Benjamin LessingBenjamin Lessing studies criminal conflict - organized armed violence involving non-state actors who do not seek formal state power. Prior to beginning graduate work at University of California, Berkeley in 2005, Lessing lived in Rio de Janeiro for fve years, conducting field research on arms trafficking in Latin America and the Caribbean for international organizations including Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Viva Rio, Brazil's largest NGO. He was a Fulbright Grantee in Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. His Ph.D. dissertation, the basis of Making Peace in Drug Wars, was awarded the 2012 UNODC/INEGI Best Dissertation Prize. He has received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation. He is a contributor at The Monkey Cage, the Brookings Institution, the Inter-American Dialogue, among others. Read More Read Less