Colette Mazzucelli

Colette Mazzucelli is an American author and academic. She is in her second decade on the graduate faculty at New York University. Mazzucelli has pioneered initiatives in technology-mediated learning and directed the first transatlantic multimedia seminar in the history of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po) analyzing conflict in the former Yugoslavia.

In 2023, Mazzucelli was elected 2nd Vice President and Steward of the ACT-UAW Local 7902, which represents adjunct and part-time faculty at New York University and The New School.

During summer 2022, she founded the LEAD IMPACT Reconciliation Institute, which has established initiatives in strategic philanthropy donating thousands of dollars from the Palestinian community to restore the historic Dar Al-Tifel School in East Jerusalem and transcontinental migration through a grant funded in cooperation with the University of Cagliari in the Autonomous Region of Sardinia, Italy.

From 3 November 2020 to 15 February 2022, Mazzucelli served as the Inaugural President (Academia), Global Listening Centre.

In September 2018, she was named a Director (Academic) of the Global Listening Centre. In November 2017, Mazzucelli was appointed to the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy (ICD) Advisory Board.

Early Life
Mazzucelli was born on November 26, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York. She graduated with a BA in History and Philosophy and a minor in Modern Languages, magna cum laude, from the University of Scranton in 1983. In 1984, she received an Institute of International Education (IIE) Swiss Universities Grant and travelled to Fribourg, Switzerland to conduct research in Swiss history and international law. After completing her research, she enrolled in the MALD program in Law and Diplomacy at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. As part of her graduate studies, she completed coursework on French politics and society as well as ethics and international affairs with the late Professor Stanley Hoffmann at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University.

In 1989, Mazzucelli began her PhD studies in Comparative Government (with minors in International Relations and Political Philosophy) at Georgetown University. As a doctoral student, she worked at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1989 to 1990 for Xichang Zhang in the West European Studies Program, Giulietto Chiesa at the Kennan Institute covering Russia and surrounding states, and Reinhardt Rummel in the International Security Studies Program. In 1991, she received a Fulbright Scholarship and continued her dissertation research related to France and Germany in Paris at Institute of Political Studies under the supervision of Alfred Grosser, Jean Klein, and Joseph Rovan. As the recipient of a Bosch Fellowship in 1992, Mazzucelli was assigned to the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn to assist with the ratification of the Treaty on European Union (“Maastricht”). She completed her fellowship in 1993. Mazzucelli toured for the United States Information Service (USIS) with speaking engagements in France, Germany and Poland the following year while assigned to the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the German Presidency of the European Union.

Mazzucelli joined the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and the Budapest Institute for Graduate International and Diplomatic Studies (BIGIS) as a Visiting Lecturer in September 1995. She was asked to serve as Director, International Programs, BIGIS, by then Dean Zsolt Rostoványi with responsibilities to initiate technology-mediated academic and public affairs programs connecting Hungarian graduate candidates with their counterparts in Western Europe and the United States. She took the position of the director in December 1995 and worked at BIGIS until 1997.

Along with her work in Europe, Mazzucelli continued her research for her doctorate and earned her PhD under the direction of Karl Cerny at Georgetown University in 1996. She published her first book France and Germany at Maastricht Politics and Negotiations to Create the European Union in 1997, building on the research from her PhD. In July 1997, she left Budapest University of Economic Sciences. In November, Mazzucelli was invited as a fellow to Salzburg Global Seminar, where her book was cited in the Seminar's reading list.

1997–2004
In 1997, Mazzucelli was responsible for developing the MA Program in International Peace Conflict Resolution at Arcadia University. She served as the Founding Director of the graduate program developing relations with its overseas sites in England and Spain and taught on the full-time faculty as an Assistant Professor of Political Science until 2000. From 2000 to 2003, Mazzucelli received grants from the Robert Bosch Foundation, which allowed her to organize and teach the first graduate seminar offered via technology-mediated learning in the history of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, the Transatlantic Internet Multimedia Seminar Southeastern Europe (TIMSSE), with engaged participation across several continents. In 2001, as the recipient of a Bosch Public Policy Fellowship, she was in residence at the American Academy in Berlin, to implement the project Educational Diplomacy via the Internet: Defining the American Interest within a Transatlantic Policy Dialogue on Kosovo.

