Colette Rausch

Colette Rausch is a lawyer and justice and security advisor with over 25 years of experience advancing justice, peacebuilding, and resilience in conflict-affected and transitioning societies.

Her work spans diverse regions—including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Colombia, Iraq, Kosovo, Liberia, Libya, Myanmar, Nepal, the Philippines, and Yemen—where she has partnered with governments, civil society, and international organizations to help design and implement strategies that strengthen justice systems, promote public security, and build local capacity to sustain peace.

Colette’s recent work integrates insights from neuroscience and behavioral science to enhance justice and security efforts, with a focus on trauma-responsive approaches and institutional resilience in high-stress, high-risk environments. She is particularly interested in how human behavior and systems thinking can inform more effective peacebuilding practices.

She most recently served as a Research Professor at the Mary Hoch Center for Reconciliation at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. Prior to that, she spent 18 years at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a national, nonpartisan institution established by Congress, where she held senior leadership roles including Senior Advisor for Neuroscience and Peacebuilding; Associate Vice President of Global Practice and Innovation; Associate Vice President of Governance, Law, and Society; and Director of Rule of Law.

Earlier in her career, Colette served in international field roles with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo, including as Director of Human Rights and Rule of Law. She also represented the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as Legal Advisor in Bosnia and Hungary and served as Program Manager for Central and Eastern Europe. In the United States, she was both a federal prosecutor (Assistant U.S. Attorney) and a federal public defender in Nevada, and also served as Deputy Attorney General for Consumer Affairs in the Nevada Attorney General’s Office.

Colette is the author and editor of several publications on rule of law, transitional justice, and post-conflict legal reform. Her works include Combating Serious Crimes in Postconflict Societies (2006); the Model Codes for Post-Conflict Criminal Justice series (2007–2008); Speaking Their Peace (2015); and NeuroPeace: Neuroscience and Peacebuilding (2021). She also contributed a chapter on peace accord implementation in Untapped Power (Oxford University Press, 2022).