Durga Mohanakrishnan is a Rotary Peace Fellow pursuing her Master’s in Peace Studies at the International Christian University in Tokyo, and a German Chancellor Fellow. With nearly eight years of professional experience across peace and conflict, humanitarian action, disaster management, and the development sector, her work bridges research and field-based practice.

Her experience spans India, Germany, Sri Lanka, and Japan, where she has worked at the intersection of crisis response, governance strengthening, and human security. In India, she led multi-district disaster rehabilitation initiatives following major floods, coordinating large-scale recovery efforts in collaboration with district administrations, community institutions, and civil society actors. In Germany, she conducted comparative research on disaster governance and risk communication during the Western Germany floods, engaging with organizations such as Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe and the German Committee for Disaster Reduction (DKKV) to analyse institutional coordination and resilience systems. In Sri Lanka, she worked in post-conflict and economically fragile contexts, supporting inclusive and conflict-sensitive community engagement processes that reinforced social cohesion and institutional trust.

Her academic and professional focus includes international law, forced migration and refugee studies, humanitarian action, and human security. Across her work, she is particularly interested in how institutional capacity, crisis governance, and community resilience intersect to shape sustainable peace in fragile environments.

Participant in: March 2023 Fellowship: Climate Change, Gender, and Conflict