Maria Hadjipavlou is an associate professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus. She teaches Comparative Politics, Gender Studies, Conflict Resolution, International Peace and Security, and the Cyprus Conflict from a multi-disciplinary perspective. As a scholar practitioner she has facilitated and designed numerous conflict resolution workshops among different social groups from the Cypriot communities. She is a founding member and president for ten years of the non-governmental organization, the Cyprus Peace Center (1999-2008); a founding member of the first independent Cypriot Women’s NGO, “Hands Across the Divide” (2001) and its current president. She is a consultant and member of expert teams at the Council of Europe on issues of inter-cultural dialogue and equality between men and women. She is a gender trainer for UNFPA and trained women in Afghanistan, Tunisia and Bratislava on gender and conflict resolution. She is a trainer for WINPEACE (Women’s Initiatives for Peace, Greece and Turkey) for the students’ educational peace education and conflict resolution workshops. She is a co-founder of the ‘Cyprus Gender Advisory Team’ working on the implementation of UNSCResolution 1325 and has written about it.