In 2002, Mazzucelli joined Teachers College, Columbia University as a Program Development Associate. There she assisted in the creation of local, national and global programs in corporate training and intergenerational learning. She continued teaching the Transatlantic Internet/Multimedia Seminar from Teachers College until 2003 with students at Paris Institute of Political Studies and the University of Munich taking the course for credit. Mazzucelli left the position of Program Development Associate at Teachers College in 2004. In December of that year, she was appointed by Dean Vera Jelinek on the graduate faculty at New York University’s School of Professional Studies (NYU SPS).

2005–2013
Mazzucelli joined the Seton Hall University’s John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations as a full-time term faculty member in September 2005. She taught graduate and undergraduate courses in international relations theory and diplomacy, European Union development and dynamics, peacemaking and peacekeeping in the modern world, ethno-political landscapes, international conflict and security, and investigating international relations. In May 2006, Mazzucelli was cited as one of twelve recipients of the Monsignor Robert Sheeran Pirate of the Year Award for servant leadership and undergraduate teaching excellence in the Seton Hall University community. At NYU SPS she received the first of several Professional Development Grants to attend the Warsaw East European Conference in July 2006.

While teaching on graduate faculty at NYU SPS, as part of her post-doctoral, professional education, Mazzucelli earned an EdM, Master of Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2011 with a focus on international humanitarian issues and uses of innovative technologies, including the mobile phone, in the global classroom. The following year she was invited to participate in the Inaugural Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Educators' Conference at Pratt House. During spring 2013, the French and German Embassies in Washington, DC and the French and German Consulates General in Boston invited Mazzucelli to speak on panels commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Élysée Treaty of Friendship between the Republic of France and the Federal Republic of Germany. She was a recipient of the NYU SPS Excellence in Teaching Award in 2013 after which Mazzucelli was recognized for a decade of service on the graduate faculty.

2014–Present
Mazzucelli joined Pioneer in 2014 mentoring students in high schools across China, in Taiwan, South Korea, and Afghanistan. For LIU Global, she was asked to design the Paris, Rome, Vienna, Budapest, and Florence academic experiences as part of the only program in the world to integrate a series of yearlong cultural immersions into a four-year Bachelor of Arts degree.

Mazzucelli was appointed to teach on faculty in the NYU GSAS IR MA Program in July 2014 where she is responsible for the conflict resolution as well as the radicalization and religion elective seminars. In the MSGA Program, NYU School of Professional Studies (SPS) Center for Global Affairs, she continues to innovate pedagogically teaching courses in international relations in the post-Cold War era, Europe in the 21st Century, and ethnic conflicts.

Three of her courses have been profiled by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in Foreign Affairs and the CFR Educators Bulletin. His Highness Crown Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil and Spencer Lord invited Mazzucelli to join the advisory board of the Ekta Transglobal Foundation.

Writing and research
Mazzucelli is the author or editor of seven books analyzing European integration and transatlantic security policy as well as numerous journal articles.

In 1990, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, she co-edited The Evolution of an International Actor: Western Europe's New Assertiveness. Her first book, France and Germany at Maastricht: Politics and Negotiations to Create the European Union (Contemporary Issues in European Politics) was published in 1997. Mazzucelli edited Leadership in the Big Bangs of European Integration with Derek Beach for Palgrave MacMillan in 2007.

