Thinking Through Form: Meet the 2013 JWTC Participants

Elias Courson 

Elias Courson is a lecturer with the Department of Philosophy, Niger Delta University, Wilberforce Island, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. He is also an Executive Committee member of OUR NIGER DELTA (OND), a non-profit, non-governmental organization in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. The organization is involved in research, conflict management, resolution, mediation, peace building and facilitation of development.

Elias Courson, as a teacher and researcher, is neck deep in research, documentation and mediation in the oil induced crisis of Nigeria’s Niger Delta. He has been trained in conflict mediation/mitigation by the United Nations University for Peace on “Non-Violent Transformation of Conflict” and also by the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) on conflict resolution skills.

He was a Fellow of the Luce Foundation on Green Governance/Peace 2006-7 at the Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley and Rotary World Peace Fellow 2008-10 at the Rotary Center for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution, University of California, Berkeley. Mr. Courson is also a fellow of the Social Science Research Council, USA (2012). He is currently a PhD Candidate at the Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts (1997) and Master of Arts (2005) degrees in Philosophy from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria, respectively. He also holds a Masters degree in Peace and Conflict Resolution from the Rotary Centre for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution at the University of California, Berkeley.