Elizabeth Defeis/Board Chair

Elizabeth Defeis is a Professor of International Law, International Human Rights, International Criminal Law, European Union Law and United States Constitutional Law at Seton Hall University. Professor Defeis has written extensively in the areas of International Law, Human Rights, Gender Equality, European Union Law and U.S. Constitutional Law. She is the Producer/Host of multiple TV programs, including the 15-part video course on Women and the Law, Human Rights and New Jersey, the 3-part series The Italians and the Creating of America, and the 10-part International Law Television Course, which has been translated into Chinese, Spanish and Russian and distributed in more than 25 countries. 

Professor Defeis currently serves on the Council of International Affairs and the Committee on Foreign and Comparative Law for the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and previously chaired the International Law Committee and the Committee on the United Nations for the Association.

Curt Goering

Curt Goering has worked in the international human rights and humanitarian fields for forty years, mostly at a senior leadership level. In July 2021, Goering concluded nearly ten years as Executive Director of The Center for Victims of Torture (CVT), which grew rapidly during his tenure to become the world’s largest torture rehabilitation organization. Headquartered in St. Paul, MN, and with offices in several countries in Africa and the Middle East, as well as Washington, DC and Atlanta, GA, he oversaw an international staff of 500 working with nearly 30,000 torture survivors annually.

Prior to working at CVT, Goering was the Chief Operating Officer at Amnesty International USA, where he worked for thirty years. During that time he also served as a researcher at Amnesty’s International Secretariat in London, Advocacy Director for Europe and the Middle East (Washington, D.C.), and was posted for periods in Jerusalem. At Amnesty, Goering led or participated in many human rights missions, often in situations of armed conflict or complex environments. He served as the Head of the Gaza Office for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2009 and 2010.

Goering has spoken widely on human rights, testified before US Congress and UN bodies. He has appeared on radio and television and his writings have been published in newspapers in many countries.

Cornelia Sargent

Cornelia Sargent currently serves as a mediator on the NH AMP roster. She previously mediated small claims cases for eight years, primarily in Claremont and Newport NH district courts.

She received her BA from Smith College and her JD from Northeastern University School of Law prior to completing 500 hours of mediation training at Woodbury College, and is invovled in numerous community activities throughout New England.

Mary E. King

Mary E. King is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies for the UN-affiliated University for Peace, a Distinguished Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, Britain, and a Scholar-in-Residence at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC.

King is the author of numerous books on nonviolent resistance, and won a Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award for Freedom Song: A Personal Story of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, about her work in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. This four-year immersion was the source for “Sex and Caste,” a 1966 article co-authored with Casey Hayden that is viewed by historians as tinder for second-wave feminism.

A presidential appointee in the Carter administration, King had worldwide oversight for the Peace Corps and other national U.S. volunteer service corps programs. She received the 2009 El-Hibri Peace Education Prize, and in 2003, in Mumbai, she was awarded the Jamnalal Bajaj International Prize, named for Gandhi’s silent financial backer. 

Peter O’connor

Peter F. O’Connor is an attorney and legal expert with extensive experience in regulatory compliance, litigation strategy, and international law. O’Connor also has extensive experience in international law, serving as Legal Expert on Security Council and General Assembly matters at The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations since 2016. In this role, he provides legal analysis pertaining to international law, policy, and human rights, particularly related to treaties, international civil and criminal courts, and other human rights issues. Additionally, O’Connor has served as a Teaching Fellow at St. John's University School of Law, Center for International and Comparative Law.

O’Connor holds a Juris Doctor from St. John's University School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts in History from Fordham University. He is admitted to practice law in New York, the U.S. Southern District of New York, and the United States Supreme Court, and is an active member of the New York City Bar Association's Committee on European Affairs.

gayle karen young

Gayle Karen Young is an expert in culture-building and human and organizational development, who works to create dynamic organizational cultures in which people can thrive and thus make greater contributions. She comes from a rich organizational consulting background with both corporate and nonprofit clients.

She was in the process of becoming a monk when she became an executive instead, taking on the role of Chief Culture and Talent Officer at the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia and its sister free-knowledge projects) until early 2015.

Born in the Philippines to Chinese parents and raised in the United States, she has a multicultural perspective, an adventurous spirit, and a deep commitment to expanding human freedom.