She is a contributing author and editor with Ronald J. Bee of the e-Volume Mapping Transatlantic Futures: German-American Relations in a Global World to celebrate 30 years of the Bosch Fellowship program. Mazzucelli has also written an essay on "Ethics and International Relations" with Dean A. Nicholas Fargnoli, which appears on the website of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

Mazzucelli is a peer reviewer for the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS), Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (GSP), Oxford University Press, and the Journal of Political Science Education. In May 2017, the Special Issue of Genocide Studies and Prevention, "Information and Communication Technologies in Mass Atrocities Research and Response," appeared online. The Special Issue, edited by Mazzucelli and Anna Visvizi, included contributions from colleagues at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the University of Oslo, Physicians for Human Rights, NYU New York, Amnesty International, Carnegie Mellon University, and George Mason University. Mazzucelli presented the findings in the Special Issue in a keynote address titled "Cultural Diplomacy as a Vocation" during the International Symposium on Cultural Diplomacy hosted by NYU New York during the 17th United Nations General Assembly. She also attended a Club de Madrid meeting highlighting the nexus between security and development as part of her engagement in teaching, research, and service at NYU New York.

For Anthem Press, Mazzucelli edited and contributed to the volumes The Ethics of Personal Data Collection in International Relations (2022) and Personal Data Collection Risks in a Post-Vaccine World (2023). As Series Editor, she is responsible for the addition of five new titles a year in the Series.

Activism
Along with her career in academics, Mazzucelli has also been involved in efforts to promote transatlantic relations on behalf of world peace. From 1997 to 1999, she worked to implement the Transatlantic Information Exchange Service (TIES) at the United States Department of State under the direction of TIES Secretary General, Nanette S. Levinson. As Director, Fiscal Affairs and Strategic Development, Mazzucelli was closely involved in the establishment of the first transatlantic Web-based organization to promote civil society relationships. She served as the Vice President of World Congress Arts, Sciences and Communication in 2007.

Mazzucelli joined the Standby Task Force in 2010 and engaged in crisis mapping using the Ushahidi platform on the Libya Crisis Map to document the efforts of humanitarian aid workers on the ground assisting the local population during the conflict.

Throughout the 2015-16 academic year, Mazzucelli’s IR MA Conflict Resolution and Radicalization and Religion courses represented New York University in the Peer 2 Peer (P2P) State Department initiative to counter radicalization. Graduate candidates in the courses developed the 7TrainStop, and Voices of New York_RESOLVE, Facebook media advocacy campaigns, respectively, to highlight the integration of immigrants and refugees in local Queens and Brooklyn communities as a counter-narrative to extremism and ISIS propaganda. Each campaign received an Honorable Mention from State Department judges with an invitation to NYU graduate candidates to present their initiatives in Washington, DC to colleagues in media and industry as well as the diplomatic and intelligence communities.

During March 2016, Mazzucelli participated in the Scholars as Bridge Builders Study Tour in Israel and Palestine focused on environmental and spatial issues in connection with the Arab-Israeli conflict along with academic colleagues from the New York City area. The Study Tour is endorsed by the Association of University Heads in Israel. In cooperation with her colleagues, Mazzucelli is hosting lectures at New York University by visiting Israeli scholars in the United States as part of the larger effort to resist calls by the BDS movement to prevent academic exchanges between American and Israeli universities.

During summer 2017, she participated in the Brandeis University Summer Institute for Israel Studies including workshops in Waltham, Massachusetts, Jerusalem, the Negev, and Tel Aviv. Mazzucelli continued to facilitate the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) at NYU in cooperation with the New York Office of the United States Department of State. On March 28, 2018 an IVLP Delegation of high-ranking journalists and academics from 20 countries participated in a de-briefing session hosted by Mazzucelli, including graduate candidates in her seminars from NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science, School of Professional Studies, and Wagner School of Public Service. The IVLP de-briefing occurred after Delegation visits to 7 cities across the United States. In June 2018, Mazzucelli was an invited speaker in a London conference at the House of Lords, "Teaching Controversy in Schools: Understanding the History of Israel and Palestine," as part of the Parallel Histories learning initiative.