Victor H. Kazanjian Jr. is the executive director of the United Religions Initiative (URI). Prior to joining URI in October 2013, Victor served as the dean of Intercultural Education and Religious and Spiritual Life, co-director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program, and director of the Peace Studies Program in India at Wellesley College, in Wellesley, Massachusetts USA. In addition he is the co-founder and co-president of Education as Transformation Inc., an international organization that works on issues of religious diversity and spirituality in higher education. Victor is also a visiting faculty member and Fulbright Scholar at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, where he served as Fulbright Professor of Peace & Justice Studies.
Victor’s work at Wellesley College and through Education as Transformation is widely acknowledged as the catalyst in the national and international movement to include religion and spirituality as core issues in higher education, and has led to interfaith and intercultural growth and understanding. Specializing in inter-religious dialogue and conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, and peace building, Victor is a recognized thought leader and the author and editor of numerous books and articles.
Rev. Kazanjian is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and was trained as a community organizer working to address the systemic causes of poverty and injustice through the support of religious and community-based groups. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a graduate of Harvard University.