Rachel Brown

Rachel Hilary Brown is a visionary leader in strategic communications for peacebuilding whose work has changed how practitioners, policymakers, and communities prevent identity-based violence. A Tufts University graduate in International Relations, Rachel began translating academic research into practical tools while still a student through her engagement with the Institute for Global Leadership (IGL) at Tufts — including early peacebuilding and communications initiatives that directly shaped her career-long focus on how civic communication can reduce the risk of electoral and communal violence.

After Tufts, Rachel moved to Kenya and founded Sisi ni Amani–Kenya (SNA-K), an NGO that pioneered the use of community-focused SMS and civic engagement campaigns designed to interrupt rumours and reduce the likelihood of election-related violence. Her model combined field research, audience segmentation, and rapid message design to equip local communities with tools to act faster than rumours and inflammatory speech — an approach that became the laboratory for her strategic theory of “dangerous speech.”

Building on that fieldwork, Rachel authored Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech, published through the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) — Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. The guide reframes the problem from abstract debates about “hate speech” to a pragmatic, audience-focused method of preventing speech that raises the risk of mass harm — offering tools for audience analysis, message framing, medium selection, and speaker strategy now used by governments, NGOs, and community groups worldwide.

Rachel has been recognized repeatedly for the impact and innovation of her work. She was named a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow (2012); served as a Genocide Prevention Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2014); and has been invited to speak and advise at institutions including MIT Seminar XXI, Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, the United States Institute of Peace, and national and international conferences on conflict prevention and communications. She also founded Over Zero, an organization devoted to building resilience to identity-based harm through strategic communication.

Her honors and recognitions highlight both innovation and leadership: media profiles, keynote invitations, fellowships, and civic awards that reflect her dual commitment to applied research and community impact. In short, Rachel Brown has moved from student research at Tufts’ Institute for Global Leadership to global influence — transforming analytic insight into tested, scalable practice for protecting vulnerable communities.

Rachel’s personal note to Sherm :

“Sherm, without the opportunities to challenge my ideas of the world, dive deeply into books, travel and ideas and history and research and on and on, I would not have begun the journey that led me to write this book.

There are opportunities created by you through EPIIC & the IGL, and for which I am forever grateful.

I hope you enjoy the truly interdisciplinary pursuit here — an initial attempt to bring insights and learning across sectors & geographies together on this important subject.

With love,

Rachel.”