Richard Funkhouser

Richard
MIIS ALUM
Degree and Track:

Masters in International Policy Studies (Conflict Resolution)
Semester and Year of Graduation:
May, 2013


Internship period in CCS:

Fall 2012 to Spring 2013
Project(s) involved in through CCS:
Conflict Resolution Skills Training for North Monterey County Middle School
Conflict resolution skills training for community leaders in Salinas

Currently working with:
Root Change
Job Title:
Consultant, Statistical Organizational Network Analysis & Facilitation Design
Current Location:
Washington, D.C.
Work Highlights:
Evan Bloom, the Managing Partner for Innovation at Root Change, brought me on as a contractor after we worked together facilitating the MIIS DPMI program in DC. I started running a straightforward statistical analysis for them over the summer, and have been brought back for more and more projects since then— first to do statistical modeling of aid networks, to contribute to a critical reassessment of business-as-usual international donor policy; and later to develop tools for their capacity development facilitators. Currently I’ve been brought back on to help design a network change simulation based on the findings from our models to use during facilitations.
CCS and your career:
My primary activity with CCS was developing and facilitating a workshop curriculum for use in the community, and while the current target community for the exercise has a completely different orientation, the work I’m doing now is almost a direct outgrowth of what I did with the Hebron Community Center in Salinas and North Monterey County Middle School— I won’t be going out to Serbia to lead the facilitations, but I’m still doing face-paced collaborations with my organizational peers to produce engaging, thought-provoking exercises to get the participants involved in self-reflections of their behavior.
Personal Highlights:
Personal highlights since arriving in DC have been getting to know the city, getting back in the habit of going to shows —theater, concerts, DJs—, meeting up with other MIIS alums in the area, and reconnecting with the East Coast (shout out to Philadelphia). In all honesty, my work with Root Change has been a highlight of my time since graduating from MIIS— the on-the-job network analysis training has been great, they’re a group of smart, easy-going, insightful individuals doing real forward-thinking work, and (literally as of today) they’re giving me a chance to do some blank-slate simulation development with very clear parameters and lots of expert input on context— almost precisely what I wanted to do when I graduated.
Causes most passionate about:
Post-conflict community building, Intersections of identity and politics, Network psychology.