Mr Richard Dolan

Richard is a DPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development. He has a professional background in education and development and has devised and led school and community-based initiatives in both public and private sectors in South America and Asia where he lived and worked for a decade.

More recently, his work and academic interests have concentrated on education and development in post-conflict and transitional contexts, with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. Following research on education for Karen refugee communities in northern Thailand, he worked on public sector capacity-building and vocational training for the UN peacekeeping mission in East Timor. Since 2014 Richard has been involved in developing integrated peace and training initiatives with non-state groups and civil society organisations in Burma’s ethnic border regions in support of the country’s ongoing peace process.

Alongside his DPhil research Richard occasionally provides news and commentary on ethnic issues in Burma and has written for New Mandala, Myanmar Times and The Diplomat. In Oxford, he has contributed to Tea Circle, the University’s Forum for New Research on Burma/Myanmar, developed policy guidance on ethnic political inclusion following the country’s historic elections in November 2015 and as part of the inaugural Oxford-Myanmar Policy Brief Series (August 2016), and co-convened a workshop on the Karen in transition (June 2017).