, and work with policymakers to support activists, peacebuilders, and social movements in their struggles to advance more just, peaceful, and democratic societies around the world.