Eliza Urwin is the Head of Research at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), a research center at the Geneva Graduate Institute focused on peacebuilding, security, and governance in conflict-affected settings. Her work focuses on governance in spaces where the state is absent or contested, examining how armed groups, criminal networks, traditional leaders, and civil society exercise authority—and how people navigate, resist, or subvert these structures.

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Eliza has worked extensively in conflict-affected states. From 2013 to 2017, she was based in Afghanistan as a Senior Program Officer for the United States Institute of Peace, managing research and programming on conflict prevention, governance, and education. Her work included field-based studies on the limits of externally driven peacebuilding, as well as evaluations of complex, often nebulous concepts such as reconciliation and violent extremism.

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She has taught at the graduate level in France, Afghanistan, and Switzerland and is an Associated Expert with both the Centre on Armed Groups and Global Equality Matters. She also serves on the board of Everyday Peace Indicators, which develops participatory methods for tracking and measuring how communities experience peace.

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Eliza has published with USIP, ODI, Foreign Policy, Negotiation Journal, Civil Wars, and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.

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