About

Who’s Michelle?

Michelle Garred, PhD, is the Founder and Principal at Ripple Peace Research & Consulting LLC, which provides strategy, evaluation and learning services for the work of Just Peace. Her speciality is partnering with faith-inspired changemakers to help diverse societies thrive. With over two decades of global applied research experience, Michelle is a skilled facilitator of participatory processes, known for expertise on the roles of faith and identity in social change. 

Motivated by a life-long vision for just and healthy relationships between people groups, Michelle sunk early roots in cross-cultural education and church lay leadership in the USA and México. She went on to nurture multi-ethnic civil society development in the post-war Balkans and facilitate conflict sensitivity and peacebuilding initiatives among faith-based and multi-faith organizations across Asia and the Pacific. 

As World Vision International’s Associate Director of Peacebuilding for Strategy and Innovation, Michelle established the multi-agency reach of the ‘Making Sense of Turbulent Contexts’ approach to participatory macro-context analysis and strategy development. As a Senior Advisor at CDA Collaborative Learning Projects, she led CDA’s monitoring and evaluation contributions to the influential Effective Interreligious Action in Peacebuilding Project. 

Michelle holds a PhD in Peace Studies through the Lancaster University Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion. Her working languages are English and Spanish. She lives just outside Seattle, on Coast Salish territory, near the traditional lands stolen from her Suquamish, Duwamish, Puyallup and Muckleshoot neighbors. Driven by such history, Michelle is a seeker of social justice in the USA. She blogs on that theme at michellegarred.net.