The Center for Creative Imagination uses theory, evidence, and the expansiveness of the human imagination to identify and implement solutions to complex and urgent issues with both local and global implications.
We are educators, researchers, and practitioners working from a shared vision of supporting healing and community cohesion to build societies in which all people are equally valued and treated with dignity. Our hope is for a world which values kindness, care, and shared humanity, and rejects the use of violence to dominate or subjugate others.
.
Our Team
Khudejha Asghar, PhD, Founder & Executive Director
Khudejha is a researcher, educator, practitioner, and strategist focused on building futures that center shared humanity, care, and mutual accountability towards preserving human rights and dignity. She uses intersectional feminist and survivor-centered approaches to understand, prevent, and respond to gender-based violence and violence against children in developed, developing, and humanitarian settings. Khudejha’s passion is producing and using research to generate action for change, evidenced through numerous impact evaluations of violence prevention programs, strategic agendas and theories of change to address SGBV, and co-development of NASPA’s Core Blueprint to address sexual violence in U.S. universities, International Rescue Committee’s (IRC) Safe at Home family violence intervention in conflict-affected contexts, and a virtual learning program based on IRC’s Engaging Men in Accountable Practice intervention. She has worked with organizations such as the CDC, Institute for Reproductive Health, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Universidad de los Andes, University of California San Diego, UNHCR, and UNICEF. She has a PhD in public health and her creative writing centers themes of violence, healing, and migration.
Arek Dakessian, PhD, Associate Director
Arek is a sociologist and qualified social worker in Lebanon whose research entwines the aesthetic and the political, specifically the production of political alterity and refugeedom. He uses participatory and coproduction methods to understand children and adolescent refugees’ everyday experiences of racialisation, and community-focused peacebuilding methods to encourage social cohesion and healing in post civil war Lebanese communities. Arek directly mentors faculty teaching a range of courses on engaging with adult learners, addressing difficult topics with sensitivity, and addressing discriminatory attitudes. He is also chairperson of the Community Development Journal, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Arek has a PhD in sociology, is fluent in Arabic, English, Armenian and French, and is a photographer and filmmaker.