Jake Sherman is the Director of the International Peace Institute’s Brian Urquhart Center for Peace Operations, where he develops and manages IPI’s programs and research agenda on peace and security issues, including conflict prevention and mediation, peace operations, peacebuilding/sustaining peace, and preventing violent extremism.

Prior to joining IPI in November 2017, he was Special Adviser on UN Management and Reform at the United States Mission to the United Nations, where he focused on strengthening the effectiveness of peace operations, and also served as a delegate to Fifth Committee of the General Assembly and the Special Committee on Peacekeeping (C-34). He previously worked for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Transition Initiatives as the Regional Team Leader for Afghanistan and Pakistan (2012-2015), overseeing stabilization and countering violent extremism programs, and as USAID’s coordinator for the 2015 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.

He has also worked on peace and security-related policy issues for the New York University Center on International Cooperation and the International Peace Institute, served as a Political Affairs Officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), consulted on peacebuilding for non-governmental organizations in Cambodia, and worked for Physicians for Human Rights in the former Yugoslavia.