Director, Women, Peace and Security Program
Dr. Joyce P. Kaufman is Director of the IWA Women, Peace and Security Program and Professor Emerita of Political Science at Whittier College. Dr. Kaufman’s teaching has been primarily in the areas of international relations and American foreign policy. Her research interests follow two main paths, the use of simulation, especially computer-assisted simulation, for teaching and learning (in 1998, she was guest editor of a special edition of International Negotiation dedicated to this topic), and international security, broadly defined. She was awarded a NATO Research Fellowship for work on the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and their impact on NATO in the post-Cold War period. Her book, NATO and the Former Yugoslavia: Crisis, Conflict and the Atlantic Alliance, was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2002.
Kaufman’s recent research looks at the impact of the war on women and women’s response to conflict. In collaboration with Professor Kristen Williams of Clark University, she has published a number of articles and books on the topic including: Women at War, Women Building Peace: Challenging Gender Norms (Kumarian Press, 2013); Women and War: Gender Identity and Activism in Times of Conflict (Kumarian Press, 2010); and Women, the State and War: A Comparative Perspective on Citizenship and Nationalism (Lexington Books, 2007). Kaufman was director of a project called “Women and Post-Conflict Transformation: Lessons of the Past, Implications for the Future,” funded by the United States Institute of Peace (2013-2015). It united Kaufman and Kristen Williams with eight other researchers from around the world to explore the topic. This resulted in the publication of Women and Post-Conflict Transformation: Lessons of the Past, Implications for the Future, edited by Kaufman and Williams (Routledge, 2017). She is also the author of Introduction to International Relations, 2nd edition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) and A Concise History of United States Foreign Policy, 4th edition (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017).
At Whittier College, Kaufman created and directed the “International Negotiation Project (INP),” a community assisted simulation of international negotiation and foreign policy decision making for high school students, and the “International Negotiation Modules Project (INMP),” a similar simulation for community colleges. Kaufman has served as Project Director for grants from the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the US Education Department Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, and the Parsons Foundation, all in support of the INP and the INMP. She has also been awarded grants by the Irvine Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Southern California Mediation Association, and the BCM Foundation.
From 1977 to 1979, Kaufman served as a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs at the Department of Defense, where she worked on NATO Nuclear Policy. She spent the next four years working in Washington, D.C. for defense contractors on policy-related issues.
Kaufman received her Ph.D. in 1978 from the University of Maryland in International Relations and Comparative Politics, and her BA and MA in Political Science from New York University.