Riva Kantowitz

Senior Researcher

Dr. Kantowitz has worked with human rights, humanitarian, and peacebuilding organizations around the world for more than 20 years. As founder of Radical Flexibility Fund, she now focuses on generating effective support for grassroots-led social change via partnerships and innovative funding approaches. Dr. Kantowitz is a Senior Advisor at the Dag Hammarskjold Foundations and serves on the boards of several NGOs. She was recently a Senior Fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and a member of the U.N. Expert Advisory Board on Children on Armed Conflict. Working under both Obama Administrations, Dr. Kantowitz founded and led a team at the U.S. Department of State that provides strategic direction and oversight to a global investment portfolio to promote human rights in conflict-affected countries. She directed the Conflict Transformation Center at Sabanci University in Istanbul and has been an adjunct faculty member at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University and at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo. Dr. Kantowitz was a Fulbright Scholar in Guatemala and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in Social Psychology and International Affairs.

Email: riva@radicalflexibility.org